June Currently and Planbook!

It's almost 12:30 a.m. and I'm sitting here with the windows open, trying to finish my case study for my reading endorsement course.  I need a break from typing heavy-duty teaching jargon.  ;)

First of all, here's my June Currently, sponsored by Oh' Boy 4th Grade!

Oh my goodness...during interviews last week, one of our candidates shared this awesome website with us!  Next year we have to submit all our plans to our principal.  Electronically.  It's part of our new evaluation system in the State of Ohio.  We have been tossing around all these ideas.  Google Docs (uggg).  Dropbox.  E-mail.  But none of them seemed perfect.  They all had their pros and cons, but none were super-easy.  Then...enter...

WWW.PLANBOOK.COM!  Now, some of you may be saying, seriously?  I've heard of that and it's nothing new.  I'm jealous of you.  I wish I had heard about this a long time ago!  But since I'm just now learning about it, I'm sure there are people out there who haven't heard of it yet.  SO...what's so cool about it?

Here's a screenshot of some of my plans for August (don't shoot me...I just wanted to play around and figured I might as well make it worth my time).  ;)

First of all, it's FREE.  Who doesn't love free?  Once you create a username and password, it's easy to get started.  You create your classes and put in the times.  That's what shows up in the colored bars above.  And if you like to color-code things like me, you'll love the fact that you get to pick your colors for everything!  So for example, red is Morning Work, orange is Grammar, yellow is Specials, green is Math, and blue is Lunch/Recess.  That's only half my day, so it's a work in progress.  Then you go through and click on the day/subject and start typing!  You can easily insert Common Core standards by the click of a button.  They're already listed, you just have to click on the ones you want and it inserts them.  It's so easy to copy and paste from one day to the next.

One of my FAVORITE features is the fact that you can move lessons if you need to!  For example, let's say we had an assembly that we totally forgot about.  I couldn't get to my math lesson that day.  All I have to do is click "Bump" and it moves the lesson to the next day.  I can keep clicking "Bump" if I need to.  You can easily rearrange your schedule with the click of a button.  Let's say you have a fire drill and don't get to half of your grammar lesson.  You can hit "Extend" and it sends it into the next day, while keeping it on your current day.  It's SO easy to adjust your plans if you need to!

And if you're too sick or have an emergency and can't go in to type up plans, you can do it from home. It's easy to share your plans with others in your building.  I could share them with a team member and they can print them off for the sub the next day.  Super easy!

They are not all cutesy like my old plans used to be, but they're a lot more thorough because I have the space without sacrificing messing up all my margins and spaces.  They're also MUCH easier, in my opinion.  And I'm thrilled that I can share them so easily!

Have I convinced you yet?  I only played around with it for about an hour and this is what I have found.  I'm sure I'm just skimming the surface!  You should definitely check it out.  I think you'll love it!  :)  Happy planning!

www.planbook.com