Introducing HomeSchool Planner version 2.0! Full of new features to help meet the homeschooling laws and requirements of various states, this Macintosh-only program is now an even better method of record-keeping for the homeschooling family.
Do you have piles of hastily scrawled notecards laying around, in an attempt to plan out your homeschooling day? Or perhaps you have discovered chicken-scratch handwriting on scattered sheets of mismatched paper under piles of books and projects? Are you looking for a way to organize the planning and logging of your school activities?
HomeSchool Planner is an easy-to-use tool for families. Written by homeschoolers for homeschoolers, the software cuts down on the amount of typing and calculating that one has to do in order to keep complete records. Users can plan or log activities on any day of the week or year (not just weekdays), and any hour of the day (not just regular school hours). It's also very customizable, so if one family participates in totally different schooling activities than another family, they can enter their unique ideas. With a point-and-click interface, homeschoolers can create a printable plan and/or log. It's a breeze to enter start and end times, and then HomeSchool Planner will calculate the duration of each activity automatically! It also performs all calculations of cumulative time spent on each subject; your choice of a quarterly, semester, or yearly basis is possible. For high school, HomeSchool Planner computes Carnegie Units, useful in preparing transcripts with credit hours for various subjects. Likewise, entering grades is a cinch, and then the program calculates cumulative grades. Users like the software because it's a nice, neat way to stay accountable.
Here are some of the new features in version 2.0 of the program. Many of these are
record-keeping improvements designed to help meet the requirements in
many states:
• HomeSchool Planner now calculates cumulative times for each subject. You can do this on a quarterly, semester, or yearly basis!
• In conjunction with calculating the cumulative times, the program now calculates Carnegie units, useful in preparing transcripts with credit hours for various subjects. You set the number of hours you require per Carnegie unit (typically 150 or 180 hours per unit) in the preferences.
• Grades can now be calculated on a quarterly, semester, or yearly basis.
• A nifty homeschooling calendar can be printed out for your entire school year. For instance, if you start your school year in August of 1996 and finish in June of 1997, the calendar will print both years. Each homeschooling day will appear in bold on the calendar. (That is, the program realizes that you schooled each day that you have a plan or log present in the program, and automatically creates the calendar for you.)
• It's now easier to add new plans or logs. Just click on the right arrow if you are already on an existing plan; if a later plan is not already present, the program will ask you if you want to create it. It's also smart enough to know that it should ask you if you really want to create a plan for a weekend day, or if you want to create one for the next Monday.
• Two other methods also exist to create new plans. You can create them from the monthly calendar for the current month (this is the old method that was in version 1.0). You can now also create them from the yearly calendar, just by clicking on the day for which you want to plan.
• You can export all your data from version 1.0, then import it into version 2.0. (Thus, you can begin using all the new, jazzy features of 2.0 right away, even mid-school-year.)
• A "Find" feature will help you in locating all occurrences of a text string in your plans or logs. Very useful in revising subject names or activities!
System requirements:
• Macintosh
• System 6.0.5 or above
• 4 megabytes of RAM (above and beyond System requirements)
• Hard disk drive
*****Before using HomeSchool Planner for the first time: *****
This is VERY important! Before using your HomeSchool Planner, you MUST set your Mac's system clock to the proper date and time. This is because HomeSchool Planner uses the computer's system clock to determine the day for a plan or log, and also for entering start times and end times for your activities. If you are using System 7, set the system clock by going to your Date & Time Control Panel. Be sure to set it to U.S. time, making sure that you use the default settings, or you may experience spurious results. If you are using System 6, set the date and time in the General Control Panel.
Using the application:
1. Double-click on the HomeSchool Planner icon, and the program will start up and take you through the introduction. Then you arrive at the main screen, at which you can begin to set up your HomeSchool Planner.
2. The various on-screen buttons, in the main menu, contain choices that will enable you to customize and use the program. Each of these choices is also available from the pull-down HomeSchool menu.
3. You should begin, at the main menu, to set up your program as follows:
At the main menu, click on the "Preferences" button. Be sure to set all preferences here. They can be changed at any time. The preferences are as follows:
School Name - type in your school name, address, & phone number. There is a limit of four lines for the school information. Later, every time you print a plan, log, or grade report, your school information will appear at the top. Optionally, if you don't want your school information to appear on printouts, just leave this preference blank.
