In our daily phone conversations, ECOO Conference co-chair Cyndie Jacobs and I cover so much. Today, we were talking about some of the exhibitors and I was excited to learn that the company behind Planboard would be attending the conference. I had met one of the people involved, Suraj Srinivas, at the Ontario Google Summit where I got a quick introduction to the product and was inspired to follow up with things.
I should point out that I was a real fan of the Ontario Curriculum Unit Planner when it came along. Having access to all of the expectations in the Ontario Curriculum and the ability to manipulate them as a unit was developed was just genius! Sadly, that product hasn’t been maintained for a while. That’s where Planboard steps in.
In a world where we’re moving to the cloud and sharing so much, it makes sense that lesson planning heads in that direction. That’s where Planboard fits into things. It’s already caught the eye of a few organizations:
and the relationship with the Ontario Teachers’ Federation was announced at the recent Curriculum Forum. This is exciting news for Ontario Educators! It doesn’t stop there though; expectations from TEKS and Common Core are included as well.
Signing up is free – create an account or use your Facebook or Google login to do the deed.
From there, it’s just a matter to start planning your day – all saved online so that you can plan at home, on public transit, wherever, and access your planning at school.
If you can work a wordprocessor (or more likely a blog editor), you can develop in Planboard. Notice the intuitive menu items above. If you need to include an image or a video to share with your class, adding it to Planboard is just as easy as adding one to your blog. (Try doing that with a paper planner!) If you believe in the real power of collaboration, you’ll notice the green public button above. As educators take to Planboard and create their best lessons, they’ll be in a position to share them with others (or the world, if they care to).
Sharing is important and a variety of ways to share your efforts is made available. I can see places where each of the ways would work but sophisticated people will just share the link to the lesson.
And if you’re looking for inspiration, try doing a search to see if someone has already created and shared a lesson.
I was pleasantly surprised to see that there are some computer science plans already shared at the site.
Of course, a lesson gains its context when you take a look at the curriculum expectations that are addressed during the lesson. Including the appropriate expectation when you’re designing a lesson is just a matter of finding it and then clicking the add button for inclusion.
The basic, free accounts allows for 500MB of storage with an option to upgrade.
There are also campus and school licensing options.
If you’ve been in search of a lesson plan tool designed for the cloud with the inclusion of the curriculum and other tools for lesson preparation, then you need to take a look at Planboard. It may be just what you’re looking for.
Related articles
- Planboard Review (anbrightbill.wordpress.com)
doug -- off the record 
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