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Book/DVD Organizer vs Online Organizer
- This topic has 9 replies, 7 voices, and was last updated 12 years, 11 months ago by
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Hi,
I am “mostly” a CM educator, having geared off course just a bit through the years. I still plan to use our Sonlight Core for the living books for history/geography since we have been following their course of history from the beginning with my now 7th grade daughter. I like very much what I see with the online organizer. It looks like it would work very well with the way I like to schedule (even though I have the Sonlight schedule in the IG) because I can just transfer those chapters from that guide over to the online planner and then add it all my other subjects that we pull from other sources. Just that this way, I have all the subjects scheduled in one place on the computer.
But then I came across the book/DVD planner. Is there a reason I need both or is that for folks that wouldn’t want it online? Can you compare the two or tell me advantages one has above the other?
Am I correct in saying it work this way? If I do the trial now and I go through and put in all the rest of the books that we need to complete for this year (since that is about 30 days worth), I can, each night, print out the next day’s schedule for my daughter. She then marks off what she’s done. I take her page and go to my computer that evening and reflect those on the computer (or she can do that if I decide to let her) and then it updates everything for me to print the next day. And that I do need to print it daily for that day? It won’t show the next few days work? I ask that because some days we like to read ahead in a book or two to allow for our homeschool co-op day. How would that work if it doesn’t show the next few days assignments in advance?
And if I do the trial now and decide it does work for us, will my information be stored there when I decide to subscribe to it for the next year (say this summer)? When the subscription is about to terminate, do you get a reasonable time notice?
Thanks so much! I know that’s alot of questions. I’m just trying to file all of this away in my brain and make sure I am understanding it correctly before I dive in and begin a trial to see how it works. 🙂
Blessings,
Tammy
Tammy, at the bottom of each lesson is a blue field that says “show upcoming assignments”. If you click on this it will expand and it will show you the next three assignments. Unfortunately I can’t give you information about the other question you had, if they keep the information from the trial version. I activated my account before the trial expired so I am not sure about that.
Christine
The Planning Your Charlotte Mason Education book and DVD walk you through how to plan your entire home school from start to finish. The CM Organizer tells you what to do next, today.
You have described how the Organizer works fairly well. The only thing is that it doesn’t tell you what to do a few days from now because it has no way to know what you’ll be doing several days into the future. It simply tells you what is next based on what you did today.
If you use the free trial, we will keep any data you enter for at least a year after the trial expires. You can enter information into the Organizer during the trial and subscribe later, and your information and plans will all be there waiting for you.
Subscriptions auto-renew at the end of each subscription period (monthly or yearly). As above, if a payment doesn’t go through and your account cancels accidentally, your data is saved and will still be there when your account is reactivated.
Let me know if you have any other questions or if I need to make something more clear.
Tammy, the Organizer and the Planning Your CM Education are different products. I use them both–Planning to get my books and things in a row so I know what I want to cover when, and then I enter it into the Organizer and THAT gives me my daily assignments and keeps my records for me.
You can see on any given resources the next few assignments in it–that will solve your “what if we read ahead” question. Also, when you check off, say, Chapter 5, Chapter 6 will pop up–if you check that off, Chapter 7 (or whatever you entered next for the assignment) will pop up. But I often pull up the button that shows the next few assignments to see what’s up.
Yes, if you print, you need to print it daily. It won’t know today what you can work on on Friday because it doesn’t yet know how much you’ll check off tomorrow. 🙂
Michelle D
When you say Book/DVD Organizer, are you referring to the Planning Your CM Education?? If so, those are two completely different products. I have the “Planning…” and use the online Organizer (which at this point, I would not want to live without).
Yes, your information will be stored (I used the free trial and, yes, my hard work of plugging subjects in were saved).
If your dd reads ahead then you just keep clicking the circle that says “Finished” and that subject/book is the only thing affected. I do that all the time, especially if I get behind marking things off or if my son decides to read ahead. I think it’s best to say that a subject has been worked on rather than thinking in terms of the day. I hope that made sense, it does to me 🙂 I think that is the wonder of the Organizer. It works out/keeps track of what is completed rather than making you a slave to the day that it was scheduled (things happen, kids get sick, etc.). It stays where you put it until you mark it Finished/Worked On.
I hope that made sense. Maybe someone else will chime in with that explanation or at least elaborate on it.
Others will be able to explain the online organier to you better as I have only used the free trial. If I remember correctly if you enter all your lessons it automatically shows the next lesson once you click on one as completed. Then you could continue to click on done until you reach the end of the lessons that you’ve completed.
If you are refering to the Planning your Charlotte Mason book and dvd, it’s not quite the same thing. In fact, you really have to plan your year out in paper (the book comes with a CD rom of the forms I do believe, or you can photo copy form from the book. The online planner is a tool to help keep it all organized, help prepare reports, etc. The DVD/book is a guide book to help you get started with Charlotte Mason education, explaining the hows and whys of her methods, how to go about planning your long term goals, and organize your plans by determining how to use your resources to accomplish your goals by terms, weeks and day. It’s an excellent resource for a beginner (like I was when I bought it last year) and I plan to revisit it over the summer as I prepare for next year.
Okay, thanks so much for all the replies. You all answered my questions and it makes sense. It really works as I was thinking except that I do think I need both since as someone said planning it out on paper is necessary first. If I have the Planning your Charlotte Mason book/dvd, then that just does what I would probably be doing on paper anyway before I went to the computer to enter it all there. So that makes sense.
Thanks for the info on the trial and saving the information. That is really good to know. That way I can go ahead and try it out now for the remainder of this school year.
But just to be clear. Let’s just say that my daughter was assigned Chapters 1-2 one day in her book, Martin Luther. The next day had Chapters 3-5. The printed sheet that she has would show the next 3 day’s assignments coming up for that subject? And if she read all of those chapters (1-5), then I would just go in that night and mark them completed and when I print out the next day’s schedule it would just show that day’s assignment, say chapters 6-7, but then all show the next 3 day’s assignment somewhere on that page? Or does it only show those next 3 day’s assignments if I pull up that tab and look at it on the computer (and not on the printed page)?
Hope that makes sense. Other than that, I think I understand. I know I want both the Charlotte Mason book/dvd and definitely the online organizer. It sounds awesome!
Thanks so much for the replies and info!
Blessings,
Tammy
Every time you check somthing off it advances. It will always show three assignments beyond the current assignment being worked on.
With most books, I have a chapter as a division – but if you are following a plan or something, you could make each division a “lesson” or reading and include more than one chapter in the description.
If you open up the “show upcoming assignments” on the screen before you print it, it is printed as well (although there are no “worked on” or “finished” boxes beside the extra assignments – I’ve requested that). If the “show upcoming assignments” is not open on the screen when you print, it isn’t printed on the sheet.
Same with “assignments not normally scheduled” – you can open up a few extra assignments, and if they are open before you print, they will print on the to-do list (without any indication that they are not normally assigned that day – except they wlll be after all the other ones)
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