Plan or Log - When you print out a summary of your activities for a given day, it can be called a "Plan" or a "Log." More traditional homeschoolers may want to call the summary a "Plan," and list all of their activities in advance. "Unschoolers" or more relaxed homeschoolers may want to call the summary a "Log," and list their activities as they take place, or list them after they take place. The flexibility is yours!
Plan/Log Reports - If you wish to show or hide grades on your plan or log printout, you may set this preference.
Grade Reports - On the grade reports, you can choose to calculate grades to a certain number of digits to the right of the decimal point. You can also choose to show or hide the number of grades that went into the calculation of a grade average.
Starting Day - If you start using this HomeSchool Planner partway through your school year, you can enter the starting day here. For instance, in Colorado, homeschoolers are required to school for at least 172 days. If you start using HomeSchool Planner on day 51 of your school year, you may do so, and the program will still print the proper number of school days on your sheet.
Elapsed Time Before Starting to Use HomeSchool Planner - Similarly, enter the Elapsed Time in hours and minutes that you have already homeschooled this year. (If you don't care to figure that out, just enter 0:00 for zero hours and zero minutes. Or you can estimate how many hours you have already schooled by multiplying the number of days by the average amount of time you school per day, e.g., 51 days times 4 hours per day = 204 hours and 0 minutes.)
Hours Required Per Carnegie Unit - Enter the number of hours of instruction that you require for each Carnegie Unit. This will typically be between 120 to 180 hours. Carnegie Units are used on high school transcripts, and denote the credits given for various courses. You will see them appear in HomeSchool Planner later, when you calculate the Cumulative Time devoted to each subject.
4. Click on the "Edit Student List" button. You will then be able to type in the names of your students. You can use first names only, or you can type in both first and last names. For that matter, you can put in a middle name, too!
Once you are done entering the student names, click on the bent arrow to return to the main menu. The bent arrow will always return you to the main menu from any place in the program.
5. At the main menu, click on the "Select Student" button. Highlight the student for whom you wish to plan or log activities. Click on OK.
6. Back at the main menu, click on the "Edit Subject Areas" button. Type in the list of subjects you wish to cover. Remember, these subjects can be changed at any time, so don't worry if you can't think of all of them right now! You can always come back to this screen and enter more subjects.
7. Back at the main menu, click on the "Edit Activities" button. Choose a subject area for which you wish to enter activities. For instance, if you choose the subject Art, you can then enter activities such as "Make a pair of Indian moccasins," "Draw a chessboard in 3-D perspective," and "Create a fish impression T-shirt." Each activity should go on one line of the list. Once again, you can always come back to this screen and enter more activities.
8. Now you're ready to actually create a plan!!! At the main menu, click on the "Select Day" button. You will see a calendar with today's date in an outlined font. Click on the date for which you wish to create a plan or log.
Two alternate methods of creating new plans exist:
Just click on the right arrow if you are already on an existing plan; if a later plan is not available, the program will ask you if you want to create it. It's also smart enough to know that it should ask you if you really want to create a plan for a weekend day, or if you want to
create one for the next Monday.
You can now also create a new plan from the yearly calendar, just by clicking on the day for which you want to plan.
9. You now see a blank plan in front of you, with the name of the current student, as well as the date of the plan. To begin entering a subject, click and HOLD DOWN the "Subject" button. All of the subject names you have previously entered in step 6 will now pop up. Highlight one of them and release the mouse button. Voila! The subject automatically appears in the plan.
10. To enter an activity for this first subject in your plan, click and HOLD DOWN the "Activity" button. All of the activities you have previously entered in step 7 will now pop up. Highlight one of them and release the mouse button. Eureka! The activity automatically appears in the plan. (You can also type additional activities directly into the plan. For instance, there may come a time when you have a very unique, one-of-a-kind activity that you will never repeat again. Just type in a description of this activity after the subject area.)
11. Continue popping subjects and activities into your plan, being sure to hit the return key if your text is getting cut off at the right-hand side of the column. NOTE: You can cut, copy, and paste text within a plan or between plans. Make sure both plans are created first, before doing a cut, copy, or paste between plans.
