Aussie Childcare Network Forum

Hi Teresa,

Don't be upset! I'm sure we can figure something out...

Is there anyway they can be accessed in Word Format?

Unfortunately, the online tools documentation files can't be accessed in a Word Format and we are not planning to release this in MS Word. Mainly due to its limitations and Word doesn't support most of the features required for these forms.

I can only open them on one computer and it isn't the one I get when I'm programming. I can use them at home if I save the PDFs but I can't even do that here

If you are unable to access these pdf's from your work computer you got the following 2 options:

1) If you want, I can upload a static pdf version (a standard pdf file) for the online tools templates and you should be able to open these files in most of the pdf readers. In this case, these files will not be editable and you would not be able to complete the documentations directly from your computer. Instead, you need to print it out first and complete these documentations by hand writing. This option will be best suited if you are not able to troubleshoot the computer at work. You can at least use these templates by printing it out.

2) If not, I'm afraid you will need to troubleshoot your computer and do the necessary updates to its readers and plug-ins so you are able to open and edit the 'Online Tools' documentations. Troubleshooting this depends on various factors like what operating system you use, Adobe reader version, Adobe plug-in version enabled, browser type & its version, etc..For this, refer to the troubleshoot page (or) the suggestions that is already addressed in previous posts in this topic itself.

Hopefully you can get this issue sorted out.

Cheers ,
L.A

Hi
Thank you so, so, very much. Have got the ok from my boss to implement your programming.
Seeing filled in examples helps us tremendously.
With a smile
Debbie

Hi
Its greg to see how you actually do up your plans. Just a quick question though, do you hang your plan up so that parents/families can see what you are doing, or do you just leave it on the computer until the end of the week once you have completed it all. I'm still a little confused whether to complete the the plan (weekly) before the week begins, or to just have it available on the computer so you can add to it as the week goes by.

I know that I plan lots of activities but sometimes the activities just don't happen or they don't work out, do you just write this in your reflection.
As My centre is a 1 roomed centre catering from birth through to 5 yrs, most of the actives are spontaneous not planned as the children seem to ask for different activities each day even if I have planned activities that I thought they would enjoy, I can guarantee they will want something else.

Another big thank you LA. These have helped tremendously.
Time for a holiday for you I think!!!

Hey Everyone,

Happy to hear that you are finding the completed samples useful!

Hey Leah

do you hang your plan up so that parents/families can see what you are doing, or do you just leave it on the computer until the end of the week once you have completed it all.I'm still a little confused whether to complete the the plan (weekly) before the week begins, or to just have it available on the computer so you can add to it as the week goes by.

Ok for me, I hang my curriculum plan up on the wall for parents to see. Even though some parents don't seem to even glance at it, it's good just to refer back to what experience/activities you need to set up on the specific days or what follow up activities you need to implement for observation children. I always try and complete the weekly plan before the week begins. So, this means onto the following weeks program I gather all the experiences/activities through observations, extension of learning, family input etc, from the week before and add it onto the program. Most of the experiences I gather come from the extension ideas from "Reflections of Our Day". I link this to the curriculum plan by adding the date of where the experience has come from.

I know that I plan lots of activities but sometimes the activities just don't happen or they don't work out, do you just write this in your reflection.

Yes! Half the time the experiences I have on my curriculum plan don't happen. So, like you said I write it into my Reflection. At the end of the week you could always re-program the experiences that didn't take place onto the following weeks program. Just make sure you link the dates so you know where the experience has come from. Don't forget that the "Reflection of Our Day" is just like an evaluation. Not only are you writing what happened during the day but you are also evaluating the experiences on the curriculum plan.

most of the actives are spontaneous not planned as the children seem to ask for different activities each day even if I have planned activities that I thought they would enjoy, I can guarantee they will want something else.

Well during the week talk to the children about what they want to do and what activities they would like to participate in. Add this onto the program as child input. If you find that they are interested in a specific activity just continue adding it onto the program. It doesn't matter whether or not your curriculum plan isn't exactly followed as long as in your "Reflection of Our Day" you're writing up the spontaneous experiences that do occur throughout the day. If you notice that they play with some activities more than others than add it onto the program.

Hopefully I've cleared up any confusion,

by grandma » Tue Feb 14, 2012 2:01 pm

Another big thank you LA. These have helped tremendously.
Time for a holiday for you I think!!!

Not just yet...Now I am working to release the next version of these online tools. These tools will be slightly updated and optimized in the next release.

