For the first 5 years of my teaching career I used the old paper and pencil planbook, and it was definitely frustrating. Communication is something that is sometimes lacking in my district and random assemblies or activities wouldn't be mentioned until just days before, or sometimes THE DAY of the event, causing all or some lessons to be thrown out the window. I'm a planner, a super Type-A personality, and I like for things to be neat and orderly, and I like to plan ahead. These are two parts of my personality that got frustrated with the lack of editing capabilities of a paper and pencil planbook. Arrows zip-zag everywhere across the pages when erasing and re-writing days of lesson plans just isn't an efficient way to spend my time.
Enter the digital age. Now when I don't get to something, or an event unbeknownst to be pops up, I don't have to try to whip out the jumbo eraser for REALLY BIG mistakes and re-write everything. I click my mouse and bump the lesson to the next day, or I copy/paste the activity to the day that we will get it to. It's.That.Easy.That's probably the biggest perk of using an online planbook, but it's not the only one. This past year was my first non-tenure evaluation, and my first one being evaluated by the Charlotte-Danielson model. Also, due to budget restraints in my district, my superintendent is also principal of my building. While she is highly efficient at her job, she's a *smidge* intimidating. As part of my evaluation, I needed to bring a week's worth of lesson plans to the pre-evaluation meeting. I knew this part of my lesson would be easy. I even brought 2 weeks' lesson plans. Easy to print if needed, which I usually chose not to do (to save the trees) because it's just too easy to read the plans off of my computer's screen. My classes (or subjects) were color-coded so it's super easy to see the lessons for each subject at-a-glance for the whole week.
Another thing that really set my lesson plans apart from others is the fact that I can attach the standards right to the day's lesson plans. The two weeks' plans that I handed my superintendent/principal contained every standard that I addressed in those two weeks - pretty impressive. The digital format also allows for attaching documents to the day's lessons, so if you're like me, you can project them onto the whiteboard and interact with them in your lesson quickly, without searching through the files on your computer the day of the lesson. You can also see all the standards that you've attached and when you taught them. Super handy!
Since this is a digital program, you don't have to print copies of your planbook, or relinquish your book when they ask for a lesson check (we've only ever been asked to do this once, but it happens). You can add a key to allow anyone (parents, other teachers, students, administration) to easily see your plans. You can share a link with them as well to make access that much easier.
For $12/year you can simplify your lesson planning experience. I know that $12 seems a lot to some, but I never liked the planbook supplied by my district, and always bought my own, or attempted to make a template on Word, and staples the pages into the book supplied to me. The $12 all boils down to time. How much is your time worth because this site has saved me COUNTLESS hours. Sure it's a bit time-consuming to set up, and like many programs, there is a learning curve to get down before you can speed through the process. The best part is, next year (if I'm still teaching the same subjects/grade level) I can just go and pull lessons that I already put in there, tweak them as needed, and go.
Needless to say, my superintendent/principal was super impressed with my lessons and mentioned that she would eventually like to see everyone in my district go digital with their planbooks. I know several districts that do (that's how I learned of this amazing program in the 1st place). She even asked if I would be willing to run a PD to share my resource with the rest of the teaching staff.
So, what are you waiting for? Go and check it out already. There's a free one month trial. By the time that month was over, I was hooked and couldn't see myself going back to the paper and pencil way! www.planbook.com
