Planboard, a Really Good Free Online Planner

The 2015/2016 school year, now blissfully over for my district, was the first year I used an online teacher planner exclusively. Planboard by Chalk.com has been user-friendly and efficient. (See my comparo to Commoncurriculum here). After a full year of Planboard lesson planning, I'm still a believer. A plus I'm appreciating today is the easy migration of one year's plans to a new year. Allowing that I'll be tweaking those plans here and there, adding standards, etc., my plans for the whole of next school year are ready to go.

The only major negative with Planboard is that it (still) does not allow you to print or share unit plans. Today I emailed their IT about the matter, and Planboard's people promptly got back to me: They're (still) working on it.

Unit plan sharing aside, Planboard is free and has lots of bells and whistles, while remaining intuitive.

This year I plan to use the Sticky Note feature to paste a Bible verse at the top of my plan for each day. It'll take a little time, but that word of encouragement for my teaching day will be worth it. What favorite verses should I add to my planner? Please share!

ESV Single Column Journaling Bible, Summer Garden

Online Teacher Planners

Who doesn't love the old-fashioned, spiral-bound teacher plan books? They are the ultimate school supply, with their promise of order and accomplishment, their neat boxes ready to be inked in. But this is 2015 already. It's time to store that glorious planner in the Cloud.

So which digital planner is best? There are several viable, free options out there, and I've test-driven two of the major contenders. (I've also paid for an online planner, but it was not worth the investment).

Commoncurriculum.com
Pros: Some aspects user-friendly; attentive tech service; collaboration features

Cons: Glitchy in Chrome; difficult to figure out how to roll classes over to a new year; difficulty sharing unit plans by email

Planboard.chalk.com
Pros: User-friendly to the extreme; speedy tech service answers; easy to attach state standards, including CCSS, to lesson plans; new features added frequently, such as easy collaboration and date-free planning; works great in Chrome

Cons: Few; won't print unit plans (just daily plans), but I think this feature will be available soon

Conclusion: I switched from Commoncurriculum to Planboard gradually as I became frustrated by the limitations of the former. Both companies offer quality technical assistance, but too often the answer from Commoncurriculum was "Sorry, we don't have that feature." The clincher came when I bought a Chromebook and found that my old planner was incompatible with my new browser. I've never regretted the switch, though I can't wait for the ability to print my unit plans.

This is the first year I've done my planning completely online. Yes, I can sympathize with my fellow teachers who still love their paper planners, but there is something wonderful about knowing my plans are at my fingertips whether I'm at my desk at school, on my couch at home, or on my phone in the car. My sub plans look amazing, my adminstrator likes seeing the standards on my lessons, and, not the least of its benefits, my planner loses nothing when the school server crashes. Twice. In one year.

Try a free digital planner for a week. You'll be hooked.

Sadie Robertson "Live Original" 18-Month Agenda