So why am I switching to digital grade-keeping? Because it's easier to maintain these records online. It can also be powerful to walk around class with a grade book in hand, checking work and talking to students about their grades. When you have all the grades in one place, it's easy to check what assignments are missing, which students are consistently doing exemplary work, and who needs help. Not only are grade books the keeper of your students' performance (and possibly their fates), they're easy to use-just copy in your roster and away you go. When it comes to grading, I've used both handwritten grade books and created my own online grade books with Excel. Plus, I can always create online documents to host my ideas and memories. While I miss the scrapbooking feel of keeping a physical lesson plan-and I don't reflect upon last year's plan as much as I used to-when it comes to collaborating, online programs, such as Canva, can't be beat. Making changes and aligning lessons with Common Core and other required programs got easier as well.

If I wanted to check my plan before I got to work, I only needed to log in. If I wanted to share a week's plan with a student teacher, colleague, or an administrator, it only took a few clicks. Making the SwitchĮventually, I found the pull of collaborating with an online lesson plan book too tempting to ignore. It wasn't just my lesson plan book-it was a notebook and a scrapbook where I could keep ideas and reflect. If I needed to remember any memos or other important deadlines, I could attach those as well. I also liked that I could staple a class roster (complete with contact information) to the inside of my lesson plan book. I could erase and change lessons simply, and the format was spread out so that I could look at a week in its entirety with ease-love it. They were easy to use and organized in a way that took very little customizing to get moving at the beginning of the school year.

The Multiple Uses o f Paper and Pencilįor years, I used pre-formatted notebooks for my lesson planning, filling them with tips about behavior and classroom management.

Here are my thoughts and experiences with both. Although many teachers have stuck to paper and pen when lesson planning, more and more teachers are using online programs.Īfter 15 years of teaching, I switched to planning online, and next year I'm going to use an online program to record grades. So it's no surprise that it's changing the teaching profession as well. Technology has changed the way we do everything: how we think, communicate, and how we relate to the world.

Online lesson planner