@Claire: I think of the CMO as a glorified bookmark and a communication center. It helps us to record what was actually accomplished and keeps me in touch of where my children are in their books.
So is the “show upcoming assignments” with the next five assignments (Janelle mentioned) like having a detailed weekly overview assignment sheet like what I have been wanting? Yet it could change by the end of the week, I know.
Yes you can print the expanded view. It will show five assignments for each expanded item. Depending upon your number of resources used, it may take a few sheets of paper.
I like this idea, but I wish it were separated into days – either separate lists per day or a weekly chart. I know it may change, but a tentative weekly outlook would be great. It’s there but organized per subject/resource instead of per day which would better match how my brain views the week. Since I’m wishing, I also wish it would show however many lessons are scheduled that week (2 for dictation, 3 for science, etc). Instead of always five.
I will say I love the simplicity of the cmo and would eagerly return if I could either safely have my kids check their work (undo option) or print a weekly format that I understand could change based on actual work completed.
I have to agree with missceegee, although I do understand that the SCM don’t see it as something useful.
At the moment, because it is allowing my kids to be more independent on getting the work done, I’m using both the SCM Organizer (for the records, and for my organization) as well as the free Skedtracker online program (for my kids’ organization – seperate logins, etc.) I hate some things about Skedtracker – they make some things so much more difficult than SCM – and base everything on the hours. BUT – they are like SCMO in that if you don’t mark something as done – it is just moved to the next time it is scheduled.
One thing is Skedtracker DOES show a weekly overview with the assignments filled in. I like it because I can quickly look and see what is coming up. Also because I use AO, (and have added week numbers in) I can look ahead to the next week or two, scan the week numbers in the descriptions – and see what we are “behind” in, and schedule it as a “catchup” on a light day.
Maybe if I could relax enough to not care if a year of AO takes us more than a year, or some people would have problems with a math course taking more than a year (I gave up on that when it was obvious that wasn’t happening last year… lol) – I could just do the next thing. But I’m a very visual person and I like to see the assignments coming up.
That said – I would quickly switch my kids to marking on the SCMO if they had a login so they couldn’t go into the scheduler (maybe unless I set an option for their login?) and that I could easily undo any mistakes. I am actually considering it for my oldest for next year anyway – just nervous about mistakes…
I believe Janell said she has her children enter their completed work in the CMO. Maybe, you could make some mock subjects/resources and set a daily practice time? Then, you could have days, 1, 2, 3, and 4 be worked on and day 5 be finished for a few weeks just to make sure they understand the process and the importance of being careful about it. Some weeks could be completely different: worked on, finished, worked on, worked on, finished, etc. Once you know that they know what to do, you could have them enter it with you on real assignments for a bit and then take off on their own. Just thinking out loud here. My son can basically do this, just hasn’t. He goes over his list to complete for the day, mentioning what he’s finished as he goes over the list on CMO. I just happen to usually be in front of it with him. He hasn’t checked anything off at this point, but he does close things as he finishes them, so I’m fairly sure he could handle the worked on/finished part, too.
My 10 & 13 year olds have computers and would be able to mark fine, it’s the accidental finished that would get me most likely. I would like a way to uncheck an item finished by mistake. All that said, I will most likely have them checking next year. I’ve spent a lot of time with paper and a newer Mac program and nothing is as clean and simple as the organizer.