Classmaker - Lesson Planning Software

The school-wide lesson planning solution.

The Scouting Movement

As part of my contribution towards Scouts I am offering free single user licences for the use of Adult Leaders in Scouting. See About me for more details.

Classmaker Promotion

Printing is disabled in the unregistered version of Classmaker. In all other respects it is fully functional. However the ability to print is, I know, central to using Classmaker effectively. Email me an exported unit plan from Classmaker (exported unit plans appear in the C:\Classmaker\Transfer directory as *.dat files) that your relief teacher could teach from and I will email you a free single user Classmaker licence valid for three months. Include in your email, your full contact details, including your name, address and telephone number plus the contact details of your school. They will appear on your licence.

Classmaker now has full database export to disk by user. The resulting collection of HTML files and file attachments comes with a searchable directory structure.

Most software packages don't have any kind of export capability and if they do, it usually consists of a flat file for every table in the database in multiple text delimited formats eg. *.csv, *.rtf, *.xml etc. The problem with this is that data exported as flat files is next to useless to users, because the relations between tables have been lost during the flat file conversion. Classmaker overcomes standard database export uselessness by recreating the hierarchical relations between records using the file system's directory structure. While this does mean thousands of directories and files are created during a large export, the process is still quite fast. It takes less than five minutes to export my 100+Mb database to disk, including all it's file attachments.

Decided it's a good idea to have a common forum where we can chat about using Classmaker, so have created a Yahoo Group called Classmaker. See the home page on this site to join up.

I've been using Classmaker for more than five years now and figured you might be interested to know what I like about it and what I don't like.

Like

1. Daily Summary report. I like this feature because I can print out the day's tasks without having to worry about formatting the output as the rows automatically stretch to accomodate the text within the tallest column and it automatically aggregates different Units Plans into a single report.

2. File attachments under the Unit Plan screen. I find this feature really useful, because I know that all my data is sitting in a single database that is painless to backup and copy onto a separate media for safety.

3. The Lesson Evaluation criteria in the Lesson Search tab. I like to be able to associate my reflections with the Excellent Lesson or Bad Lesson criteria for future reference.

4. The Long Term plan screen. I frequently look back through these and it's much easier to find what you're looking for using the Subject rows.

5. Date entry not requiring separators. Other software products insist on you entering dates using separators.

6. The Weekly Calendar display. I find this so much easier to use than other Calendaring packages that won't allow you to use the same time slots across days for a single lesson.

7. The instant startup because the database is always up and waiting to go and Classmaker remembers your last session preferences.

Disike

1. Full text search throughout the entire database is not available.

2. Would like reporting to be more flexible. The Microsoft Word mail merge makes a good job for a report writer, but I don't like having to use the Print to HTML file feature as it's data source.

3. Sometimes Long Term plan titles overlap if you don't have a wide enough screen display.

I can't imagine working without Classmaker now. If I didn't have it I would use a directory structure with a new directory each week, Microsoft Word documents for the lessons, Google Tool bar for full text searching of the documents and Winzip for my backup. While this would work, it would be much slower to operate with much higher potential for data loss and not having the Daily Summary report would cause a significant loss in productivity.

Welcome teachers from Canterbury. If you are here as a result of the flyer I sent to you yesterday, start by downloading and installing the software first. Have a look at the tutorials in conjunction with the software. There is also substantial documentation in the User Guide inside the software. Any questions feel free to email me. My email address is sales@creditscore.co.nz

Cheers
Rob Kellock

Added a Microsoft Word 97-2003 mail merge report into the directory C:\Classmaker\Reports. Microsoft Word mail merge makes a good interactive report writer. Just print your reports to HTML file and use them as the recipient list in Microsoft Word. The sample report is your classic Unit of Work with a cover page followed by each lesson to a page. The sample report uses either the Print All (Print All Lessons for Today) or Print Unit (Print Entire Unit) reports from the Print Lessons screen.

I'm pleased to announce that Classmaker now works on all Microsoft's 64 bit operating systems. The backing up issue turned out to be very simple, the Firebird database gets installed under C:\Program Files (x86)\Firebird in the 64 bit OS's but C:\Program Files\Firebird in the 32 bit OS's. This was causing problems for the backup batch file.

From April 01, 2010 Classmaker will require an annual licence fee to operate. What impact will this have on you? If you are an existing user, email me your full contact details, including your name, address and telephone number plus the contact details of your school. Include a copy of your Classmaker++.bak file in the same email as an attachment. Do this before April 01, 2010 and I will email you a free single user licence for the 2010/11 year.

There could be money in this change for you too! The licence fee structure includes a commission to any teacher that purchases Classmaker and then sells a Classmaker multi-user licence to their school. See the home page on this site for further details.

A business and economics teacher at an all girls high school from Jamaica has told me that the Database backup batch file does not work on Vista X64, hence my restriction to 32 bit Windows operating systems for now. She is managing the problem in the interim by simply Stopping ClassmakerService, copying the Classmaker++.gdb database file to another location and Starting ClassmakerService again. This is what her first email to me said. "I just want to say that I have been using your software from September (2009) to organize my lesson plans, and It is pretty cool." What I'm really impressed with is that she only needed to contact me to tell me that my software didn't work, not how to use it. Wow!

Added some video tutorials of Classmaker in Shockwave Flash format.

I'm pleased to announce that Classmaker now works on Microsoft's Vista. The problem wasn't Classmaker, but the Firebird database it uses. This download upgrades from Firebird 1.5 to Firebird 2.0 which appears to run faster than Firebird 1.5. Please note the warning about Firebird's Control Applet and Vista on the download page and ensure that you uncheck the Firebird Control Applet option when prompted.

I give up! Microsoft's Vista is unstable and it's too early to migrate Classmaker to it just yet. Maybe in 12 months time when Vista Service Pack 2 is released. In the meantime, this download upgrades from Firebird 1.0 to Firebird 1.5, the latest stable version of the Firebird database.

Just discovered that Classmaker does NOT work on Windows Vista. Something different about how it's Services work. Will be upgrading the software to cope with these changes shortly. In the meantime, Classmaker still works on XP, 2000, NT4, ME and 98SE.

Drop me an email with any suggestions you have to improve your experience of using Classmaker. Your feedback is appreciated.

Well, Classmaker is finished at last! As you no doubt know, software is never truly finished. When it stops being maintained it is no longer in use. But what I can say is that Classmaker's feature set is finished. The to-do list has been exhausted and apart from bug fixes and usability enhancements, I have no plans to extend Classmaker further.

Right now, I am working on Classmaker's documentation. Inside Classmaker you will find a Long Term plan called User Guide. This contains the help file so far. Eventually, I will probably convert it into your typical help file, but while it's a work in progress, that's where most of Classmaker's documentation resides.

For Classmaker support email Rob Kellock:sales@creditscore.co.nz
Last modified: 2012-02-02

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