The
Interactive Lesson Planner is a highly functional tool for organizing, editing,
creating, and transferring lesson plans. Whether you received the Lesson
Planner with a module, such as Lesson Plans for Character Education on
CD-ROM, or downloaded the Lesson Planner off our web site
(http://www.masterteacher.com/dnd), we think you’ll find it to be one of the
most useful pieces of software in your repertoire.
Note: For comprehensive installation instructions,
please scroll to the end of this document.
The
Lesson Planner essentially allows you to search for and organize your lessons
based upon a variety of criteria, including subject area, emphasis, and grade
level. Additionally, the Lesson Planner
provides you a template for creating and editing lesson plans, and allows you
to transfer lesson plans to disk for use on other computers or by other
colleagues.
The
Interactive Lesson Planner is divided into five main sections, organized by
tabs that you can find along the top of the program window. These include the following: (1) Home,
(2) Search, (3) Create, (4) Transfer,
and (5) Undelete.
Besides
housing this introduction, the Home
screen allows you to see what modules you have installed, check your Transfer
Drive for lesson plans that you’ve modified, and check the Internet for any
program updates or downloadable modules.
This information appears in the three windows at the left of the Home screen.
In
addition, by clicking the Preferences button on the Home screen, you can customize the program for your needs. In Preferences, you can do such
things as turning the “Mouse Help” on and off, turning the sound on and off,
setting your Transfer Drive (that is,
the drive to which and from which you will transfer lesson plans when using
them on multiple computers or sharing them with colleagues), and specifying
your preferred subjects and emphases.
Note: If you specify subjects, emphases, and grade levels in the Preferences window, any searches you perform will be automatically narrowed only to lesson plans that pertain directly to your specified subjects, emphases, and grade levels. This is very useful when you have a lot of lesson plans you are trying to filter though. However, keep in mind: Setting these Preferences may significantly limit your searches.
Search
The Search
screen will allow you to search for lesson plans by specifying the modules,
subjects, emphases, and grade levels that are relevant to your needs. In the Grade Level, Modules, Emphasis, and Subject
windows on the left, simply click on the relevant search items, and a list of
relevant lesson plans will appear in the Lessons window on the right.
Note: When a search criterion is selected, its color changes to red. When it is deselected, its color is black. When you scroll over hot-linked text with your mouse pointer, the text turns blue.
Keep in mind when searching that each criterion you
highlight within a certain box expands
the search, while highlighting criteria in multiple boxes narrows the search.
That is, if you highlight both Grades 1 and 2 in the Grade Level box, the engine will return more lesson plans than
it would if you had only Grade 1 highlighted.
However, if you have Grade 1 highlighted in the Grade Level box and “Art” highlighted in the Subject box, your search will narrow only to those lesson
plans that are relevant to both Grade 1 and “Art.”
Once you have found a lesson plan you want to work
with, simply click on its title to view or edit the lesson. Once the lesson template is on the screen,
you can change the lesson plan as you wish, save your changes, print the lesson
plan, or use the arrow keys at the bottom of the toolbar on the right to move
among the lessons in your search list.
Note: If you purchase both the elementary and secondary versions of a MASTER Teacher lesson planner module--for example, Lesson Plans for Character Education--Elementary and Secondary Editions--you will likely see duplicate titles in the Lessons window on the Search screen. This duplication can be attributed to the presence of separate elementary and secondary versions of the same lesson.
Note: If you should ever want to clear all your highlighted criteria on the Search screen and start a fresh search, press the Clear button in the toolbar.
Create
Clicking on the Create
tab brings up a blank lesson plan template that you can use to create, edit,
and save your own lessons. Along with
the ability to type or paste content into the body of the lesson, the template
allows you to assign a title, subjects, emphases, grade levels, objectives, and
materials necessary.
The lesson template contains much of the
functionality of a standard word processor--such as bold, italics, underline,
and bulleted lists. Lessons that you
create or edit can be saved to a Personal Module that appears in the Modules box
under the Search tab. These lesson plans can also be printed for
use in your class. Simply open a lesson
and click the Print button in the
toolbar.
Transfer
The Transfer
tab allows you to transfer lesson plans to and from your Transfer
Drive. (Note: You can specify the drive you want to use as your Transfer Drive
by clicking the Preferences button on the Home
screen.) If
you have lesson plans on your Transfer
Drive, they will appear in the window on
the right. Lessons that you have saved
within the program (that is, lessons that are contained in your Personal
Module in the Lesson Planner) appear in the
window on the left. To copy files to
and from your Transfer Drive, simply highlight the lessons you want to transfer
and use the corresponding arrows to transfer the lessons.
Note: You can specify any hard drive, floppy drive, or network drive as the Transfer Drive for lessons.
Undelete
The Undelete
tab will allow you to retrieve files that you have previously deleted from your
Personal Module. Incidentally, this screen will also allow
you to permanently delete lessons that
you are certain you will never use again.
Note: Only lessons from your Personal Module (that is, lessons you have modified and saved) can be deleted. Lessons that are a part of modules you purchased cannot be deleted.
Miscellaneous
About Adobe Acrobat Reader
The Interactive Lesson Planner requires that the user
have Adobe Acrobat Reader 4.0 installed.
This software is included on the installation CD-ROM for this program
and is also available for download free of charge at http://www.adobe.com.
At this time, the Interactive Lesson Planner does not
support use of Acrobat Reader 5.0. Support
for Acrobat Reader 5.0 will be available in subsequent versions of the lesson
planner. Please check for regular
program updates at http://www.masterteacher.com/dnd.