12. Print out your plan for your student. Or, if you have a student capable of using the computer and want to cut down on the number of printouts, let them refer to the computer for each activity as the school day progresses. Go through your homeschooling day, using your plan, and fill in start times, end times, and grades as you go. Unschoolers may want to save this step for after they have completed a day of unschooling. They will instead want to skip down to step 13 and enter start and end times for their various activities, and only THEN print out their log. (We do suggest that you print out your log at the end of each day, regardless. You should alway have a "hard copy" of your school activities after they take place, just in case of a drastic computer problem such as a crashed hard disk.)
Printing hints: If you experience problems with printing, check all cables and printer lights. Make sure you have the appropriate driver for your printer installed in the System Folder. Insert paper correctly into the printer. Use the Chooser to select the printer. If the page still will not print, you may be experiencing a memory problem.
If you get an out of memory message that tells you that you do not have enough memory to run HomeSchool Planner, then you should consider buying more RAM in the form of SIMMs for your Macintosh. Your local Apple dealer can assist you in the selection and installation of these SIMMs. HomeSchool Planner runs optimally under more RAM, and you will find the extra RAM useful with many other newer programs and systems.
If you find that you are using too much paper, you can print your plans and logs out onto a half-sheet of paper instead. Do this by first going to the File Menu, and highlighting "Page Setup." Then type in 50% for a reduction, and click on the "Landscape" icon to print your page sideways. Be sure to feed in just a half-page of paper into your printer, being careful to feed it in sideways. Great paper savings!
Alternatively, some printer drivers support 2-up and 4-up printing in the Page Setup. You can check whether your printer driver supports this by going to the File Menu and highlighting Page Setup. If it is available, choose "2-Up" or "4-Up" layout. Close out the Page Setup dialog. Then go to the File Menu and highlight "Print Page Range" or "Print All Pages." Your homeschool plans/logs will be beautifully laid out 2 or 4 to a page, saving on paper.
13. To enter a start time, simply click in the "Start Time" column, on the same line as your activity. You can select "Now" to automatically have the computer enter the current time. Or you can select an hour and minutes from the choices. If you are a touch-typist, you may want to simply type in the hour and then press return. Then type in the minutes and press return. (This will enable you to not use the mouse so much while entering the times.)
To get rid of a previously entered start time and leave it blank, click in the "Start Time" column, on the line that you want to erase. Instead of selecting an hour and minutes, click on "Erase" from the list. If you wish to leave a previously entered start time as is, then click on the "Cancel" button that appears in the dialog.
14. To enter an end time, simply click in the "End Time" column, on the same line as your activity. Once again, you can select "Now" or you can select the hour and minutes from the choices. As you finish an activity, click in the check-mark column next to your activity. A check mark will appear, signifying that you have completed the activity.
To get rid of a previously entered end time and leave it blank, click in the "End Time" column, on the line that you want to erase. Instead of selecting an hour and minutes, click on "Erase" from the list. If you wish to leave a previously entered end time as is, then click on the "Cancel" button that appears in the dialog.
15. HomeSchool Planner automatically calculates the duration of your activity. As you continue entering more start and end times for the rest of the activities, you will notice that the total time for the day is automatically entered at the top of your log.
16. To enter a grade, simply click in the "Grade" column. If you don't see the "Grade" column, this means that it is turned off in the preferences. Simply go to the HomeSchool menu and select Preferences; then click on the "Show Grades?" button and highlight "Yes" to turn the feature back on.
17. OK, let's say that you've been using HomeSchool Planner for a while, and now you'd like to figure out how well your student is doing by calculating their grades. Or, perhaps you'd like to calculate the cumulative time they've spent on a given subject.
Before doing cumulative times or cumulative grades, you will need to enter your starting and ending dates for each quarter. Do this from the main menu by clicking on the button called "Quarter Start/End Dates." This will take you to a screen where you can set each date. Click on each of the buttons in turn, starting with the button called "Set Starting Date for Quarter 1." You will then be taken to a calendar. Carefully click on the date on the calendar on which you would like to start your first quarter of the school year.
Continue on for each of the remaining dates for each start and end of the quarters.
18. To determine cumulative grades for a student, make sure that student is the current student by first going to the main menu and clicking on "Select Student." Then click on "Cumulative Grades" and you will be given the option to calculate quarterly, semester, or yearly grades. The numeric grades for each subject will be automatically calculated by the program. Please note that you must have each of these subjects previously entered into the program by using the "Edit Subject Areas" option. Also, in each plan or log, a line adjacent to a grade must have the appropriate subject in bold typeface at the beginning of the line. Otherwise, the program will not know that the grade goes with that subject.
