Friday, April 29, 2011
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Time4Learning Review
Well, our free trial period is complete. For some families, this might be a great solution, but at the end of the day, I think we'll pass. Here are my thoughts, entirely my own, not written or endorsed by Time4Learning:
Pros:
It's a lot of fun. The kids have really enjoyed the learning activities. They're reasonably well done, the information is presented in a way that's accessible, and there are only a few lessons that have markedly annoying voices. ;o)
Structured. It's laid out like a traditional school curriculum, so one lesson builds upon another.
Engaging. All of my four older children really looked forward to their "turn" to work on their homeschool lessons. Even the two-year-old loved to watch, too.
Adaptable. The student can repeat a lesson as many times as necessary, and complete them in any order.
Cons:
No assignment functionality. One of the most attractive feathers of the program (to me) was the ability to set assignments for each student. I saw this in the control panel when I first logged in, and was very disappointed to learn (only after a LOT of searching through the control panel and then searching the support forums) that feature is reserved by Odyssey (the company that owns the lessons & software) for public school teachers. Boo. Yes, you can see which lessons the student has completed, but if you want to pick and choose according to ability and make a custom lesson plan, it's got to be separately elsewhere (which is a big headache for me).
The lessons can be too chatty. There are, especially in the upper grade lessons, times when my eleven-year-old needed to sit and think through the problem he was working on, and the software would repeat instructions he had already heard at narrow intervals. It made it very difficult for me to help him, as the voice was distracting, and turning the volume up and down is somewhat involved and inaccurate on that computer. The time allotted for figuring out the problems were fine for an adult already familiar with writing numbers in expanded form or deciphering Greek numerals, but not for my very bright and quick-thinking son who had never seen them before.
Some of the voices are not what I would choose. In the lessons my five year old often worked on, there were voices made to sound like a child her age, with imprecise enunciation. While that might sound like a good idea (attract the children with a child's voice), repeated exposure to less-than-perfect examples isn't something I consider a good idea. Add to that the fact that that particular voice was talking down to the student in a Dora-esque way (using the same inflection over and over, regarding normal and friendly usage patterns), it made me a lot less excited for my five-year-old's lessons. (We don't use baby talk around here, fwiw.) Thankfully, she only ran into that kind of voice a few times . . . but she didn't work very far through the lessons, so I don't know how many more of those might be lurking in there.
Too much emphasis on screen time. The children showed a marked tendency to want to spend all day in front of the computer (and with four of them spending 20-30 minutes each, usually with siblings looking in on others' lessons, it often felt like they did anyway). And after online schooling was done for the day, they pestered me more and more to play games or watch movies, etc. We're not a big-time "watching" family, and this was a definite tradeoff.
The fee structure just doesn't work for us. While the cost of this might be workable for small families, it's pretty spendy for us. (At the time of this writing, the monthly price is $19.95 for the first child, and $14.95 for each child thereafter. You'll want to double-check the website before making a decision, as pricing can and will change, and this price is not binding on Time4Learning. They can and will set whatever pricing seems best to them.) For the $65/month (or $777 annually), we can go and do a whole lotta fun stuff, pay for an entire prepackaged curriculum that's largely reusable, or any number of other big-bang homeschool-related things. For a family that's very activity-oriented (and loves to do things outdoors), allocating that much of our limited income for a one use-type service is too high an opportunity cost. I don't know if Odyssey sets per-student prices (as they were designed for public schoolrooms, and would charge differently), or if it's a T4L thing, but I would love to see more attractive family pricing . . . especially considering that my tax dollars pay for public school students' expenses, and my own schooling costs are on top of that.
I know of a couple of families online that really enjoy using Time4Learning, and it is, overall, a pretty neat service. It just doesn't work as well as it needs to for our family in order to justify the cost. I hope this reviews will help other families know if this service would be a good fit for them.
Thank you so much, Time4Learning, for providing this trial period for our family, so we could really see if it worked for us!
Pros:
It's a lot of fun. The kids have really enjoyed the learning activities. They're reasonably well done, the information is presented in a way that's accessible, and there are only a few lessons that have markedly annoying voices. ;o)
Structured. It's laid out like a traditional school curriculum, so one lesson builds upon another.
Engaging. All of my four older children really looked forward to their "turn" to work on their homeschool lessons. Even the two-year-old loved to watch, too.
Adaptable. The student can repeat a lesson as many times as necessary, and complete them in any order.
Cons:
No assignment functionality. One of the most attractive feathers of the program (to me) was the ability to set assignments for each student. I saw this in the control panel when I first logged in, and was very disappointed to learn (only after a LOT of searching through the control panel and then searching the support forums) that feature is reserved by Odyssey (the company that owns the lessons & software) for public school teachers. Boo. Yes, you can see which lessons the student has completed, but if you want to pick and choose according to ability and make a custom lesson plan, it's got to be separately elsewhere (which is a big headache for me).
