Digital Organizing - Teacher Planning Book

Happy Summer! If you are like me, it is hard to not think about the fun/exciting aspects of teaching during summer: creating fun lessons, organizing, decorating, etc. One area that I have been focusing on is how I am going to organize plans, notes, etc. this year. Organizing is a weakness of mine, so I am determined to make it better this year! To start, I created a digital planning book on Google Slides. Visit the link below to make a copy for your own use!

Digital Planning Book

You will need to go to 'File' and 'Make a Copy' in order to edit your own planning book. The beginning page is linked to all of the different slides in the book. You can click on the word and then the link or go into presentation mode to directly click the link.

Hint: In order to read my slides easily, I right click in the slide area and zoom in

My external links take me to pages outside of the book that I need frequently. I have left two links in there for you to view. One is my to-do list. Again, you can just make a copy of this document and then change the link in your book (see below to learn how to change links).

To Do List

The other document is my student conference sheet. I am big into meeting with students during their writing time. I always start with the positive things I am noticing about their writing and then we move into 1 teaching point. I may notice other things and will put that in future teaching points.

Hint: I create a new sheet for each hour I teach and link the folder to my planning book. Within each sheet document, I create a tab for each student in that hour.

Student Conference Sheet

What I love about this digital planning book:

* In my lesson plans, I link all of my Slides, Handouts, Documents, etc. to easily access later on
* I have all of my needed documents/links in one place
* I can easily move to the place I need to with the content page
* I don't have to lug around a planner
* I can access this from my phone
* I can share this document with my administrator for weekly/quarterly lesson updates and for evaluation data
* I can change this and add on with items/pages I may need later in the school year
* The content page updates on its own when you add in other slides

How to Change Links in the digital planning book:

Within the Slides:
1. In the content page, type the page name (Example: Lesson Plans)
2. Highlight the word(s) - make sure to highlight the entire phrase
3. Right click
4. Click 'Link'
5. Click 'Slides in this presentation'
6. Pick the number of the slide you want to link
7. Click 'Apply'

External Links:
1. In the content page, type the page name (Team Folder)
2. Highlight the word(s) - make sure to highlight the entire phrase
3. Right click
4. Click 'Link'
5. Paste the link into the box
6. Click 'Apply'

How to Link a Google Document, Folder, Sheet, Presentation, etc.
1. Go to your Google Drive and find the Folder/Document you want to link
2. Right click on that document/folder
3. Click 'Get Shareable Link'
4. Copy the link
5. Follow Steps above (External Links) to attach link to your content