One of my biggest gripes about being a teacher is how much unnecessary paper we use. And one of the most common paper wasters (in my opinion) is the 'teacher diary' that we have all had or used at some stage in our careers. I am not saying that I haven't used a physical paper-based teacher diary before. Heck I have several from previous years (sometimes I even like to get them out to look at what my planning used to be like). Shortly after I graduated, I started working for German supermarket Aldi in the Victorian town of Wangaratta. I wasn't having much luck obtaining a teaching position at that time, so I decided to step away from teaching when I was offered a Store Manager Traineeship with Aldi. I had spent almost 10 years working in retail before this, so it was not new to me. It was from this experience that I began to really understand the concept of efficiency. And this leads me to today's post on digital teacher diaries.
Why use digital teacher diary? Digital teacher diaries are no different to physical teacher diaries, just well 'digital'. But there are a HUGE range of features that digital teacher diaries offer over physical paper-based editions. Some of these reasons include:
Despite all of the advantages that digital teacher diaries offer, there are also some key disadvantages such as:
Where can I find a digital teacher diary? Digital teacher diaries are slowly creeping into our daily teaching sphere, but I still feel like there is work to be done to ensure that this option is useful for everyone. In my quest to find a digital teacher diary that I like I have tried many different companies and brands, most of them from American though. Here are some digital teacher diaries that I have played around with: Planboard by Chalk: www.chalk.com - Planboard by Chalk has been my digital teacher diary of choice for several years now. I actually stumbled across Planboard during my 2019 summer holidays and feel in love with its features and functionality. In a similar fashion other ediaries Planboard does take some time to set up, this is primarily because it is not made for the Australian schooling system. But if you take some time to set it up the benefits outweigh this. Planboard offers a huge range of formatting options including tables, templates and a huge range of editing features (bold, underline, centre justification, colour, bullets etc). The other great feature I love with Planboard is the ability to create units and view the lessons for those units (great for registration purposes or when an Executive needs to know what you did on a certain date). In addition to similar features offered by other online planners Planboard also have attendance taking options and a markbook for keeping a personal copy of grades. The best part about Planboard is that is FREE. Although they have an $99USD Gold option for a range of additional functions, including Google Classroom and Schoology integration, exporting lessons and information to Google Calendar, sharing lessons with public links, searching your lesson plans, viewing lesson edit history and using custom colours.
To learn more about Chalk and Planboard access the Evolve EdTech The Planboard Series YouTube playlist.
Createl eDiary: www.ediaryschool.com.au - Createl eDiary is an Australia based ediary. The Createl eDiary is a teacher planner that pre-loads your timetabled subjects and classes throughout the year. You are able to customise and change your timetable based on different terms, semesters or learning periods. The diary allows you to add detailed lesson plans, and utilises a WYSIWYG interface where you can add a whole range of information, images, videos etc to help you create your lesson. The simplified lesson summary is also handy to keep track of your lesson content and planning. The diary can be viewed in a daily, weekly or monthly format and includes a range of additional functions including student management in your diary, assessment, attendance, reminders, resources and documents. The Createl eDiary is a functional digital teacher diary that could be used be any teacher no matter where they are located in the world. The eDiary is a subscription based product, with a 12 month subscription starting from $24.95. A 30 day free trial is also available from www.ediaryschool.com.au
Planbook: https://planbook.com/ - Planbook is a non-Australian based and designed digital teacher planner. This is one consideration that should be taken into before deciding to delve into using this product. However, despite that it still contains many similar features and functions to the Chalk and Createl eDairy options listed above. Planbook's website states that they contain 'all the functionality ... in terms of class scheduling, lesson development and management, teacher collaboration, administrator options, student views and more, you'll find that we offer far more capabilities than any other tool on the market'. The support and assistance offered by Planbook is second to none. A huge range of written and visual support is available through the Planbook knowledge base, they even offer FREE training webinars for teachers and schools. Planbook is also the cheapest option for an electronic teacher diary from the products listed so far. Planbook retails for $15USD annually with price discounts for multi-year purchases and school accounts, to help teachers and schools save more. Just like the Createl eDiary a free 30 day trial is also available from Planbook that allows you test out its features before determining if it is the right digital teacher diary for you.
So why a digital teacher diary?
The main reason that I went for a digital teacher diary was because I am a bit of perfectionist and I like things neat. This is something I could not achieve with a paper based teacher diary. If I made a mistake I would almost have to buy another day book to fix it, which just isn't something feasible. I also found that using a digital teacher diary meant that I was likely to use it more often and more regularly. I was also really happy to be able to take notes to remind myself to do things and add resources from my G Drive straight into my planning. There are a number of other ways to create digital teacher diaries using Google Slides, Sheets and even OneNote. The main reason I love a third-party developed diary is that it significantly reduces the number of additional information and functions I would be required to manually enter. For example, here in Australia we don't normally just teach one or two year groups in high school settings. We can teacher four, five, six or even more classes and they can be timetabled at different times and on different days. Most digital teacher diaries allow the class information to be automatically populated throughout the term/semester which reduces one painful task I would have to complete with a teacher diary I have created my own. This is not a criticism of those people who create their own diaries, but for me finding ways to be more efficient and effective have become second nature to me. So have a think about whether or not that physical day book is still right for your needs. And remember that changing to a digital teacher diary won't necessarily be easy but it is achievable. I know, because I did it! |
