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Homeschool Planner for Mac - OLLY


Aloha2U
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I'm afraid my feedback on OLLY wouldn't be too kind right now.

 

I do think the programme has heaps of potentional, but after playing with it for 48 hours the programme has far too many flaws in it for me to tolerate or even consider dropping $40 on it. I'm actually quite irritated with the time I wasted on it.

 

The instructions, while there, aren't complete. It tells you to drop & drag after doing one step when in actuality you need to perform 3 steps. Only one of which is pretty quick & simplistic.

 

The calendar boxes {dated squares} need to have scroll features within them because they are a MESS if you add more then 3 items to any given day. I presume people do more then 3 things in any given day, yes? By the time I put 5 in the boxes they were oozing over & under making me think that I had dated the plans incorrectly. By the time I got everything scheduled for a week the calendar squares were so full I could not SEE ANYTHING to manage to drag the ONE reading assignment back to it's proper date after accidentally bumping it forward.

 

The lack of being able to bump backwards is such a pain in the rear when the calendar is that full that it''s easier to totally delete assignments then it is try & find them & drag them around.

 

Creating routines was a joke. The instructions tell you how to create a new routine group. That worked, all though the inability to click on the header was weird because it worked in other areas of the programme. BUT adding ANYTHING to that routine wasn't working. There was NO arrow with a drop down box to "add new item" it only created yet another new routine schedule that I couldn't schedule anything on. If I double clicked next to a time I could type in there, but once I moved off that line my items disappeared & were not saved. After reading the instructions a half dozen times & playing with it from every angle I finally gave up on that one. It wasn't worth my time.

 

I also found it MADDENING that when I accidentally clicked the MINUS button in the school calendar area that it TOTALLY whipped out my school year. Now, I know that's MY FAULT, but I think a "are you sure" type pop-up window warning would have been a wise feature. It would avoid a lot of tears & frustration.

 

The programme locked up on me a half dozen times. I've never had that issue with Mac programmes THAT consistently without reason. At one point it didn't totally lock up but created enough of an error I had to shut the crazy thing down & lose the 15 minutes worth of reading assignments I was trying to generate.

 

I find it a wee bit insane that if a day of the week has nothing scheduled on it that it's on my printable plan. I know that's nit picky, because I understand some people might school on the weekends & perhaps say not on Monday or Tuesday. Regardless, I'd still prefer it NOT to print me out some blank boxes.

 

I also found the bump feature, while nice, maddening. When you bump ahead you must take into account Saturday & Sunday when saying how many days to bump ahead. I think it would be WAY easier to simply type in the date you want an item bumped from & the date you wish to bump it too. Easy peasy lemon squeezey. No miscounting & needing to rebump things forward only to discover you need to bump things backwards & the programme isn't capable of that yet.

 

This might also sound crazy weird, but I found the way it broke down terms weird. It breaks down a term for you {cool beans} but gives you no time off between terms. Weird, but not a huge issue because you can EASILY fix it.

 

I really WANTED to love the programme. Like REALLY love it, but right now it's too flawed for me. However, as I said at the start, it does have a LOT of potential.

 

I love that I can schedule time, points, & grade for any given student. I love that I can print out a students list of things to do. I love the bump forward feature {all though I think it's faulty in how it works..} & once the bump backward is working that'll make it even better. I love that I can set up my terms & decide what we'll accomplish in each term. I especially love that I'm not set to American school terms/years & can choose my own dates.

 

I'd love to see a book list in it if I were to commit to it as well. A place where one can enter in all the books a student may be reading through out the year. It would be fantastic if you could simply scan your books barcode in via your camera to save heaps of time, but I accept that might be a little out there & would of course require one to have internet access when using the feature. It would also be grand if this list could be printed out.

 

Despite my annoyance & irritation of wasting an entire weekend trying to love a programme that was heavily flawed, I still stand by the fact that it has great potential. I will most certainly be keeping an eye on it & if improvements are made I may try it again & see how I feel about it then. In the mean time I'll keep my pen & paper & try to work out the finer details on my own. ;)

 

All the more reason to share your feedback with them, imho. Perhaps it'll help speed up the process. :thumbup:

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Why not? I am new to online planning, so I am not seeing what you are seeing (translation: I am heavily leaning on you so that my learning curve is short! :D).

 

It seems to me to be geared towards the needs of government school teachers/students and possibly college professors/students than homeschoolers.

 

OLLY has more features for homeschoolers to utilize. At least, the potential is there even though the execution still needs some fine tuning.

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  • 1 month later...

Ok please help me love this thing! I have spent a few hours playing with it and am completely miffed! It has not been very user friendly and I am so tired of these planners being so darn difficult. I just want to load my kids daily lesson plans and have a way to keep track of what is done and what is not done. Why so many inputs? I have watched some of the training videos but it does not seem to help.

Why do I seem to be the only one this isn't working for?

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Ok please help me love this thing! I have spent a few hours playing with it and am completely miffed! It has not been very user friendly and I am so tired of these planners being so darn difficult. I just want to load my kids daily lesson plans and have a way to keep track of what is done and what is not done. Why so many inputs? I have watched some of the training videos but it does not seem to help.

