Teacher Day Book  1.1  -  Help  (from Help in program)
Teacher Day Book Contents


Welcome to Teacher Day Book. This program is designed to be used as a Day Plan Book by teachers. After doing a quick annual setup of the School Year and creating a TimeTable the Teacher Day Book is ready to use to keep track of daily lesson plans and assignments.

If you are not a teacher it is possible to use this program as a Daily Planner by modifying the setup routines. Please see Daily Planner Setup for further instructions.

Using the Day Book is easy. You can make it startup automatically when you Log On to your computer. The Day Book will open on the most current date according to your TimeTable. You enter information about any of your classes in the appropriate time slot, similar to using a paper day plan book. Advance ahead using the Calendar or Record Buttons and enter your plans for future classes. There is a  Notes window that can be used for keeping track of meetings, inservices, duties or whatever you need. You could also use the space in un-used Subject Lines to enter information similar to the Notes window.



Setup of Teacher Day Book
User Setup
School Year Setup
Holidays and Inservices Setup
TimeTable Setup
Daily Planner Setup

How to Use Teacher Day Book
Entering Lessons or Plans
Editing Subject Line
Editing the Time Line
Using the Record Buttons
Using the Monthly Calendar
Using Notes
Viewing the TimeTable
Viewing School Days
Viewing Partner's Days
Printing Day Book Pages
Changing Features - Options

Tips Using Teacher Day Book
Activating Pack To Go
Subject Lines Tip
Toolbar Tip

Teacher Day Book Reference
Main Window
    Main Menu
    File Menu
    Edit Menu
    View Menu
    Tools Menu
    Help Menu

License, Ordering, Support
License
Ordering
Support




Robertson Software Solutions
Copyright 2009
(http://www.mts.net/~jrobert1/)

Email: rssadmin@mts.net


User Setup


The very first thing Teacher Day Book must setup is how many teachers will be using it for the same set of classes. This is accomplished in User Setup. There are only 2 options.
The first option is one teacher who will teach all of the scheduled classes. The second option is two teachers who will share the same scheduled classes.

The next thing Teacher Day Book must setup is the type of School Cycle. The options here are the 6 Day School Cycle or the Weekday School Cycle.  This option is particularly important if you are sharing classes with a partner.

If two teachers are sharing a class each one needs to select which School Days or Weekdays are part of their schedule.

If you are the only teacher using the Day Book make sure to select all the days that are your responsibility.

Although any of the selections in User Setup can be changed after the initial setup it will require that you also select School Year Setup so the DataBase file can be re-written. This means that any lesson plans you have entered will be deleted as the new information is updated. It is not really a huge problem at the very beginning of the year, but after a month or so of classes you may not want to lose all the plans you have entered. The best course of action is to be accurate with all your selections right from the beginning of the year.




School Year Setup


The School Year Dates, the Holiday & Inservice Dates, and the TimeTable must be setup before using the Teacher Day Book for the first time, as well as for each new school year. Although any of the selections in School Year Setup can be changed after the initial setup it will require the DataBase file to be re-written. This means that any lesson plans you have entered will be deleted as the new information is updated. All your current selections are maintained while making any changes. The changes are not made final until you click the 'Finish Setup' button. It is not really a huge problem at the very beginning of the year, but after a month or so of classes you may not want to lose all the plans you have entered. The best course of action is to be accurate with all your selections right from the beginning of the year.

Select the School Year Terms: Start and End Dates for each term must be entered consecutively. These dates must NOT include breaks such as the Winter Holiday, Spring Break or Summer Holidays.

Select the Weekdays: These are the regularly scheduled days of school. Most schools use Monday to Friday, but it can really be any weekdays. The important thing to remember is that only these days will be included in your scheduling when you setup your TimeTable.

School Day Cycle: This option was set during User Setup. It is displayed for information only. To change it you must select User Setup from the Tools Menu.

Teacher(s): This option was also set during User Setup. It is displayed for information only. To change teacher names you must select User Setup from the Tools Menu.




Holidays and Inservices Setup


The School Year Dates, the Holiday & Inservice Dates, and the TimeTable must be setup before using the Teacher Day Book for the first time, as well as for each new school year. Although any of the selections in School Year Setup can be changed after the initial setup it will require the DataBase file to be re-written. This means that any lesson plans you have entered will be deleted as the new information is updated. All your current selections are maintained while making any changes. The changes are not made final until you click the 'Finish Setup' button. It is not really a huge problem at the very beginning of the year, but after a month or so of classes you may not want to lose all the plans you have entered. The best course of action is to be accurate with all your selections right from the beginning of the year.

