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Please identify the major tools being used in lesson planning in US schools (can range from specialized software for lesson planning to being part of learning management systems to generic file sharing options such as Google Apps) and key challenges in lesson plan creation and sharing.
Hello, and thank you for your request for a list of the major lesson planning tools being used in US K-12 schools, including any key challenges in the creation and sharing of lesson plans. The most useful sources were Educators Technology, EdSurge and AppedReview. In short, TES Teach, Common Curriculum, and Chalk.com are three of the more popular lesson plan programs available. These tools increase efficiency and data security, improve collaborations and sharing amongst team members and ensure proper integration of state and national standards. I have provided a deep dive of my findings below.
METHODOLGY
To determine the major lesson planning tools used by US K-12 schools, I first searched lesson plan resource sites like Educators Technology and EdSurge. While I could find no pre-compiled "best of" list (this appears to be a highly fragmented market with many players), I did find a number of the same software programs/apps recommended on each of these sites. I took that as a key indicator of popularity. I also relied on software review sites like AppedReview for top recommendations. The Google Play Store, Chrome Store and iTunes App Store provided available user ratings.
The tools listed below appear on multiple "recommended" lists and/or are highly rated by users. I also chose software that included lesson planning tools, rather than those that focus on providing pre-built lesson plans for sale. Lastly, each program noted below is designed for use in K-12.
I have provided an overview and any available user statistics on each. They are listed in no particular order.
LESSON PLANNING TOOLS
Educators Technology rates the TES Teach app as one of the most noteworthy. TES Teach is a lesson planning program available for free in both the iTunes store (as an iPad app) and as a Google Chrome extension. The iTunes product description says that you can "create digital lessons, presentations, and projects in 5 minutes!" TeachThought says, "simply choose your topic and by using the TES Resource tools provided such as Google Search, Educreations, Google Drive, Dropbox, uploads from your computer, and more, you can quickly build a lesson. All it takes is finding the resource and dragging it into place in your lesson."
TES Teach has a 4.5 star rating (out of 5) on Google Chrome with 179,593 listed users. The app has a 4 star rating (out of 4) on iTunes. The iTunes description claims more than two million global users, including educators, parents and students. AppedReview rates TES Teach with an overall 8.3 out of 10, when looking at efficiency (9.2/10), functionality (6.6/10), and design (9/10).
Common Curriculum improves educator efficiency by taking "t he busy work out of lesson planning," traditionally a very time consuming task. Software features include lesson planning, unit planning, real-time collaboration between teams, class websites, standards integration and templates. CC offers multiple pricing plans/options that are suitable for teachers, teams, schools and school districts. Prices range from free for the basic plan to $7.50 per teacher per month for the School plan.
Common Curriculum claims that over 100,000 teachers use their program. A Chrome extension is available, and it is rated 4 out of 5 stars and has 38,914 users. EdSurge reports a rating of 4.5/5 stars from 213 reviews.
Chalk.com has applications for both teachers and schools. For teachers, Chalk.com says their Planboard "makes it easy to create lessons in the intuitive online editor. Add in attachments, photos, and videos to bring your lessons to life. Then build lesson templates to cut prep time even further, and jump right into the classroom." The website describes Planboard as a "personal classroom assistant" that is accessible from anywhere, reduces classroom prep time, and allows educators to share lessons with their colleagues. Planboard allows for the integration of standards sets, lets teachers monitor lesson progression, and makes reusing lessons over time very easy. Chalk.com also offers grading and attendance features.
Chalk.com has a free Google Chrome extension that has a 5 star rating and 4,056 users. The free iTunes app has 3.5 out of 4 stars. AppedReview rates Chalk.com with an overall 8.4 out of 10 in terms of efficiency (10/10), functionality (7.3/10), and design (7.8/10).
Planbook, by Teacher Innovations, offers solutions for teachers, administrators and students. The Teacher Planbook allows educators to create "customizable lessons with up-to ten unique sections [and] schedule classes for full year, terms, or defined range." Additionally, the Planbook offers standards for "all 50 states, 68 national and international frameworks, 48 districts and dioceses," and more. With Planbook.com, administrators can view teacher plans online, provide feedback, and more. The website also says that plans can be shared with peers and lessons can be reused from year to year. Planbook.com's annual subscriptions are $12, with bonus months free, depending on the number of teachers that sign up.
Planbook.com is available in the Google Play Store, where it is rated 3.9 out of 5 stars with 99 reviews. The Google Store says the app has been downloaded between 10,000-50,000 times. The free iTunes app (available for both the iPad and iPhone) has a rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars.
Noted as a top choice by Educators Technology, PlanbookEdu allows educators to have access to their plans from anywhere. Premium features include "attach[ing] files, Common Core Standards, print, export to Word or PDF, [and] share with colleagues," according to the website. The free version of the software has limited features and the premium version (with all available features) costs $25 per year. According to their website, PlanbookEdu has users in all 50 states and in locations around the world.
PlaybookEdu's Planbooks can be shared with colleagues, administrators or substitute teachers. It fully integrates with Google Apps for Education and according to the website "provides a unified solution for schools already using Google for email, calendar and document management."
PlanbookEdu is available for free on the Google Play Store, where it has a rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars (but there are just 18 reviews). Google reports between 5,000 and 10,000 installs of the app. PlanbookEdu is not available in the iTunes store.
KEY BENEFITS TO LESSON PLAN PROGRAMS
An extensive search of industry publications and trusted media sources did not return extensive discussion around challenges with creating and sharing lesson plans. As noted above, these lesson plan programs all work to free up educator and administrator time for other activities.
Because they all operate on protected servers, the lesson plan tools offer administrators a level of security that ad-hoc systems cannot provide. According to Syncplicity, "teachers using freeware like Dropbox created security issues for some school districts, since it meant that educators were able to retrieve school information on personal devices like smartphones." They also say that these methods do not increase collaboration among educators and administrators in the same way as some of the platforms above.
Finally, standards are a hot button in education, and most of the tools are explicit in how they aid educators in this area. Lesson planning programs with built-in curriculum standards help educators keep up with requirements such as those related to the complicated common core system. Share My Lesson (a lesson plan marketplace) says, "adhering to state and national standards requires big transitions and changes to the professional lives of educators."
A NOTE ON LESSON PLAN MARKETPLACES
The National Education Association (NEA) indicates that there could be legal issues with teachers selling their lesson plans on online market sites like TeachersPayTeachers. You might expect that as the teacher created the content on their own time, they would own the copyright, the NEA warns that that may not be the case. They say that "if your employment contract assigns copyright ownership of materials produced for the classroom to the teacher, then you probably have a green light. Absent any written agreement, however, the Copyright Act of 1976 stipulates that materials created by teachers in the scope of their employment are deemed 'works for hire' and therefore the school owns them."
CONCLUSION
To sum it up, tools like TES Teach, Common Curriculum, and Chalk.com streamline the lesson plan process for educators and administrators by increasing efficiency and data security, improving collaborations and sharing amongst team members and ensuring proper integration of state and national standards.
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