Planbook App Reviews

Using Planbook has made lesson plan writing so simple and quick. I used to spend hours writing lessons, especially if my schedule changed unexpectedly. Bumping and yanking lessons in Planbook saves time. Jeff Hellman provides the fastest response to questions Ive ever encountered for ANYTHING! I use it on my Mac, then upload using Dropbox to access it from other devices. It works wonderfully on my iPad as well. I use my iPad at work so I dont have to print out pages and pages of plans. If I need a sub, I just upload that days lesson onto our substitute finder website. Would highly recommend Planbook if you want to reclaim your life from hours of lesson planning.

I do not understand this app. I have read all the reviews, and I thought it would be great. There is nothing spectacular about it, and right now it is frozen. Maybe it needs more instruction to get me to the cool parts? I dont know. What I do know, is that I was using a free program that allowed me to look up standards, and it would insert them for me and was very easy to use. I think I will go back to it. This is too complicated or too simple, I am not sure which.

For a teacher who is in several classrooms a day this is an excellent resource. All of the required information about each lesson is attached to the lesson in plan book, so there is no lost time looking for things that were left in the last classroom or such. Also, everything used in the daily lessons are published online (if you choose) so all students are responsible for their own work and if they miss a day, they can take care of it themselves. The creator of the software is readily available for help. The only thing I wish that was better was the unit planning area, but Hellman knows about this, so I am anticipating this will be better in one of the free future upgrades. Update: Working in a school that could go to review. What I do with this program is what is being expected for success during the review. Thanks Jeff.

Unfortunatly I find this program hard to use. My lesson times keep on reverting to the wrong time. I cannot find a way to print my lesson plan. Overall, I am not very happy.

I am a music teacher and have been using planbook for months now and I love it. Each update has improved and simplified the application. Thank You Hellmansoft. I highly reccomend this app for all teachers.

I hate planning because I hate formatting and hand-writing my plans. This software has it all. Organized, perfect, and QUICK and EASY. I type my plans at home. Save to the web and BOOM open at work. Excellent software here.

I am thrilled by this latest version! I teach at a university. I started using Planbook at the beginning of last semester. I found it useful, but there were a few things I had trouble with. I emailed the developer and he was very quick to respond to my questions. He kept tweaking the app and making it better. I am now preparing for a new semester and am delighted with the latest version, especially the way it looks, feels and behaves on my iPad. I create my lessons on my MacBook but use my iPad in class because it is lighter and easier to carry around. One feature I especially wanted was the ability to make notes directly on my plan during class as I was teaching. (I teach five sections of the same class, so by the end of the day I may not remember something that happened in one section but not another.) With this latest version, that is going to be soooo easy! THANK YOU, JEFF HELLMAN!!!

Works great. Good way to organize your lessons, especially if you need to share them with other teachers, students or administators. Creator quick to respond when he is e-mailed questions (within 24 hours)

I am an ESL teacher who teaches in collaboration with three teachers (a caseload of 69 students), in five content area.I have tried (and ultimately rejected) many paper plan books, and Word/Excel documents (including ones I made myself). It was too time-consuming, and difficult to change with schedule interruptions. I just started using this app, but it was great to be able to cut and paste the mini-lesson from the districts pacing guides and lesson plans. This saves time! I can bump lessons when necessary, saving time! I can paste from our team-developed units! I also am making a little template (on Stickies) for small group instruction, cut and paste and just fill in the information. I am still learning some of the features, but so far a lifesaver, and easy to use.

This software has made such a huge difference to me. Im a good teacher but when you teach (ahem adjunct) at a number of different schools, it can be tough to stay organized, on top of your schedule, and make lesson planning a part of daily life. This software helped me stay on top of my various teaching responsibilities and it is backed up on a remote web site. So glad I chose this software over other more expensive products!

I had many issues with the app and contacted the author for help but was always brushed off. This app has MANY kinks in it that need to be fixed. It would duplicate classes and assignments after they were saved to the cloud. My students did not like the calendar interface either.

This application was already easy to use. Jeff is attentive to the needs of Planbooks users and there are many ways to get help should you ever have a question!

I just updated my app and found that the developer had made downloadable files available for many of the Common Core Standards. Last spring I had tried to find the standards in a compatable format, but never found any that worked. Then I tried to create my own, but never finished. I downloaded the literacy standards I needed just a few minutes ago, saved it to my computer, and then imported them. It worked perfectly and it is easy to navigate through the standards within the app. Having the math standards available soon with be fantastic!

This is an outstanding program! Even better is the amazing costumer service. I contacted Jeff Hellman about a problem (which turned out to be user error) and he was very quick to respond and help me out. I definitely appreciated his help and highly recommend Planbook!

I have never been a fan of a written planbook, opting to use page layout programs for recording lesson plans. With this app, I am now fully electronic with a legit planbook that can sync with my iPad (purchased the app for the iPad) and have access at home and on the go. I love being able to make changes from either my desktop or the iPad and know the file stays consistent. Tech support was fast and addressed issue fully. Will be the perfect app when Common Core Standards are automatically included and I dont have to copy and paste them all in by myself!

I teach high school. I bought this program because I thought it would be a great way to keep my new curriculum in one place as an alternative to a curriculum binder. It crashes…a lot. I am using it on a Macbook Air running Mac OS X 10.7.4. It crashes when I enter homework. It crashes when I try to attach worksheets. It crashes when I try to use the menus. I am to the point that even though I have entered nearly 1/3 of my curriculum, I am going to give up on this program and cobble something together. I have to, I start school in less than two weeks. I have sent feedback to the developers and if they can tell me the problem and/or fix it, I will adjust my review, but at the moment, this program crashes too frequently to be useful.

I love this program, but I have the same trouble as the previous reviewer in that this new version simply refuses to close without a forced quit. Not a serious problem, but certainly an annoying one.

I love how you can customoze the number of lessons and classes on any given day. The only change I would make would be to allow this app to sync up to the Planbook iPad app. I bought both and now I can really only use one of them at any given time. This is a problem if I dont bring my laptop to school everyday.

Upon trying to open up the program this morning, it literally told me,"Planbook is damaged and should be moved to the trash". Im so glad I shelled out $35 bucks for this. Im going to contact the company and if they resolve this matter to my satisfaction, I will ammend these comments.

I just recently purchased this app for both my ipad and macbook pro. I have to say, it is EXTREMELY user friendly, and I am obsessed with it! There are videos on the website if you have trouble using the app, and also if you email any further questions they respond within a few days. $30 seemed like a high price to me… but I sucked it up because I love it SO much!!!!