After calculating, HomeSchool Planner will ask if you want to show all subjects on the report (even those that do not have any grades associated with them), or if you would rather show only the subjects that actually have grades associated with them (and their corresponding comments).
After calculating grades, you may notice a grade that needs to be changed. Just click on that grade in the Grade column, and you will have the option to edit it. Only numeric grades from 1 to 100 are presently supported in HomeSchool Planner.
Another way to edit the grade report is to click on a subject in the left-most column. The program will ask you if you want to delete that subject and its corresponding comments and grade information.
If you don't see the column called "No. of Grades," this means that it is turned off in the preferences. Simply go to the HomeSchool menu and select Preferences; then click on the "Show # of Grades?" button and highlight Yes to turn the feature back on.
19. To determine cumulative time and Carnegie units for a student, make sure that student is the current student by first going to the main menu and clicking on "Select Student." Then click on "Cumulative Time" and you will be given the option to calculate quarterly, semester, or yearly time spent on each subject. The program will automatically do all of the calculations for you. Please note that you must have each of these subjects previously entered into the program by using the "Edit Subject Areas" option. Also, in each plan or log, a line adjacent to a duration time must have the appropriate subject in bold typeface at the beginning of the line. Otherwise, the program will not know that the duration time goes with that subject.
After calculating, HomeSchool Planner will ask if you want to show all subjects on the report (even those that do not have any time associated with them), or if you would rather show only the subjects that actually have time associated with them.
A note about Carnegie units: The program will round down to the nearest 0.25 Carnegie Unit. This is the way it is typically done on high school transcripts, so HomeSchool Planner does this automatically for you.
As your school year progresses, you may want to calculate your cumulative time spent on each subject occasionally; this will give you an idea of how much more time you need to devote to a particular subject in order to fulfill a complete credit requirement.
20. Utilities: At the main menu, click on the "Utilities" button. Make a copy of your program before using these utilities, and only then use them wisely! The actions are not undoable. You should print out all plans or logs before selecting a utility.
At the end of a quarter, semester, or year, you may wish to clear out all logs, leaving subject areas and activities intact. First print out any logs that you need to save for record-keeping purposes. Then click on the button called "Delete ALL Logs for ALL Students." Remember, they will be gone forever, so think before you use this option! Please check your preferences when you are done with the option, especially the ones having to do with starting day and elapsed time.
Similarly, you can delete all logs for just one student. Or you can delete all Subjects and Activities.
Now that we have come out with version 2.0 of HomeSchool Planner, you may want to transfer your information from your older version 1.0 of HomeSchool Planner to the newer version of the program. Please first use the "Export All Data to a Text File" button in your version 1.0 program; it will save all of your data to a text file in the same folder as your old HomeSchool Planner program. (The file name will contain "HS Export" and also contain the date on which it was exported.)
Then, from within your new version 2.0 of HomeSchool Planner, use the "Import Data From a Text File" button to move all of your old data (from the "HS Export" text file) into your new version of the program. Note: You should not have to use the export and import buttons under normal everyday circumstances. Only when you purchase a new version of the program are they useful. We DO NOT recommend exporting and then re-importing into the same version of HomeSchool Planner.
21. Two new items appear in the HomeSchool pull-down menu. They are the "Find" and "Find Again" options. Perhaps you would like to find each day that you have taken a field trip. Use the "Find" option and type in "Field Trip" to find the words in your plans. Then use the "Find Again" option to find the next occurrence of the words in your plans. This is very helpful, also, when you want to change a subject name or change the wording of something that appears on multiple plans.
22. To quit from HomeSchool Planner, use the "File" pull-down menu and highlight "Quit." Or, press command-Q to quit.
23. Closing out your school year is an important activity for record-keeping. We suggest that you follow these steps for close-out, in order.
a. Make sure you have entered all logs for all dates. Start with the first log for your school year. Make sure that you have entered all stop and start times, for each subject and activity. Also check to see that all grades have been entered into the program. Page through each log for the entire year, by clicking on the right arrow. Do this for each student in your homeschool.
b. If you have made any changes to your logs, print final versions of the logs for record-keeping purposes. The ensure that you have a hard copy in print of all of your homeschooling activities. Do this for each student in your homeschool.
