REGISTRATION AND SETUP
Please click on New School? Register Here! And provide all the basic information requested. After that our technical expert will consult with you about how your school operates, what services you provide in order to properly setup your school account, and provide login/password access.
Then please read the overview. Our technical experts will also give you an online demonstration using phone and screen sharing with TeamViewer. You will need to download the free software TeamViewer from the internet and install it on your computer.
Subsequently we will arrange for further engagement and training based on your requirements.
IEPLANNER OVERVIEW
iePlanner software has been under ongoing development for over 2 years in consultation with experts in variety of fields such as special education, software development, usability engineering child psychology, neurology, learning disabilities, autism, etc. Software development has been funded by NGO, Donors and parents of children with special needs. The consulting team consists of US-educated and IIT engineers, special educators with advanced degrees and vast experience running their own therapy centers and schools for children with special needs. The software is continuously improved based on feedback and new ideas emerging in the field of special education and cognitive development.
The motivation for this software is that having a comprehensive set of activities and goals makes it easy to plan and work with such children and help in improved outcomes. Paper based or Forms based plans (or even those prepared with Microsoft Word) are often not comprehensive; it is easy to forget topics; and difficult to manage revisions. And then thick student files are physically moved from teacher to teacher.
iePlanner software is live, real-time and with multi-user access. Any changes are immediately reflected everywhere and to everyone. Each staff can login separately and make changes simultaneously. It becomes easy for coordinators to track the process of planning and monitor each student’s progress, track performance of student as well as teachers, easily identify areas requiring intervention or change of strategy and techniques to achieve goals. The emphasis shifts from paperwork to real work of helping children learn.
In our limited experience, this software has reduced paperwork tremendously. In a school of 25 to 30 students, paper printing is reduced by over 70%. Time for preparation of plans and reports has reduced from 10+ days to 1 day. Teacher’s time is now spent more in educating the student instead of preparing reports, improving outcomes, and overall happier staff and engaged students. And parents have also noticed accelerated pace of improvements in their children.
iePlanner has many different modules. For each module there is a master set of Skills and activities (or goals). The skills and activities are categorized across “Programs” such as ADL, Motor Development. New programs and activities are continuously added as need arises, or as new ideas emerge; and these instantly become available to all schools using the software.
This software is owned and developed by India-based NGO so it operates on non-profit manner to support children with special needs throughout India. Earnings are reinvested to support ongoing software enhancements, customization, hosting and domain charges, and ongoing software maintenance and support costs.
MODULES
In iePlanner, the student planning, tracking, and monitoring process is performed in many stages.
FUNCTIONAL PROGRAM
Functional Assessment: This is baseline assessment of student current capabilities. Based on this, IEP (long term Plan) is developed – it is automatically and partially filled based on assessment, omitting all the activities that the student can already perform.
IEP (Long Term Plan): This is prepared once annually at beginning of session. Out of a large number of activities, a practical set of about 200 to 500 activities are selected that forms the goals for the year.
Monthly or Quarterly Plan: This is developed each month where activities are selected out of the long term plan and provides a specific list of activities and targets for the teachers to focus on in the given month.
Skill Tracking: Each day teachers can grade the student performance on a scale of 5 to 1 (with assistance, to no assistance required) on each activity. At the end of the month, evaluation is done declaring which activities/goals have been achieved.
GRADE LEVEL PROGRAM
This is a remedial program for students who attend regular schools but are deficient in some aspects of their studies due to one or more reasons:
- Academically behind grade due to issues such as Learning Disability or some degree of mental retardation, or autism spectrum disorders
- ADHD or other behavioral issues affecting their learning
- Subject specific weakness (English, Hindi, Maths) due to challenges such as Learning Disability, Dyslexia, Dysgraphia
In this program, after initial assessment, Long Term Plan and Monthly Plans are developed based on academic grade equivalent curriculum and text books where strategies are used to address specific issues identified during assessment.
OT PROGRAM
Occupational therapy covers a wide scope of activities that are necessary for children to learn a large variety of basic skills. In a similar fashion to other modules, the process entails baseline assessment, long term plans, and monthly plans. And intervention strategies are planned and tracked.
PARENT REPORTS
All plans and reports are updated on real-time basis and are visible to parents who are provided login/password access. They can see the IEP, Monthly Plan, skill tracking to see what activities are being targeted at any time and how their child is performing. In this way, they can also complement child’s training at home in concert with school. This not only gives full transparency and visibility to parents, but also reduces the need for periodic meetings of administrators and teachers with them. And also improves the level of credibility of the organization.
For parents who do not use online access, software provides for generating PDF files of various plans and reports which can be emailed or printed for their benefit.