Homeschool Tracker Plus

[Staceyshoe]

I'm seriously considering HST+ but have one important question. I would like to use the program for 2 things: 1) to input parts of lesson plans for upcoming units that might otherwise be forgotten, 2) to keep a record of everything that has been completed. When I viewed the training videos, it seemed like I would either need to use it for future planning or use it a documentation of work completed. Can I do both? If I input ds as two students (one for future planning and one for work completed), would that be easier? Or would I be re-writing a ton of stuff?

[usetoschool]

Are you saying you want to input everything that you have completed previous to buying HST or just start where you are?

 

Everything you input stays there, with associated grades and dates and notes, until you delete it - both lesson planning and record keeping. I use it for both, everything really. It has all of my books, lesson plans, reports, grades, everything.

 

Maybe because I am so familiar with it I am not understanding the question. There is a pretty steep learning curve to it and then on day the light bulb will just come on and you "understand everything". :001_smile: It is basically just a really big, fancy database that sorts your information in 100's of ways with tons of user provided parameters.

[Supertechmom]

You can do both if I'm understanding you. You can make a lesson plan with whatever info you want......say you have history and you put in sotw and have it labeled as history(subject) course (early modern) and activity reading. Then you add two research papers and label them English (subject) English 3 (course) and research paper (activity)

 

you can also go in and add items to the plan later if you remember something you would like and know you will forget to include - a certain book, memorization, a project etc

 

you can print only what you want - go to reports and print the sequence numbers of the lesson plan that you would like under planning - lesson plan

 

you can take the lesson plan and select the items you would like to add to the students assignment area (the place where you can check done, give grades and such)

 

You can do that before (stuff you don't want to forget to do) and assign the rest after the fact ( you know you did exactly that) you can also assign the entire plan to the assignment grid, check completed what you did, and delete the assignments you didn't.

 

 

Did that help at all ???:D It does have a steep curve but it really does "click" like the pp said.

[Mynyel]

I agree with servin. I use it both ways. As a planner and as a record keeper. It also automatically keeps attendance (needed for my state).

 

I love HST and would seriously be a lot more lost without it.

[Staceyshoe]

Thank you! It sounds like this should work for me. I'm thinking about going for it as soon as I have a little time to spend learning the program. :)

[fhjmom]

I just purchased HST+ earlier this summer. Since we only had one year of HS-ing under our belt, I went ahead and entered our info from this past year, but instead of individual assignments, I just listed the classes and gave an overall grade. I also put in the main resources so I have a record of those. I like that we will have all of our homeshool records in one place now.

 

Lesson plans are for planning the future activities. They are not tied to any specific date. So you can plan things that you don't want to forget here. Then you assign lessons from the Lesson Plans to the Student Assignments, that is where it becomes a record of what has been done.

 

I downloaded the users manual and read through the sections as I was trying to figure out that particular feature. The forums on the HST site are also very helpful.

[mom2denj]

Thank you! It sounds like this should work for me. I'm thinking about going for it as soon as I have a little time to spend learning the program. :)

 

I bought mine yesterday, and I have literally been on it all day long. I started at about 7:00 am and I am still at it.:D