c. Print out a homeschooling yearly calendar. It will show all of the days you have homeschooled in bold on the calendar. Do this for each student in your homeschool (the program prints out an individualized calendar for each student, keeping in mind that you may have schooled different students on different days).
d. Print out cumulative grades for each quarter, semester, or year, depending on the system you use. Do this for each student in your homeschool.
e. Print out cumulative times for each quarter, semester, or year, depending on the system you use. Do this for each student in your homeschool.
f. Make a backup of your program, containing all of your data for this school year. See step 24 below for more information about this.
g. You can also back up your program on your hard drive itself by clicking on the HomeSchool Planner 2.0 icon once in the Finder, to highlight it. Then pull down the File Menu and highlight "Duplicate." You can rename this duplicate anything you wish.
h. When you are ready to start a new school year, first make a duplicate as in step g. Rename your duplicate by adding the school year onto the end of the file name (e.g., HomeSchool Planner 2.0 1997).
i. PLEASE BE SURE THAT YOU ARE USING A DUPLICATE COPY BEFORE PERFORMING THIS STEP!!!! Start up this NEW duplicate, and go to the Utilities. Click on the option to delete all plans for all students. You may also wish to delete all subject areas and activities.
j. Now you've got a fresh HomeSchool Planner that is ready to go for the new year. It will still contain your preferences and student names, so that you won't have to re-enter them. Begin selecting your current student for your new plans and logs by going to Step 5 above.
24. Please BACK UP your HomeSchool Planner on a regular basis. As your school year progresses, you will have spent a lot of time and effort on planning and logging your homeschooling activities. If you should have a hard drive crash or lightning strike occur, you wouldn't want to lose all of your hard work! You can obtain a good backup program from your authorized Apple dealer or via mail-order.
One last note: On any Macintosh, you may experience extension conflicts. Please remove or turn off any unnecessary extensions and control panels if you experience problems with HomeSchool Planner. Commercial programs are available to help you manage extensions. Under System 7, you can restart your computer, and hold down the shift key until you see the message "Extensions off." Or, if you are using System 7.5 or above, the Extensions Manager Control Panel will help you to set up a list of minimal extensions.
HomeSchool Planner is a product of France & Associates (8156 E. Lakeshore Drive, Parker CO 80134-5843; Tel. 303/841-5003 between the hours of 10 am to 5 pm Mountain Time). The program, resources, and graphics contained herein are copyrighted, 1995 by France & Associates. All rights are reserved worldwide. If you use this program, the shareware fee is $20.00. Please register from within the program and send in your shareware fee. We will then send you the latest version of HomeSchool Planner. Shipping and handling are an additional $3.00 to U.S. addresses and $6.00 to non-U.S. addresses.
To find out more about other educational software produced by France & Associates, contact us at the above address or phone number or electronically via E-mail:
America Online: JanF
Internet: janf@dimensional.com
Our support forum on America Online is at keyword FRANCE&ASSOCIATES.
We also have a site on the World-Wide Web at the url:
http://www.dimensional.com/~janf/
Only the HomeSchool Planner demo (not the full version) may be copied, uploaded to online services, placed on shareware CD and diskette collections, or given to others. The demo allows you to try out the program, but you will be limited to 5 plans/logs per student. You can obtain the full version only by registering the shareware.
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The external DialogDisplay XFCN 2.51, stored in this software, is distributed here under an exclusive distribution license between Software Perspectives and France & Associates. It may not be copied out of this software for any reason. For information on this external, please contact Software Perspectives directly at (703) 643-1110. Thank you.
DialogDisplay 2.51 XFCN copyrighted 1993 by Software Perspectives.
ListSelect XFCN 5.1 copyrighted by Frederic Rinaldi, 1989…1994.
MaxDepth XFCN 1.0 copyrighted 1991 by BungDabba Productions.
FRANCE & ASSOCIATES MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, REGARDING THE SOFTWARE OR ITS USE AND OPERATION ALONE OR IN COMBINATION WITH LICENSEE PROGRAM.
IN NO EVENT SHALL FRANCE & ASSOCIATES BE LIABLE FOR SPECIAL, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING FROM THE USE, DISTRIBUTION OR LICENSING OF THE SOFTWARE BY LICENSEE, WHETHER UNDER THEORY OF CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), PRODUCT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE. IN NO EVENT SHALL FRANCE & ASSOCIATES' LIABILITY UNDER THIS AGREEMENT EXCEED THE AMOUNT OF $50.
