Emagine Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Besides the normal you can use the tracker anywhere guess. What are the other pros/cons to buying online. I think it is $60, what else does it do? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 It doesn't do MORE than plus, that I can see. Or that I notice. It really is just a matter of being able to use it online, from anywhere. Personally I wanted that, as my son does work at his Dad's house too, so he can check off what he has done. Also, SOME people (most?) like the interface better. Personally I liked the plus version better. But maybe I'm weird. I loved the drop down menus, the ability to edit in the "grid" etc. The online version requires more clicking and such in my opinion. But I'm using it anyway, lol. It's prettier? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Emagine Posted July 31, 2012 Author Share Posted July 31, 2012 lol... Prettier, why is that word so teasing? That is how I got sucked into the WPD. TY for the tips. I was trying to see what it did. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BugsMama Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Back to the drawing board huh? Me too. Do you know the difference between these two and skedtrack?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Back to the drawing board huh? Me too. Do you know the difference between these two and skedtrack?? HUGE difference between them and Skedtrack. HUGE. HST can do so much more. Especially the lesson planning. Right now I'm entering all my lesson plans, which are lists of what to do in what order. Then later, I can in minutes take a chunk of those and put them into the assignment calendar/agenda. So I can plan everything out for the year in what order, then once a month or week or whatever I can move them into the actual calendar. That lets me be really flexible. And I can tell it that language arts are done on MTWTH, but Math is 5 days a week, and Logic is Mondays and Fridays, and it will do that automatically. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 Oh, and you can do the one month trial for about $7 I think, for the online one, to see if you like it. Watch the videos on youtube if you want...I never did but everyone else does and they are probably right. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BugsMama Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 HUGE difference between them and Skedtrack. HUGE. HST can do so much more. Especially the lesson planning. Right now I'm entering all my lesson plans, which are lists of what to do in what order. Then later, I can in minutes take a chunk of those and put them into the assignment calendar/agenda. So I can plan everything out for the year in what order, then once a month or week or whatever I can move them into the actual calendar. That lets me be really flexible. And I can tell it that language arts are done on MTWTH, but Math is 5 days a week, and Logic is Mondays and Fridays, and it will do that automatically. THAT'S what I need it to do. Awesome. As soon as the WPD money is back in my account, I'll give this one a try. Does it do nice reports? (as in can i print weekly lesson plans, lesson plans by subject only, grades, reading lists and curriculum lists?) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tenaj Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 There are more options for reports in the plus version rather than the online version. I've been a bit disappointed in that point but I'm wondering if there will be more options as they update the program. The reports it does do are nice, I just would like a few more options. For instance, at the end of the school year one of my highschoolers had three subjects he had gotten behind in so I wanted to just print the lesson plans for those subjects that weren't completed so he could work on them in order - I would have been able to do that in Tracker + but in the online version I had to actually feed the lesson plans into the student's schedule in order to print them out . . not really a big deal but just annoying because I knew that I could have done it with the other program. There is a way to export? those lp files to print but the format was really strange - I think I saw a message that they had fixed those issues the other day though I haven't tried it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 31, 2012 Share Posted July 31, 2012 THAT'S what I need it to do. Awesome. As soon as the WPD money is back in my account, I'll give this one a try. Does it do nice reports? (as in can i print weekly lesson plans, lesson plans by subject only, grades, reading lists and curriculum lists?) The plus can for sure, the online version can do most of those things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cynful Posted August 1, 2012 Share Posted August 1, 2012 Ok, this is REALLY long - longer than I had planned but I was typing it up as I went along. I was going to make it a blog post (of course it would be more helpful to have a blog to do that... hehe), but perhaps it would be better here anyway. I've decided to offer my own comparison of the Homeschool Tracker Online version vs. the Plus version. I couldn't find an actual comparison of the two quite like this and I wish I could have read one as it may have helped. I HIGHLY recommend to anyone to get the 30 day trial version of Plus and buy a month of Online and compare. Take it one step at a time and for each version: Add students, add chores, etc. and see which you prefer. I've been drawn to several different planners, however, they were narrowed down to these two options. I've looked at Charlotte Mason Organizer (one of my favorites but not enough "extras"), Scholaric (again, not enough "extras" though I like it for it's simplicity and nice clean