Select the Holidays and Inservices: These dates are not counted as School Days. This is especially important for the 6 Day School Cycle so the Holiday or Inservice will not be included as a normal School Day. If the Holiday names do not follow your naming conventions then these can be edited through the Options > Holiday and Inservice Labels Dialog after the setup is complete.




TimeTable Setup


The School Year Dates, the Holiday & Inservice Dates, and the TimeTable must be setup before using the Teacher Day Book for the first time, as well as for each new school year. Although any of the selections in School Year Setup can be changed after the initial setup it will require the DataBase file to be re-written. This means that any lesson plans you have entered will be deleted as the new information is updated. All your current selections are maintained while making any changes. The changes are not made final until you click the 'Finish Setup' button. It is not really a huge problem at the very beginning of the year, but after a month or so of classes you may not want to lose all the plans you have entered. The best course of action is to be accurate with all your selections right from the beginning of the year.

Your TimeTable is saved separately from the School Year Information so you may easily update your TimeTable annually.

Time Slots: How you enter times is at your discretion. The suggested format is a range of time (i.e. 9:00 - 9:30). Entering text into the time slot will activate the row so you can enter information for each day. If a time slot is left blank the row is not active and will not be included as part of your TimeTable.

Periods: The left side of the TimeTable indicates AM or PM. Enter morning classes in the AM slots and PM classes in the PM slots. If you do not use all of the AM or PM slots just leave the time slot blank and that period will not be included in your TimeTable. The main reason for this is to balance out the display of information on each page of the Day Book since PM classes start at the top of the second page.

Lunch or Recess Breaks: Do not enter Lunch or Recess Breaks. Since the number of periods per day is limited to 12 it makes for easier reading if there are actually 10 or fewer classes scheduled, leaving more space at the bottom of the page for the Calendar and Notes window.




Daily Planner Setup


To use Teacher Day Book as a Daily Planner you will need to modify the information entered in the User Setup and School Year Setup.

Since this program was primarily designed to be used by teachers, the setup routines reflect the type of information required by a teacher, such as School Year Terms, School Day Cycles, Holidays and Inservices, TimeTables, etc. Also, some of the terminology used throughout the setup reflects use by a classroom teacher.

To use as a Daily Planner requires 'faking' some of this setup information. Each setup screen is shown below along with instructions on how to modify the setup.

Once all setup information is complete the program creates a database that contains all the dates selected. It tracks which days are part of the School Day Cycle, and which dates are Holidays or Inservices so they are not included as a School Day. It also creates a TimeTable as part of this setup.
By 'faking' some of this information the database can be created without including some of this information.

User Setup


What to enter...
1. Number of Teachers: Set to 1 teacher.
2. School Day Cycle: Set to Weekday Cycle. Check Monday to Friday. Uncheck Sunday and Saturday.
3. Name: Use as normal.
4. Click 'OK'.


School Year Setup


What to enter...
School Year Information Tab...
1. Start and End Dates for each Term: Use the first term to set a time period of 1 or more years.
2. Other Sections: Leave as is.




What to enter...
Holiday and Inservices Tab...
Since most School Years start in September and end in June the order of the holidays listed reflects this. The dates selected here are marked as non-school days when the database is written and therefore do not get counted on the 6 Day School Cycle.
Enter the dates of normally scheduled holidays. The order and name of the holiday does not really matter. It is the same for inservices. Just select dates that are your regularly scheduled holidays.
Note: You must select at least 1 date to by-pass the error checking procedures.



What to enter...
TimeTable Tab...
The error checking procedures require at least 1 time slot to be entered. To by-pass this you must create a blank TimeTable.
Enter anything you want in the first time slot. A space would be useful since this will not show later on. This will activate the rest of the row where you would normally enter the scheduled classes. Now just leave this row blank.
Click the 'Save TimeTable' button and proceed to the 'Review Setup' tab.
If all the information is correct, click the 'Finish Setup' button to create the database and you're done.

To actually use the Teacher Day Book as your Daily Planner you can use these help screens as normal, keeping in mind they were written to be used by a classroom teacher.


