Do you find lesson planning software useful? Any for Mac users? Other suggestions?

[melissel]

I think the title says it all, LOL! I'm contemplating using some. Do you find it more useful than, say, a notebook with handwritten plans? Do you use some other method that you like?

 

TIA!

[TammyinTN]

I'm a notebook girl until I get it all done. Then I type it up and print it and put it in a binder. Then I'm all set for the year. :)

[Beth in Central TX]

I really like the Edu-track software that I use to plan out each school year. I can input lessons for each boy and print out a weely assignment sheet. The software helps me keep track of the books read during the year, standarized testing scores, extra-curriculum achievements, etc. For me, it was worth the expense and the time and energy I use to input the necessary information in order to get out the information that I want.

 

If you're more of a pencil & paper type person, then I'd just buy a teacher planner. You'll probably end up using what you feel more comfortable with, so go with your natural inclination. It became obvious that I needed a software program to save my time and sanity because I was trying to create reports in Excel that I can do with a click of a button in Edu-track.

[JudoMom]

I think the title says it all, LOL! I'm contemplating using some. Do you find it more useful than, say, a notebook with handwritten plans? Do you use some other method that you like?

 

TIA!

 

I love Homeschool Tracker. I never became comfortable with pencil and paper because after all of the crossing out, erasing, & rewriting I ended up with a visual mess. With Homeschool Tracker I can reschedule with a few clicks of the mouse. Buying the Plus! version was some of the best money I ever spent on our homeschool.

 

But I don't know what's available for Mac.

[Rachel]

I have had Homeschool Tracker for 5 years now and every year I really try to like it and use..........I take the time to set it all up and even had a friend come help me make it user friendly as can be. But in the end, I always end up back in a lesson plan book. I am very technology savvy and use it for almost all my other planning (PDA for my calendar, etc...) but for lesson plans I can't seem to make it work. We just make too many changes and its too cumbersome to keep it up........

 

Know what your preference is......really think about it. If you have to force yourself to use a computer program.........you won't use it, trust me.

[nmoira]

There's nothing available for a Mac, except what's online (none of which I like). I run Homeschool Tracker in Parallels without problem. I don't need most of the features, but it's the only program I found with the features I do want. Parallels only runs on Intel Macs and you need Windows discs to install that operating system in it.

[melissel]

Thanks everyone. I do really want to like using a program, but I highly suspect that I wouldn't actually use it. I could run Parallels on my Mac, I suppose, but I need more memory, and I'm afraid of overloading the thing as it is. Ugh. So I went ahead and just made myself a table in Word and did a few weeks of lesson plans there. I stuck everything in little boxes, and was even able to paste in links to URLs I wanted to use with particular lessons. It was time consuming, but probably not more so than writing them out (and I could copy and paste where necessary). I guess I'll see how that goes and move on from there.

 

Your responses are much appreciated!

[nancypants]

I just use Pageflakes.