Planbook Touch: Revolutionizing Lesson Planning

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This is a guest Post by David Thompson

One of the challenges of being a teacher is creating an engaging lesson plan. With the Planbook Touch app on your iPad, building your lesson plan is as easy as 1-2-3. As technology encourages us to go digital with eBooks and class discussions, educators are also thinking of utilizing it for their class management. Based on a study released by PBS Learning Media, 74% of educators agree that technology benefits their classroom in many ways. Today, educational mobile apps for tablet and smartphone do not only encourage class engagement, but also help teachers in building their lesson plans easily and quickly.

We have previously discussed tools that can help teachers create quizzes and construct power point presentations. Although there are other apps out there that sell lesson plans, some educators prefer building their own unique lectures. The Planbook Touch does that magic. If you have O2’s iPad, then you can easily connect through 3G, 4G or wirelessly (Wi-Fi) and have this installed on your device. This app will save you time from creating the tedious daily, weekly and monthly lectures by organizing and sharing your lesson plans.

 

Creating Lectures:

Giving you all the control to personalize your notes, the app offers users six easy customizable fields where you can craft your lesson plans. You also have the option to change the default field names depending on your topic.

 

Easy File and Link Attachment:

Teachers resort to additional sources of information to explain a particular concept in layman’s term. Sometimes we do intensive research. With Planbook, all the PDF files, documents, images, and videos can be attached to your lesson plans. However, you will need to have a Dropbox account in order to use this feature.

 

Supports DropBox:

Dropbox is an app where you can store your lesson plans and make them accessible wherever you go (as long as you have an internet connection). By installing it to your Mac or Windows computer, you can now upload and access your lesson plans and reference links easily. By the way, you can open and save Planbook for Windows documents.

 

No Worries With Schedule Adjustments:

The weather condition often interferes with our lesson plans. Since we create our lectures beforehand, adjusting them to fit the limited school time and days we have is really challenging. With Planbook Touch, it easily lets you pull back lessons to fit the schedule. It allows you to create a list of non-school days and fit your lesson plans based on the available time you have.

 

Sharing Your Lesson Plan

A study revealed that 59% of students use smartphone and tablet to study. Instead of making your students write long notes, you can create a more engaging digital lesson by sharing your lesson plans with them. The app also recognizes printers. You have the option to send them daily or weekly lesson plans depending on your view.

Verdict:

Overall, we really find this application helpful especially in building our lesson plans. However, since it’s only available for iPad, it limits other teachers who own an iPhone or Android device. We hope it will be available for all mobile platforms in the coming years as they develop this great educator app. What do you think about the Planbook Touch? Feel free to share your lesson plan making ideas on our Facebook and Twitter page!

About Today's Guest Author:

David Thompson is a writer who focuses on mobile phones, graphic design, start-up businesses and communication technologies. Aside from blogging, David is a fan of travel, and maintains a passion for the  latest music. Finally, David regularly contributes to a newly-launched tech blog Techiedoodlers.com.

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