Entering Lessons or Plans


To enter information about your lesson or plans Double Click to the right of the insertion marks '>>' for the specific time slot. An Edit Details Dialog will open so you can type in the information for this time slot. There is a total limit of 250 characters that can be entered. Four lines of text will always be visible.

You can also Right Click on the same area to display a Context Menu. This allows you to not only select the same Edit Details Dialog, but to also 'Magnify' the text, do quick edits of 'Cut All', 'Copy All', 'Paste', and 'Erase'. You can also access the Options Dialog and Help from this context menu.

Very Important!
After entering the information you must click 'OK' in the Edit Details Dialog to save the information. This will automatically update your database file. If you have used any of the quick edit items from the context menu your database is automatically updated.

The Edit Menu items (Cut, Copy, Paste, Erase, and Select All) are not available for the Edit Details Dialog since you cannot leave this dialog until it is dismissed by clicking 'OK' or 'Cancel'. However, these items are available in the lower area of the dialog. The appropriate Ctrl keys are also available for editing.

The Edit Menu item, 'Undo', is available for any changes made to your lesson plans after dismissing the Edit Details Dialog.






Editing the Subject Line


You can edit any of the Subject Lines of text by Double Clicking on the Subject Line. An Edit Subject Line Dialog will open so you can type in the information for this time slot. This allows you to edit any Subject independently from the TimeTable. You might also do this to use a blank Subject Line for other information specific for the date.

You can also Right Click on the same area to display a Context Menu. This allows you to not only select the same Edit Subject Line Dialog, but to also do quick edits of 'Cut All', 'Copy All', 'Paste', and 'Erase'. You can also access the Options Dialog and Help from this context menu.

In the details box below the Subject Line you could enter any information for that day instead of using the Notes window. This would give you more space than is provided by the Notes window and provide a title for that information. To enter information in the details box see Entering Lessons or Plans.

Very Important!
After entering the information you must click 'OK' in the Edit Subject Line Dialog to save the information. This will automatically update your database file. If you have used any of the quick edit items from the context menu your database is automatically updated.

The Edit Menu items (Cut, Copy, Paste, Erase, and Select All) are not available for the Edit Subject Line Dialog since you cannot leave this dialog until it is dismissed by clicking 'OK' or 'Cancel'. The appropriate Ctrl keys are also available for editing.






Editing the Time Line


You can edit any of the Time Lines of text by Double Clicking on the Time Line. This allows you to edit any Time independently from the TimeTable. An Edit Time Line Dialog will open so you can type in the information for this time slot. You might also do this to use a blank Time Line for other information specific for the date.

You can also Right Click on the same area to display a Context Menu. This allows you to not only select the same Edit Time Line Dialog, but to also do quick edits of 'Cut All', 'Copy All', 'Paste', and 'Erase'. You can also access the Options Dialog and Help from this context menu.

In the details box below the Time Line you could enter any information for that day instead of using the Notes window. This would give you more space than is provided by the Notes window and provide a time for that information. To enter information in the details box see Entering Lessons or Plans.

Very Important!
After entering the information you must click 'OK' in the Edit Time Line Dialog to save the information. This will automatically update your database file. If you have used any of the quick edit items from the context menu your database is automatically updated.

The Edit Menu items (Cut, Copy, Paste, Erase, and Select All) are not available for the Edit Time Line Dialog since you cannot leave this dialog until it is dismissed by clicking 'OK' or 'Cancel'. The appropriate Ctrl keys are also available for editing.






Using the Record Buttons


The Record Buttons appear at the top centre of your Day Book. They are used to advance or backup by a single day.


You may notice that the Day Book does not always stay on the particular date that you clicked. This behaviour depends on how the Day Book is setup and which options are selected. See Viewing School Days or Viewing Partner's Days.


Using the Monthly Calendar


The Monthly Calendar appears in the lower left or right corner of the Day Book. It can be removed from view easily if it hides any of the information about your classes. Choose View > Calendar to show or hide the Calendar. There is a button on the Toolbar that will accomplish the same thing.

To change the position of the Calendar from the lower left or right choose Tools > Options > Settings and select your choice of position. The Notes window position is also located on this page. There is a button on the Toolbar that will accomplish the same thing.

The Calendar can be positioned anywhere on the screen by clicking the Title Bar area and dragging it to a new location. However, when you startup Teacher Day Book at a later date the Calendar (and Notes) will be positioned at the bottom of the screen according to previous settings.

Use the Monthly Calendar to move forward or backward through your scheduled classes.