Cheers ,
L.A

OSHC Documentations:
Firstly I would like to apologise to everyone who has posted on the OOSH programing etc... I have been dealing with family matters and have not been to the site for awhile. Anyway I would like to answer the following questions

1) Do you prefer having a weekly or daily curriculum plan? I prefer a weekly curriculum
2) What are the areas you have set up within your OOSH setting? For e.g. "Book Area, Quiet Space, Construction, Creative Play, Art N Craft" etc..also Board games & puzzles, drama corner, homework, cooking, team sports, sandpit play, outside free play, music corner/story time (using
listening post), free draw, computer & library,movies, Wii console
3) Do you have to do child observations? Yes we do
4) With the "Input Keys" in other documentations from the online tools, which of those do you think won't be necessary? Personally all the input keys have a purpose and can be used within the service
5) Please provide brief details of the current program you are using now, so I can get an idea of what you are using. At the moment I use a word doc. template of boxes that have all our areas and the activities that will occur in those areas. Below the information I have a box which staff input their outcomes of the activities (1.1,1.2 etc...)
6) If anybody would be able to upload a sample of your current program template it would be very helpful! (Don't worry, I'm not going to copy it's just so I can get a better idea). I am unsure how to upload
Again sorry and hope this helps.

Hi LA,
I have just used the Reflections of our day for the first time and its FABULOUS!! Although I found that because I often take portrait photos not landscape they stretch the photo out to fit the frame. Is there any way that I can edit the photos so they dont look stretched? (I know anal sorry but I like them to have that professional look)
Glennis

Glennis,
I found the same problem. I'm always taking portrait photos too.
I also found that when typing my reflection, if I type more then in the box as it scrolls, when you print it off you can read all over it as it is hidden. Not sure if there is something I'm doing wrong.

Other than that it is making my programming life soooo much easier, I can't thank LA enough!!!

Hi Glennis & Leah,

Is there any way that I can edit the photos so they dont look stretched? 

We are aware of this limitation. Like you have noticed the image fields auto re-sizes and stretches the photo to fit inside the box. Given the shape of the allocated space, it works perfectly for landscape photos but for portrait it does become stretched and a bit distorted. During the initial designing process we did try the other way that is to resize the image proportionally without stretching them but later we scratched that idea since the appearance wasn't as good. It creates empty spaces inside the box when its not stretched. The fix for this right now will be to try and take a landscape photo instead of portrait. Now that you guys have mentioned that you take portrait photos, I'll see if we can add an extra button for you to be able to change between the two, so you have more control on how you want the images to look. I've added this onto my "to-do" list for the next version.

if I type more then in the box as it scrolls, when you print it off you can read all over it as it is hidden.

The scroll bar appears when you exceed the allocated space. So, this is to be used as a guide and it shows when your contents has gone over the printable area. The box size does not increase since it will change the whole template and the design. When this happens you have to edit your content so it fits inside the visible area. If you don't the extra content will not be printed.

Hey Everyone,

"ONLINE EYLF TOOLS" VERSION 0.0.2 COMING SOON

We are currently improving these online tools based on the feedback and suggestions we have received so far from all of you. So another version will be released in the next 2 - 4 weeks. Here are some of the improvements you will notice in the next version:

• Introducing a control panel for Curriculum Plans to choose between Long Day Care & Family Day Care version. (the LDC version will be the same as now but the FDC will not have "Educators" or "Room" fields).
• Ability for users to increase or decrease the font size for Curriculum Plan Documentations.
• Ability to include more educators inside the "Educators" field.
• Ability to add portrait photos without being stretched (for Learning Stories and Reflections of Our Day).
• New Curriculum Plan Documentation for OOSH (Before and After School Care).

We have already started working on these changes and will update further when they are ready to be released. Just like the previous version it will be released to the Support Team first for testing and then made available for all other users.

Further updates will be posted here.

Cheers ,
L.A

L.A. - you and the others at AussieChildCarenetwork are a mine of information. Thank you so much for all your ideas and for taking on everyones different requirements. There really should be more of this happening right across child chare and early childhood education. The more we share of resources and ideas to make life easier the more time we can spend being WITH the kids, rather than always thinking about paperwork, paperwork & more paperwork!!
Thank you again - you are an absolute blessing

Cathie

hi LA. i've been using your online tools for almost a month now and I absolutely love it! it made my work so much easier now and I cant explain how grateful I am to you. Your work is gold!

Like I said before it would have cost me almost $300 for each of these kind of documents to be created by IT professionals and they dont even design these forms. I need to do all the work of designing and creating a sample of these documents myself. it would have ended up costing me over thousand dollars if I had went with it. A small centre like mine cannot afford that kind of money. Thats where your work has helped me out tremendously! I am going to make a donation to support your work and also the excellent service your team is providing to all of us! This is the least I can do in return.

I am a donator now!! I am happy to donate...Its not much but lets just say L.A's dinner is on me! (Maybe not a fancy restaurant but you should be able to buy a good dinner box from mcdonalds with my donation..hehe). I will be contributing more again in the future.

