Computerized weekly planner?

[SkateLeft]

Hey all,

 

I'm doing most of my planning this year on a weekly, rather than daily basis. I want to hand my high schooler a list of everything that needs to be done for the week, and let her manage her time to get it done. I won't want to assign stuff on a day to day basis.

 

Does anyone know if any of the computer based planners (HST+, Edu-Track, Skedtrack, the SCM planner, and whatever else is out there...) will allow for a weekly assignment list, rather than a daily one?

 

I've owned HST+ for years, but never bothered using it. For now, I just have stuff typed up in Open Office documents. I guess I can keep doing that, but it would be nice to have something that would keep track of grades and stuff too.

 

Thanks!

[Irishmommy]

Oh, girl, if you own HST+, go watch the tutorial videos. It is so easy to do just about ANYTHING you want it to do. I have put almost everything in HST and I am SO glad I did. I am going to be able to keep track of EVERYTHING we do, for the first time ever!

 

Also, the owner answers just about any question on the discussion forum. She is very helpful and will walk you through things step by step.

 

It will make your life SO much easier if you just put the info. into HST instead of just a word document!:)

[SkateLeft]

:lol::lol:

 

Thanks Shannon! I just think my brain is not wired the right way to use HST+... I wish I could! I've watched those videos and I've tried to enter things in, but I always get bogged down in the sequence numbers! Nothing ever lines up the way I want.

 

I was also under the impression that I had to use daily assignments with HST+. Hmm.... Is it possible to just use a sequence from 1-36 for a 36 week school year, and have it submit stuff to a weekly assignment sheet?

 

If that's the case, it might be worth beating my head against it some more, even if just for my 10th grader!

[fhjmom]

I just started using HST+ this summer in planning for the upcoming year. I share that so you will know I have done my planning but we haven't actually worked through that plan so I don't know for sure how it will work yet! LOL!

 

Most of my subjects I have planned by the week. For those the first number in the sequence is 11 for week 1/day 1. The sequence numbers for the first week are 11-14 because we school four days a week. The first assignment for the next week starts with sequence number 21.

 

If you wanted to print one master list on Monday for all the assignments dues for the week, give them the same sequence number (you could use "1" for week 1 or use my method) then set the order number to the order the assignments should be completed. When making the assignment, set the number of days to be the same as the number of days you have set in your weekly planner for that subject. Since we do 4 days, I have some assignments set to 4 days that are assigned on Monday and due on Thursday.

 

You print a daily assignment sheet but if all your assignments are set up to be assigned on Monday and due at the end of the week, the Monday sheet is essentially your weekly sheet.

 

HTH!

[SkateLeft]

You print a daily assignment sheet but if all your assignments are set up to be assigned on Monday and due at the end of the week, the Monday sheet is essentially your weekly sheet.

 

Awesome!

 

Thank you! That does help. I think I'll give that a shot, and hopefully I don't get bogged down in the sequence numbers again.

 

Maybe I should just tell my highschooler to sit down and figure out HST+ for me. :D

[LunaLee]

Hey Sharon, HST will do what you want... It took me over a year after I bought it to be able to feel comfortable with it, but for high school it is so worth it. I use the Lesson Plan option and enter in all the Lessons or Chapters for each book and then at the beginnng of the week you assign them to a day and print. I don't even worry about sequence numbers...It takes a lot of work at first, but it's a big payoff throughout the year.

 

If there was a way to share them, I'd just send you the plans I did for OM Biology.:)

Edited August 21, 2010 by LunaLee

[SkateLeft]

Thanks Luna!

 

OM Biology should be easy to enter, so I'll try that first. I copied the table you posted for your American lit course, so I have weekly lessons laid out for each subject, set up into headings for text, lab, and supplements. If I can just avoid worrying about the sequence numbers, then it might work. :001_huh:

 

How do you do it for something like American lit though, where there like 8 million different resources?! (Okay, so maybe I exaggerate...) Do you enter in each book, in the chunks you want them done?

[Irishmommy]

For your sequence numbers, just number the assignments weekly. So, everything for week 1 would be 1. If you want it done on certain days, from what I understand, you can set up a lp schedule to do certain subjects on certain days (like M-W-F literature, T-Th calculous). I haven't made out my lp scedule yet, but I just went though my guide and entered all the assinments. Each day has a different sequence #, assignments for the same day, have the same sequence #s. Does that help? I think once you get going, you'll get it. I felt the same way as you a few weeks ago, now I have almost all my plans for the year in there. Also, for different works of literature if you break it down into certain chapters, then you would create different assignments for that; but if you just want him/her to read it and then you can discuss it when he/she gets finished, then you could just put it in the reading log and then create an assignment for discussion.

[Irishmommy]

Oh, and I just stacked up all the books that I wanted to use for the course and did the isbn lookup. Go to new resource and then type in the isbn number and it will bring up all the other information. There is also a way that you can put in the location (like I have mine listed by library or home, or borrowed).

[LunaLee]

Thanks Luna!

 

OM Biology should be easy to enter, so I'll try that first. I copied the table you posted for your American lit course, so I have weekly lessons laid out for each subject, set up into headings for text, lab, and supplements. If I can just avoid worrying about the sequence numbers, then it might work. :001_huh:

 

How do you do it for something like American lit though, where there are like 8 million different resources?! (Okay, so maybe I exaggerate...) Do you enter in each book, in the chunks you want them done?

 

Well if there aren't 8 million, there's at least 6... ;)

 

So for English in this case, I have not gone and done anything in HST ahead of time-partially because I've been thinking about how I'm going to do it and partially because I've been overwhelmed between work and getting ready for the year. However, I finally think what I've decided to do is just take the information from the lesson plan I did and enter it in manually at the beginning of the week and include it under the course instead of trying to add everything individually. If I had more time, I'd probably do it individually, but I just can't right now.

 

For US History & Chemistry, because I am using textbooks as a spine I'll just enter the chapters and titles in lesson plans and then hopefully cut & paste the information from the word docs I did into the assignment part.

 

Clear as mud?

[fhjmom]

Hey Sharon, HST will do what you want... It took me over a year after I bought it to be able to feel comfortable with it, but for high school it is so worth it. I use the Lesson Plan option and enter in all the Lessons or Chapters for each book and then at the beginnng of the week you assign them to a day and print. I don't even worry about sequence numbers...It takes a lot of work at first, but it's a big payoff throughout the year.

 

If there was a way to share them, I'd just send you the plans I did for OM Biology.:)

 

You can share teh lesson plans easily. There are quite a few Yahoo! groups out there with lesson plans posted for all different curricula.

 

To share a lesson plan, go to "Tools > Import/Export". A window will come up and you want to choose the options: "Export a file to share with someone" and "Lesson Plan", then "Continue". Choose the lesson plan name from the drop down list that you want to share and "Check All" to include all assignments in the plan or you can uncheck certain assignments to just share some of them. Then click "OK". This will bring up a window so you can name the file and specify where to save it so you can find it. I made a folder for "Shared Lesson Plans" with sub-folders for files I have shared and files someone shared with me. Then you can attach the file and email it like you would any other document.

 

The receiver needs HST+ to be ale to open it. Once the person gets it, they need to save it to a folder, then start at the same place place "Tools> Import/Export". A window will come up and you want to choose the options: "Import a file someone has shared with you", then "Continue". This will bring up a window where you can select the file to import. :)

 

I have set up a separate test database in HST+ that I use to import files that others share with me. This way I can open them and play with them, change things around and see how they will work before I put them in my "real" database. HTH! :)