Help Your Kids Manage Homework On A Mac.

We tend to scour Mac applications looking for little gems that help to improve efficiency and productivity.

Task List does it for free, but not for you or me. Task List is for kids to manage homework, classes, finals, assignments, schedules.

What attracted me to Task List right away, besides the fact that it’s free, is the headline on the Task List home page:

Plan Your Procrastination, Schedule Your Slacking. Obviously, this is a Mac application written by someone who understands.

What does Task List do for your kids in school? It helps them manage and track their homework assignments, one area where many kids have trouble.

This is particularly so in middle and high school, but would work as well for college kids—all three groups are not populated by paragons of organizational skill.

Here’s an application that helps. If it helps your kids, it helps you. Task List is almost like project management for school, but it makes handling assignments easy, if not fun for kids.

The concept of project management will not be lost on children who have homework assignments and a Mac.

Assignments can have substeps, and hold a priority for each in the form of a visual meter, which is attractive to kids.

The Dock icon will show how many assignments are currently open. Assignment types are user definable. Grades can be tracked in graphic form, and there’s even a GPA calculator.

TaskList will also create a calendar in iCal, which is a good way to introduce personal scheduling to your school age children.

The interface is straightforward and familiar. The standard list in the left column, detail in the center column, which also includes colorful and useful graphics.

There’s a built-in editor for notes with tabs for reference information and links, modeled after the traditional composition notebook.

If you child uses a MacBook or iBook in school, Task List becomes indispensible.

Every decent Mac application requires a backup plan, especially when homework is involved. No teacher wants to hear, “My dog ate my Mac” so TaskList has a .Mac Backup QuickPick, as well as a backup and restore function built in.

Kids today have a lot more tools to help the learning process, but they also have many distractions. Their Mac can be both, so use Task List as a way to get them involved in their own day-to-day school scheduling process.

Did I mention that Task List is free?

Do your kids use a Mac at home or in school? Does the Mac help with their assignment schedules and homework? How do you manage and monitor their Mac usage? As always, share with other Mac360 readers in the Comments section below.