layout), Edutrack (doesn't seem like it's been updated), Skedtrack (the ads drove me crazy for some reason), Well Planned Day Planner Online (beautiful looking but I doubt it will have all the features I'd like even when it is finished), and others I've forgotten about. When comparing the two, I find that I have many reason for both liking and disliking each version and sometimes they conflict with each other. A hybrid of the two would be fantastic but from what I've read in their forum that won't be happening. I really like the online version so that I can access anytime, anywhere, from any device. My children can also login (though I doubt they will). On the other hand, I dislike that it can be slower (based on their server speed and how many people are online planning at the same time) and I have to trust that they make continuous backups of their site and database, otherwise ALL of my planning is lost. And let's face it, for both versions, it takes alot of time to plan and enter all of this information. So do you trust yourself more to make backups or do you trust the company more? So step by step, this is how I've approached the setup to both Online and Plus. Of course, it doesn't have to be done this way. After receiving my logins and download, I entered my personal information about our school, our school years/terms and entered my students. Both area easily done though I really like the student area of the Online version. It's a nice "dashboard" look and I like how it shows the grade levels. On each student's dashboard, you can view what their grade levels will be all the way through graduation. I only have three children, but it seems my last brain cells left when the third was born so I appreciate being able to see this. You can see this in the Plus version but it takes more digging to find the feature. Now one thing I've missed in Online (and I may have missed it somewhere - they might want to think about that as I'm sure it could happens to others also) is the days off/holidays/vacations feature. This is very easy when setting up your school year in Plus using the School Year Calculator. I can't find it anywhere on Online. So I'm not sure what I'm going to do with vacations/holidays/etc. yet. *** Well this drove me crazy so I stopped and did some research. I finally found my answer in their forum (which is great and so is their support no matter which product you ultimately choose). In order to give a day off in the Online version, you go to Agenda, click Add and choose Day Off. You have to do this one by one unless it's a week or days in a row. This is probably just a personal preference or whichever one you get used to kind of option. At first I thought Plus had a better score on this, but now that I can see how its done in Online, it's a tie. Second, I decided to try something easy - adding chores. I thought (after trying to add assignments and lesson plans and getting frustrated) that maybe doing something easier would help me "get" the programs better. It worked. Chores Adding chores is similar in both programs. You go to the chores page and add all the chores you'll be assigning. Then you add them to the days they should be done on. For some reason, it feels slower and bit clunkier to do it in the online version and if you are adding alot, say a daily chore for the next 4 months, it definitely takes it a minute or two to get added. You can then see the chores on your daily task list report both in the online and plus versions. In plus, you can also see the chores under the Agenda report. Also, in plus, it seems harder to add a monthly chore whereas in online, it's quite easy. Appointments I've added some appointments also and they are done just like Chores in both versions. Easy. Library Both are very easy to add to and fairly self-explanatory. Both have the nice feature of adding the ISBN and it will fill in all the rest of the information for you. One other thing I wish the Online version would have is is a field to mention the location of the book. For example, we use alot of online books and we use our Kindles alot. It would be nice for me to have a field where I could say, this is a Kindle book, this is an online book at this link, etc. The Plus version does have this. I've worked my way around this by putting Kindle or Online Book in the "Type" field which actually works quite nicely as I can sort it that way too by using the Add Grouping filter. :) Subject Courses So I'm slowly working my way towards assigning assignments or making lesson plans. :) Adding subjects and courses is very easy in both programs. One thing in Online that I find annoying is that if I added a course and want to delete it, if it's used anywhere it won't let you. That's ok, but it doesn't give a link so you can see where it was used - which would be nice, imo. Lesson Plans Lessons Plans are much easier to add on Online IMO. Actually this is where I stop even though I was going to go through it step by step. I came into this thinking I would ultimately choose the Plus version and I am surprised to find that I LOVE the Online version. Besides the Journal and some extra report options, it really has all the same features or easy work-arounds. I stopped entering information into the Plus version and just continued with the Online. I'm sure they'll keep adding features to the Online version as well and I've already got a list of feature requests to send to them. Nothing which has deterred me from using the program though. I still feel a pull sometimes toward the Plus version but I can't use both..... ;) So I happily used it today for the first time. I had entered all of the Lesson Plans, added them to the Agenda, printed it off, taught my children how to login and voila, we're off and running. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.