The lessons can be too chatty. There are, especially in the upper grade lessons, times when my eleven-year-old needed to sit and think through the problem he was working on, and the software would repeat instructions he had already heard at narrow intervals. It made it very difficult for me to help him, as the voice was distracting, and turning the volume up and down is somewhat involved and inaccurate on that computer. The time allotted for figuring out the problems were fine for an adult already familiar with writing numbers in expanded form or deciphering Greek numerals, but not for my very bright and quick-thinking son who had never seen them before.
Some of the voices are not what I would choose. In the lessons my five year old often worked on, there were voices made to sound like a child her age, with imprecise enunciation. While that might sound like a good idea (attract the children with a child's voice), repeated exposure to less-than-perfect examples isn't something I consider a good idea. Add to that the fact that that particular voice was talking down to the student in a Dora-esque way (using the same inflection over and over, regarding normal and friendly usage patterns), it made me a lot less excited for my five-year-old's lessons. (We don't use baby talk around here, fwiw.) Thankfully, she only ran into that kind of voice a few times . . . but she didn't work very far through the lessons, so I don't know how many more of those might be lurking in there.
Too much emphasis on screen time. The children showed a marked tendency to want to spend all day in front of the computer (and with four of them spending 20-30 minutes each, usually with siblings looking in on others' lessons, it often felt like they did anyway). And after online schooling was done for the day, they pestered me more and more to play games or watch movies, etc. We're not a big-time "watching" family, and this was a definite tradeoff.
The fee structure just doesn't work for us. While the cost of this might be workable for small families, it's pretty spendy for us. (At the time of this writing, the monthly price is $19.95 for the first child, and $14.95 for each child thereafter. You'll want to double-check the website before making a decision, as pricing can and will change, and this price is not binding on Time4Learning. They can and will set whatever pricing seems best to them.) For the $65/month (or $777 annually), we can go and do a whole lotta fun stuff, pay for an entire prepackaged curriculum that's largely reusable, or any number of other big-bang homeschool-related things. For a family that's very activity-oriented (and loves to do things outdoors), allocating that much of our limited income for a one use-type service is too high an opportunity cost. I don't know if Odyssey sets per-student prices (as they were designed for public schoolrooms, and would charge differently), or if it's a T4L thing, but I would love to see more attractive family pricing . . . especially considering that my tax dollars pay for public school students' expenses, and my own schooling costs are on top of that.
I know of a couple of families online that really enjoy using Time4Learning, and it is, overall, a pretty neat service. It just doesn't work as well as it needs to for our family in order to justify the cost. I hope this reviews will help other families know if this service would be a good fit for them.
Thank you so much, Time4Learning, for providing this trial period for our family, so we could really see if it worked for us!
Thursday, March 10, 2011
A quick shout out
Lisa over at Suburban Retreat is having a great Spring giveaway, which includes a copy of this beautiful book:
So, you should go check it out, since I never win anything, anyway. ;o)
Friday, February 18, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
4Shared: Not.
If you're currently using 4Shared's service, I would caution you to not try to use it as a file sharing/download service for your readers. Here's what happened to me today, and (from the comments I've read at another blog) has happened to plenty of others, as well.
4Shared has crafted their website very carefully. If you're looking to upload files to share, it's as easy as pie. Registration is quick and simple, offers a snazzy app to help you upload things automatically, and makes getting set up and sharing files a breeze. I went through that part of the process a couple of months ago when I needed a quick backup option.
But.
If you're on the download side of the coin, watch out. Sure, they say you can download for free. After a wait.
Okay, I thought. No problem.
So, I bring up a few download pages with files shared by a fellow blogger. I click on the links, wait the prescribed 90-ish seconds, and then click "Download". The first file starts great. The second file even begins to download concurrently. Then, when I click on the third, I'm given a message that I'm already downloading a file from my IP address, and will need to wait until it's done to start another one. Ugh. But, it's free, so I figure I'll wait. Again. I carefully look past the fact that there are three computers sharing an internet connection in my home, and we all use the same portal IP address, so only one of us could download anything from 4Shared at any given time.
At this point it's annoying, but still doable. (Hint to businesses . . . the LAST thing you want to do is annoy potential customers who have come to your website . . . people who may have come wanting to give you money.)
So, I wait until the file finishes, and go to click on the next download link. Apparently each page has some kind of session, and it had expired. Clicking the download link reloads the page. At this point, I notice the "Log In" link, and think to myself: "I'll just log in; that should make things better," Right? Right.
I log in, am greeted by cheerful text at the top of the page, and then click on the first "Download Now" link again. I wait (this time for 240 seconds). I'm surprised by the four minute wait, and am now graduating past the "annoyed" benchmark.
I manage to get back to the page before the session times out and requires another page reload and another wait, (because I'm not going to sit there and watch 240 seconds count down), and click on the second "Download Now" link. At this point I have very little faith in the "Now" part. My browser grinds for about 30 seconds, and then the page loads to an "Unable to connect to . . . yadda yadda yadda." {Insert expletive here.}
I click back and reload the page.
Click the initial "Download Now" button (which I now understand really means "Download Eventually, after we make you wait even LONGER, and reload the page a few more times"), and see that the wait THIS time is going to be 381 seconds.
Yep. That's 6 minutes, 21 seconds. And a serious slap in the face.
