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Hi all, just a quickie. I'm thinking about using a website for tracking and online journals. I wondered if any of you had or have used Tapestry or Learning Book. If so, what was good/bad? Would you recommend? My early years places are full and I have an assistant. Ive used ********* and hated it. far too "busy" and found that the customer service was rude and pretty useless.
Any advice greatly appreciated. thank you
I use 2 simple for observations and found them good, and with excellent customer service but they don't do online journals.Quote:
Originally Posted by mookie
Sorry, I'm no help at all. I'm "default pencil".
Still, at least I've never had my entire learning records wiped out at a stroke like one online LJ provider managed to do last year.
Paper doesn't crash or get hacked. :D
I like Tapestry for obs and parent input and parent viewing. Parents love it, easy for them to view and add comments to obs and post their own obs. Lots of school and group settings use it so you can transfer LJs on when children transfer etc.
But it is not great at tracking- they are working on new features for this. So there is no easy way to have a 1-page at-a-glance tracker of an individual child's EYFS progress over all Areas term by term from start date to present. There are lots of fancy analysis tools but I do not find them useful for just the handful of children I have, the analysis is better for group settings.
But it is a good price and you get a discount if your LA is a member of the EY Forum which owns Tapestry. And they are working on all kinds of new features like daily diary, newsletter functions etc.
Worth doing the free trial though.
I've just stopped using tapestry and gone back to paper and pen- I have a week to view diary for observations (all children in one diary) and make short note in there, if I make a longer observation or take a photo I make a note in the observation diary. I've then got observations to draw on for termly (ish) summaries. I find I can look at the Early Learning Goals and know which statements best fit the children in my care. I was finding tapestry required too much screen time. I found it a bit too tick box and 'computer says no'. For new children starting with me I now use 'What to expect when' which is very parent friendly and relate to the Early Learning Goals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bunyip
You are right. Happened to me too. I have an assistant and think they may prefer maintaining their stuff online...
I've stuck with Orbit. I was very fortunate in the fact that I was up-to-date and organised last year, not always, as each month I had downloaded and printed from each child's Orbit account so it resulted in me not loosing printed data. Yes I lost data on screen but each child's file is complete to date. I find Orbit ticks all my boxes. I am still organised and print monthly in case they do loose data again. They have undated the site many times and I like it. I find it easy. Plus having only 5 eyfs children it is free. I shall stay with it for now and see what progresses.Quote:
Originally Posted by mookie
Except I had one parent loose the paper Lj,another left it out in the snow and another decided she would keep as I could always do another. I now do an online one but print it out so if it crashes I e got a paper copy and if parent looses it I have the online as back up.Quote:
Originally Posted by bunyip
Very sensible.Quote:
Originally Posted by blue bear
One of the things I learnt from Forum is to let parents view LJs at my place but they don't take them home.