For those of you who have computer based planners, HST, EdUTracker, Excel skills, do you utilitze these programs or find yourselves not following through. I like the idea of HST but also like to take my lesson plans around the house, work on them a little at a time. Let me know your experience.

Yes, I use mine (HST+). At first, I'd print out hugely detailed information; now, I print out simple schedules (so that I know what's happening that week)...and I do need the print copy!

I have the free version of HST and have used it to keep attendance and grades and a record of the kids work only. (I do the planning on paper...)

I'm thinking about getting the + version so that I can do transcripts...and maybe then I'll utilize the lesson planning, etc.

I'm really not crazy about doing BOTH paper & computer-based -- it just seems like a lot of duplicated effort.

I like HST+ and I do print off a weekly schedule so I can quickly grab the sheet and point the student in the right direction.

I haven't played around with all of the features on HST+ especially the transcripts. I bought Lee Binz's (www.thehomescholar.com) comprehensive school record. This has really helped me define our transcript.

I do suggest that if you use HST or other computer programs, back it up onto CDROM or external harddrive. You wouldn't want to lose everything if your computer crashes. (I need to do this again now that our school year is almost complete--TOG Y4 W36 next week.)

I have HST+ and use it obsessively! No, seriously, I use it to plan and then print out a weekly assignment list for my daughter. She keeps the list at her desk and marks off each thing as she does it, which is allowing her a lot more responsibility to plan her own work (she just turned 10, and this is a big deal for both of us). One of the things I love about having it on the computer is that making a change in schedules doesn't make a mess in my planning book. When I used to use a book, it looked like a 5 year old had gotten hold of it because there were things crossed out, arrows pointing back and forth, etc. Now, if I reschedule something, it just gets moved. If I print out the new schedule, it's nice and neat. Also, HST+ has a feature that automatically marks the student as present for a day whenever they complete an assignment on that day. That way, I don't even have to remember to mark her present! Believe it or not, I used to forget to do that sometimes and have to go back later and try to reconstruct attendance. This year, I had to mail in to the State a copy of my child's attendance record and standardized test results, and I was able to easily just print off an attendance record--no problem. It's even better now that TOG is digital, because I open TOG in one window and HST+ in another and just start creating assignments! So, in answer to your question, yes! I love using computer based planning software!
Robin

I used a paper planner for my first 2 years and then used excel to create a somewhat preformatted paper planner for a few years. I created a spreadsheet for each child with the name of their books (ex. Abeka Math 2) preprinted and then I would manually fill in lesson or pages numbers.

For the last two years I have used Edu Track. While it is nice to have it all on the computer with it calculating grades, hours, etc., it also has some frustrating points of not working the way I want. Some of my kids do M,T,Th,F at home and some do M,W,TH,F at home. This makes bumping scedules cumbersome with their system.

My DH is a computer guru and has offered to build me just what I want...we will see what we can get!

quote:

For those of you who have computer based planners, HST, EdUTracker, Excel skills

What is Excel skills?

Thanks, Diane

It should have read skills with/in Excel. Not Excel skills