Anyone recommend an online planner?

[Mistressiggi]

Thinking of switching from my paper planner to a computer based one, anyone do this and do you have an app that you use? Secondary and part time, would be handy to be able to check my plans when I'm at home.

[SabineSchmetterling]

I use idoceo on an ipad and bloody love it. 2 years ago it was a bit of an experiment to see of I could go paperless as I’ve always been a big fan of my planner but I’ve not once considered going back to paper. It does mean that I have to carry the iPad everywhere with me (we don’t have our own classrooms and we are split site) so I just make sure it can fit in my handbag.
It does markbook, plans, seating plans, you can generate reports or trackers from it for students to put in their books/folders, it also has a view that I can can use for parents evenings where I can show the parents all of their child’s marks without them peeking at the rest of the class.
I think my favourite feature is that you can bump lessons, so if you’ve put in plans for the next few weeks and then you find out that you’re going to miss a lesson you can push it back and it will move all of your plans for that class back by a lesson. I used to get the rage when that happened and messed up my planner.

[Mistressiggi]

Thanks Sabine. Did it take you ages to learn how to use it by the way?

[noblegiraffe]

Idoceo is da bomb. Been using it for years.

Importing class lists from SIMs is fiddly, as is setting up your calendar for the year (especially if you have a two week timetable) but I would never never never go back to paper planning.

If my school took away my school ipad, I’d buy a new one just to continue using it.

[SabineSchmetterling]

Not really. It’s pretty intuitive and they have plenty of how-to guides in their website. You have to invest a bit of time in setting up your timetable, holiday dates, school day times etc at the beginning but once that’s done it’s pretty quick. You can enter the details of your classes manually or import from SIMS.
The markbook will auto-convert marks to grades if you set up grade boundaries and you can have different sets of boundaries for different tests/year groups/units etc.
It also has lots of built-in formulas that will give you average marks (or median if you prefer), add marks together etc with a couple of buttons,
If you invest a bit of time before the start of term getting it set up then it will save you so much time this year.

[mistressiggi]

Occurs to me I'd need to check it is on our GDPR-ok list to put any pupil data in there. But could use for own planning either way. Thanks for the intel

[HappyParent2000]

Trello is our choice.

[noblegiraffe]

Occurs to me I'd need to check it is on our GDPR-ok list to put any pupil data in there.

The data is stored on your ipad so I guess as long as it’s password protected? However, you’ll want to back it up because otherwise you’d lose everything in an ipad failure. My idoceo backs up to Dropbox.

[SabineSchmetterling]

The data is stored on my iPad and I’ve set it so it backs up to my school one drive account. Our GDPR person gave it the OK.

[Mistressiggi]

Found my list - idoceo gets the thumbs up! (Dropbox doesn't though!)

[noblegiraffe]

Does Dropbox not being on the list mean it’s bad, or just that they haven’t approved it?

GDPR stuff seems really inconsistent!

[General0rgana]

IDoceo is worth whatever they're charging these days. It's amazing

[Mistressiggi]

For me Noble it means I'd be in trouble if I used it for identifying data - but that is my own area's policy it doesn't mean anything is actually wrong with it. I have Dropbox for myself I just wouldn't store pupil stuff in it. I know it's a minefield really.

[Eledamorena]

Anyone recommend an android app similar to this? Sounds interesting!

[stream26]

iDoceo app for the iPad. Only costs a few bucks but it’s an absolute game-changer. They have a guide here
For hard copy version, I use the teacher edition of the student planner that our students get onplanners.com/planners/best-study-planners It has all of our PD/Holidays added in. Our school is on a cycle calendar, so our schedule is based on cycle day not weekday so having those days labeled are essential as well.

[Teachermaths]

I'm old school and made myself an edexcel spreadsheet for the year which I just type into.

I never keep records of attendance etc, that's all on SIMS. Homework I check there and then and behaviour/centralised detentions are recorded on SIMS too so I don't keep my own record of those either.

[janankitala]

The data is stored on your ipad so I guess as long as it’s password protected? However, you’ll want to back it up because otherwise you’d lose everything in an ipad failure. My idoceo backs up to Dropbox.

When I first started teaching, I marvelled at my colleague’s neatly tended mark books. The amazing array of handwritten marks, numbers and codes in different coloured pens were almost like a work of art.
Happy new year: www.dreamcalendars.com/calendar/2020

[ThereWillBeAdequateFood]

Does idoceo link up to your Apple Watch.

I think I need to give it a whirl. I dislike paper planners.

[Curiousmum69]

Any tips for setting up a 2 week timetable?

[noblegiraffe]

I go to Calendar, set up two weeks’ worth of lessons, colouring week 1 red and week 2 blue. Then I highlight week 1 and manually copy it into all the week 1s in the year (avoiding holidays) then do the same for week 2, so the year looks stripey. This doesn’t take too long and I find it easier than trying to copy in cycles. That fills in your planner and timetable.