There is no site that helps out so much without charging a penny! Unbelievable! I think this site is the wikipedia for childcare and I am very excited to see its development. Its websites like these who deserves more donations than other rip off companies who are more interested in making money and charging their customers first before anything else..I got a call at my centre last week from one of these childcare consultation company and they were trying to sell claiming they will provide advise, support to run my centre, up to date information on childcare related stuffs, blah blah blah. Guess what the price tag was - $450 per year for a membership! I told them - look at aussie childcare network. You do the same thing, in fact even more than what they do and you guys dont even charge a dollar! She couldnt say anything more...lol...

My husband has a website for his company and it costs him hundreds of dollars every month just for maintaining his site. So i understand that its not cheap or easy to create and run a website. I hope other people are also willing to support this awesome website. If not, please do consider donating. Although L.A doesnt ask for donation herself, its the least we can do in return. Even $10 or $20 will make a difference for an awesome site like this. I would hate to see a website like this being closed down due to lack of revenue.. So I ask everyone to think about it and help out whatever and whenever you can..you can click on the donate button on the left if you wanna help.

Thanks again L.A and to the support team..I am looking forward to your next release of these tools.

Well said KatG73.

Your donation and mine might be able to upgrade the meal to a family meal deal at McDonalds so Admin can have a little something too !

Thanks LA for your quick response. It's a fabulous tool and I thankyou for all your hard work... I like the size of the box for writing as it stops me from waffling on and on... hehehe
Glennis

Hi Kat and Lindy,

L.A's dinner is on me! (Maybe not a fancy restaurant but you should be able to buy a good dinner box from mcdonalds with my donation..hehe).

Thanks for the dinner! We enjoyed the meal...LOL...McDonalds is fancy enough for me!! HAHAHA

In all seriousness, Thanks so much for your donation. It's great to see that the work done on this site and especially for online tools is being appreciated and to be recognized at a high standard really makes us happy!

Thanks Kat for your contribution, your comments and your ongoing support!

Hi Glennis,

t's a fabulous tool and I thankyou for all your hard work... I like the size of the box for writing as it stops me from waffling on and on... hehehe

Thanks for your feedback and I'm happy to hear you're enjoying the online tools! LOL... Yeah I agree the box does enable us to get straight to the point!

Very Much Appreciated!

Cheers ,
L.A

Hi All!

I am new to these forums and have been working in OSHC for 1 year now... I have been working as an Assistant Coordinator for the first 6 months, but I have been working as Coordinator (now Certified Supervisor) since October/November.

Hope this helps you!

1) Do you prefer having a weekly or daily curriculum plan? It makes it easier to have a weekly program for our service. We have anywhere between 75 - 105 children a day in ASC and 12 - 35 in BSC
2) What are the areas you have set up within your OSHC setting? We have a quiet area that contains couches and beanbags with books, and a homework table, we generally have 2 areas with different art activities (junk construction, free drawing, hama beads, painting etc) we have construction building areas, as well as a few tables of boardgames, card games etc. We also have access to an oval, the gym and a playground for outside play
3) Do you have to do child observations? We are phasing it in for the new year.
4) With the "Input Keys" in other documentations from the online tools, which of those do you think won't be necessary? I'm not sure....
5) Please provide brief details of the current program you are using now, so I can get an idea of what you are using. We are using a template created by the previous Coordinator.
6) If anybody would be able to upload a sample of your current program template it would be very helpful! (Don't worry, I'm not going to copy it's just so I can get a better idea). See the attached

Hi
This is a godsend!!! I have been working in childcare for over 30 years and my main focus is on the children, but when it comes to programming this always has taken my time away from them which bothered me greatly! Now i spend roughly half an hour to 1hr a day filling out the forms!! And i love doing it, as im a bit of a computer nurd I have been using it for about a month now and absolutely love it!! I have always loved doing programming, but i have always found that it gets done at home and takes sooooo long! At times i was spending 5hrs or more on my weekend to do it! At one point i wanted to design something like this but didnt have the knowledge of how to do it!! Thank you for taking away that need This has made it so simple and covers all aspects required!! I am not currently in a room but have been using it to help out my director who runs the babies room as well as the centre , so as u can imagine she is flat strap to get programming done! I also showed it to my area manager who was extremely impressed and sent it on to all of our other centres!! As yet the other girls havent put it into practice because they dont have access to a computer at work unfortunately. I have my laptop which i bring to work to do it! I cant wait till I get a room back. I also hope to recruit the other girls to this somehow:P It has made my work life so much easier and interesting to!! I will now donate because this is and amazing and useful website that is totally relevant to us in childcare and I definately hope that others will do the same so that you can continue to provide us with these amazing tools!!!

Hi all, I love the online tools - they are a true god sent but when I go to upload my photos they come up as just white boxes. Is there a reason why and how do i rectify this?