Planboard Lesson Planning

Hello and welcome to this Productivity Spotlight Podcast. I'm Rachel, an educator and instructional technology advocate, here to share a powerful tool that has transformed how I plan, organize, and reflect on my teaching. PlanBoard by Chalk. PlanBoard is a free web-based lesson planning platform designed specifically for teachers. It allows you to create, organize, and manage daily and long-term lesson plans with a user-friendly drag-and-drop interface. My favorite part of PlanBoard is the ability to continually add to and reflect and change my lesson plans, despite putting it in and making that be the daily lesson plan. Whether you're in a classroom full-time, supporting students in a hybrid environment, or managing multiple preps, PlanBoard gives you a digital space to map out your teaching life with structure and ease. PlanBoard is so useful because as teachers, our time is stretched very thin. Between grading, meetings, parent communication, and keeping up with all the curriculum changes, lesson planning can sometimes feel rushed or chaotic. PlanBoard helps solve that problem. One of its best features is curriculum alignment. You can attach the standards it has a bank of state, national, or even customized to your lessons. It's huge when it comes to accountability and long-term planning. I can check off which standards I've already hit as I'm making my lesson plans. It also auto-populates your weekly schedule, so you're not constantly having to rebuild it. And because everything is saved in the cloud, you can access your plans anywhere, whether you're on your laptop at school or reviewing lessons from your phone at home. Here's a quick overview of how to get started with PlanBoard and three easy steps. First, set up your schedule. All you have to do is program this in one time, and it copies it each week for the rest of the school year. But you can also have a class day A and class day B. You can tell what classes you teach on which days and for how long. The platform then builds a calendar that reflects your real weekly teaching rhythm. Second, you just start adding lessons. For each class, you click on the calendar and type in your objective materials and instructions. You can add links, images, or even attach files, which is great for those multimedia lessons. I continuously have Google Docs, Word Docs, slideshows, Canva presentations that have been attached into my daily calendar. Third, you just duplicate and shift your plans as needed. If a snow day throws your week off or you want to repeat a lesson across multiple sections, PlanBoard lets you move, copy, or drag lessons to new dates or just new classes. Bonus, if you're part of a teaching team or mentoring a new educator, PlanBoard also allows sharing access so others can view or collaborate on your plans. This is especially helpful for me when those walk-through observations happen and my principal wants the lesson plans for the day. All I have to do is click PDF and share and it creates a lesson plan specifically for that day, for that class, in a downloadable format. Here's a few tips to get the most out of PlanBoard. Use the day view to focus on just one class at a time in order to avoid getting overwhelmed. Utilize color coding and labels to differentiate between preps or grade levels. This is my favorite. Each class is a different color. Set aside time weekly to review and adjust your plans. PlanBoard's search function makes it easy to revisit past lessons. This is also something I do when I am through teaching and I want to adapt a lesson even for the next class. In terms of accessibility, PlanBoard supports screen readers and is mobile friendly, which benefits educators with different working styles and needs. For students or administrators who may be reviewing plans, you can export those lessons as PDFs or shared view-only links, which makes the content more portable and easy to access. To wrap up, if you're looking for a lesson planning solution that's efficient, customizable, and designed with teachers in mind, PlanBoard is a great tool to explore. It eliminates the clutter of paper binders, reduces repetitive tasks, and helps you stay aligned with your instructional goals. I challenge you to give it a try this week, especially with back-to-school happening. Set up your schedule and create just one lesson in PlanBoard. I promise once you see how organized your week can look, you'll never go back to Google Docs or sticky notes. Thanks for tuning in. Until next time, stay inspired, stay organized, and keep leading with tech-savvy purpose.