Why do I seem to be the only one this isn't working for?

 

Can you be more specific? I found it pretty easy to figure out, so maybe if you share what you're having trouble with, I can try to help. At what point do you get stuck?

I

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What is the difference between a lesson plan, a learning plan and an assignment?

I just want to list out my courses, type in the assignments and assign them. It just seems like a lot of clicking. I rewatched a video. Now trying to actually get an assignment in the calendar.:001_huh:

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What is the difference between a lesson plan, a learning plan and an assignment?

I just want to list out my courses, type in the assignments and assign them. It just seems like a lot of clicking. I rewatched a video. Now trying to actually get an assignment in the calendar.:001_huh:

 

A learning plan is the selection of courses assigned to one student. A lesson plan is a component of a specific course. For example, WWE as a component to the course "1st Grade English." You might have a lesson plan just for WWE. In that lesson plan, you can generate a list of assignments (for WWE, I did 4 days a week for 36 weeks, with each assignment labelled as a chapter and a day). When the lesson plan is assigned to a course and a course is assigned to a student, it will automatically show up as something to be assigned in the assignment calendar under that student. I use "auto-assign" and bam! WWE is assigned MTWTh, every week, as part of 1st grade English. Repeat for every resource, every course, every student. (For TOG, I just made lesson plans labelled "TOG 4 LG History," etc, and added the assignments individually.)

 

Clear as mud?

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I tried to add a user. I put in my daughters name and when I go to the calendar drop down it does not allow me to choose her name???

 

Try going to Admin, School Info, School Years, Students (at the bottom of the "School Years" page), then click on the "add" button" to add her as a student.

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Dunno. If you're just trying to assign one assignment, you can drag and drop. I usually do auto-assign. I didn't start having problems with the assignment calendar until it started getting REALLY full. Now it takes every inch of my patience with this program for me to put up with the super duper slow assigning. They absolutely must fix this feature, or I will definitely jump ship next year. This year is already planned out, but a 10-30 second delay on everything I type or click is unreasonable.

 

But where you are, just starting---it should work fine.

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This program is super buggy, constant error messages, weird interface. Not what I expected for a mac program. Usually mac programs are super easy to understand and far from buggy. I just spent the better part of 5 hours wasting my time. All I can say is thank goodness it is a trial and I didn't pay for this. Rant over:tongue_smilie:

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This program is super buggy, constant error messages, weird interface. Not what I expected for a mac program. Usually mac programs are super easy to understand and far from buggy. I just spent the better part of 5 hours wasting my time. All I can say is thank goodness it is a trial and I didn't pay for this. Rant over:tongue_smilie:

 

Yep! And at least you figured out you don't like it without getting too tied up in it!

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Dunno. If you're just trying to assign one assignment, you can drag and drop. I usually do auto-assign. I didn't start having problems with the assignment calendar until it started getting REALLY full. Now it takes every inch of my patience with this program for me to put up with the super duper slow assigning. They absolutely must fix this feature, or I will definitely jump ship next year. This year is already planned out, but a 10-30 second delay on everything I type or click is unreasonable.

 

But where you are, just starting---it should work fine.

 

According to the forum on their website, this fix has long been in the works. The latest update is in the hands of the Mac App store and is awaiting their approval for release. It's a known issue. I can't wait for the update :).

 

So far, I'm far happier with Olly than I ever was with HST.

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According to the forum on their website, this fix has long been in the works. The latest update is in the hands of the Mac App store and is awaiting their approval for release. It's a known issue. I can't wait for the update :).

 

So far, I'm far happier with Olly than I ever was with HST.

 

:party: That is great news! I can't wait either. Basically, I love the program except for that one killer flaw. But if that's going to be history, then I'm a happy camper. Thanks!

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Welcome! I highly recommend signing up for their forum on the website if you have the time to check it now & then-- they do read all of the suggestions posted, and the various "wish lists" that appear.

 

I do still think Olly is in the early stages as far as a program goes, but I think the developer is a pretty young developer, and I'm willing to give them some support at this stage for a product that works pretty well and is being so actively supported.

 

Besides, I'm getting sick of retyping all my lesson plans every time a shiny new planner comes out :P :lol:

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I've been searching and searching for something that will work as a planner for us before resorting to making my own (which at my tech level will take me a lot of time). This thread caught my eye. Particularly, I would like something that can move forward lessons when kids are sick, we have an unexpected trip, etc. I also would like something to be able to keep track of my middle schooler's grades.

 

Will OLLY do all this?

 

Paula

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Olly will do all of that. I will add the caveat that with my weird scheduling system, the bump forward feature is still not bug-free, but I am waiting to see how the next update goes.

 

You can do a 30-day free trial-- see the app store or their website. The free trial is full-featured, not a cut-down version.

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Skedtrack will do that too, but you need to have internet access to use it. This is a problem for me because sometimes we're on the go more than we're at home and schooling goes with us. I hate having to print schedules out to take with us and then do all my records housekeeping in a chunk when we get home. I really want something I can take with me (the iPad goes everywhere with me).

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