Mouse Help
Mouse Help is a feature that displays a banner at the
bottom of every lesson planner screen, explaining the purpose of buttons over
which you run your mouse pointer. If
you want to know what a button does, simply put your mouse pointer on the
button and look at the bottom of the program window.
Saving Lessons
Whenever you save a lesson, it is placed in the Personal
Module on the Search screen and will be available for editing at that location.
Printing
To print any lesson, simply open the lesson and click
the Print button in the toolbar, and
then click the OK button in the Print
dialog box to begin printing.
Note: If there are extra pages associated with a lesson, clicking the Print button will open multiple Print Previews and Print dialog boxes.
The Toolbar
The toolbar on the right side of the program gives
you easy access to a variety of editing and navigation functions. If a button on the toolbar is highlighted in
blue, that means the function is available for the screen you are using. If the button is gray, the function is
unavailable.
Note: The arrow keys at the bottom of the toolbar allow you to move between lessons that were retrieved in your search, and the number of lessons retrieved in your search will appear immediately below the arrow keys.
Exiting
When closing the program, you must use Exit from the File menu. The reason for this is to eliminate data loss.
If you purchased a lesson
planner CD-ROM from The MASTER Teacher. . . .
1. Put the CD-ROM into the drive, open My
Computer, and double-click the CD-ROM drive icon (usually D:).
2. In the CD-ROM window, double-click the wininstall.exe
file. This will bring up the
installation program for the lesson planner and any modules that you purchased.
3. If you haven’t already installed the lesson
planner engine--that is, the base software for all lesson planner products sold
by The MASTER Teacher--then you must do so now by following the bulleted
directions below. Note: If you installed the lesson planner engine
previously with another MASTER Teacher product, DO NOT INSTALL THE LESSON
PLANNER ENGINE AGAIN. Skip the bulleted
instructions and proceed to step 4.
·
In
the upper left-hand section of the wininstall window, look for Install
Program or Modules for: Lesson Planner.
·
Type
ENGINE in the passkey box and click the icon.
4. Once the lesson planner engine has been
installed (or if you installed it previously with another MASTER Teacher
product), you must now install any modules that you purchased.
5. Go back to the wininstall window and
look for Install Program or Modules for: Lesson Planner in the upper
left-hand corner.
6. In the passkey box, delete the word “ENGINE”
and type the passkey for the lesson planner module you wish to install. This passkey can be found on the back of the
CD-ROM jewel case.
7. Once you have entered your passkey, click
the icon to the left to begin the installation process. Follow the directions that appear on the
screen.
8. Once the installation has been completed,
you will find a “Lesson Planner” icon on your desktop. This icon launches the program.
If you downloaded the
Interactive Lesson Planner off our web site. . . .
1. Open the self-extracting executable file
you downloaded off the MASTER Teacher web site. This file will more than likely be named PlannerEngineXX.exe
(with XX being the version number).
2. Opening this file will create a folder
called Lesson Planner XX on your desktop.
3. Open this folder, and double-click the setup.exe
file.
6. The program will now launch the installer
and will lead you through the installation process.
7. Once the installation has been completed,
you will find a “Lesson Planner XX” icon on your desktop. This icon launches the program.
Note: After installation, you can delete the
PlannerEngineXX.exe file and the “Lesson Planner XX” folder from your desktop.
If you purchased a lesson
planner CD-ROM (Mac Version) from The MASTER Teacher. . . .
1. Put the CD-ROM into the drive, and
double-click on your CD-ROM drive icon.
2. In the CD-ROM window, double-click the macinstall
file. This will bring up the
installation program for the lesson planner and any modules that you purchased.
3. If you haven’t already installed the lesson
planner engine--that is, the base software for all lesson planner products sold
by The MASTER Teacher--then you must do so now by following the bulleted
directions below. Note: If you installed the lesson planner engine
previously with another MASTER Teacher product, DO NOT INSTALL THE LESSON
PLANNER ENGINE AGAIN. Skip the bulleted
instructions and proceed to step 4.
·
In
the upper left-hand section of the macinstall window, look for Install
Program or Modules for: Lesson Planner.
·
Type
ENGINE in the passkey box and click the icon.
4. Once the lesson planner engine has been
installed (or if you installed it previously with another MASTER Teacher
product), you must now install any modules that you purchased.
5. Go back to the macinstall window and
look for Install Program or Modules for: Lesson Planner in the upper
left-hand corner.
6. In the passkey box, delete the word “ENGINE”
and type the passkey for the lesson planner module you wish to install. This passkey can be found on the back of the
CD-ROM jewel case.
7. Once you have entered your passkey, click
the icon to the left to begin the installation process. Follow the directions that appear on the
screen.
If you downloaded the
Interactive Lesson Planner (Mac Version) off our web site. . . .
1. Open the *.sit file you downloaded off The
MASTER Teacher web site. This file will more than likely be named PlannerEngineXX.sit
(with XX being the version number).
2. Opening this file will create a folder
called Lesson Planner XX on your desktop.
3. Open this folder, and double-click the install
file. This will now launch the
installer and will lead you through the installation process.
4. Once the installation has been completed,
you will find a “Lesson Planner XX” icon on your desktop. This icon launches the program.
Note: After installation, you can delete the
PlannerEngineXX.sit file and the “Lesson Planner XX” folder from your desktop.