I even managed to get back to the page after the elapsed wait time, but before the session expired, and try the download yet again. With no results. (Another "cannot connect to" page.)
4Shared, do you think that you will EVER, at any point in the remaining 50-or-so years of my life, EVER get any of my money? EVER???? Or that I will tell anyone to use your service?
Quite the contrary.
Your extortionate tactics have just made sure that you have not only lost a customer, but have a very unhappy ex-customer on your hands, who feels tricked and abused. My time has been wasted, the files I was hoping to download (which would have proven very useful in my tasks today) are now firmly out of reach, and I'm going to do all I can to see if I can influence my fellow blogger to switch to some other service. Advertising free downloads when, in reality, no download is possible (but the user only learns that after wasting their time), is absolutely beyond the pale.
And life is too short for that.
{/rant}
4Shared has crafted their website very carefully. If you're looking to upload files to share, it's as easy as pie. Registration is quick and simple, offers a snazzy app to help you upload things automatically, and makes getting set up and sharing files a breeze. I went through that part of the process a couple of months ago when I needed a quick backup option.
But.
If you're on the download side of the coin, watch out. Sure, they say you can download for free. After a wait.
Okay, I thought. No problem.
So, I bring up a few download pages with files shared by a fellow blogger. I click on the links, wait the prescribed 90-ish seconds, and then click "Download". The first file starts great. The second file even begins to download concurrently. Then, when I click on the third, I'm given a message that I'm already downloading a file from my IP address, and will need to wait until it's done to start another one. Ugh. But, it's free, so I figure I'll wait. Again. I carefully look past the fact that there are three computers sharing an internet connection in my home, and we all use the same portal IP address, so only one of us could download anything from 4Shared at any given time.
At this point it's annoying, but still doable. (Hint to businesses . . . the LAST thing you want to do is annoy potential customers who have come to your website . . . people who may have come wanting to give you money.)
So, I wait until the file finishes, and go to click on the next download link. Apparently each page has some kind of session, and it had expired. Clicking the download link reloads the page. At this point, I notice the "Log In" link, and think to myself: "I'll just log in; that should make things better," Right? Right.
I log in, am greeted by cheerful text at the top of the page, and then click on the first "Download Now" link again. I wait (this time for 240 seconds). I'm surprised by the four minute wait, and am now graduating past the "annoyed" benchmark.
I manage to get back to the page before the session times out and requires another page reload and another wait, (because I'm not going to sit there and watch 240 seconds count down), and click on the second "Download Now" link. At this point I have very little faith in the "Now" part. My browser grinds for about 30 seconds, and then the page loads to an "Unable to connect to . . . yadda yadda yadda." {Insert expletive here.}
I click back and reload the page.
Click the initial "Download Now" button (which I now understand really means "Download Eventually, after we make you wait even LONGER, and reload the page a few more times"), and see that the wait THIS time is going to be 381 seconds.
Yep. That's 6 minutes, 21 seconds. And a serious slap in the face.
I even managed to get back to the page after the elapsed wait time, but before the session expired, and try the download yet again. With no results. (Another "cannot connect to" page.)
4Shared, do you think that you will EVER, at any point in the remaining 50-or-so years of my life, EVER get any of my money? EVER???? Or that I will tell anyone to use your service?
Quite the contrary.
Your extortionate tactics have just made sure that you have not only lost a customer, but have a very unhappy ex-customer on your hands, who feels tricked and abused. My time has been wasted, the files I was hoping to download (which would have proven very useful in my tasks today) are now firmly out of reach, and I'm going to do all I can to see if I can influence my fellow blogger to switch to some other service. Advertising free downloads when, in reality, no download is possible (but the user only learns that after wasting their time), is absolutely beyond the pale.
And life is too short for that.
{/rant}
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
Monday, February 7, 2011
Trying out Time4Learning.com
I’ve been invited to try Time4Learning for one month in exchange for a candid review. My opinion will be entirely my own, so be sure to come back and read about my experience. Time4Learning can be used as a homeschool curriculum, for afterschool enrichment and for summer skill sharpening. Find out how to write your own curriculum review for Time4Learning.
Saturday, January 1, 2011
Some books I'm going to read . . .
Here are some thoughts on books I have read, or am going to read:
The Silmarillion -- I've read the beginning part of this, and it's an amazing, epic tale. Written in an arching, (ahem) epic style, there's very little showing and a lot of telling . . . and yet it's gripping and poignant. It has a lot of sorrow and sadness, for it's how middle earth began. It also is where we found the name of one of our daughters. I highly recommend it, and I need to put it on my "to read" list so I don't forget to finish it again in the whirlwind that is my life.
The Tale of Two Cities -- I read this in high school, and remember being really touched at the end. I would definitely read it again, and probably understand it a whole lot better, to boot. I have a far, far better mind now than I did then.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- Curiosity, mostly, drives my desire to read this one. I've heard it mentioned in enough books that I've read that I want it to be part of my cultural knowledge.
Foucault’s Pendulum -- Ditto.
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel -- I've read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and Loved It. I really like Barbara Kingsolver's writing, and this one is currently on my list. It was recommended by one of the women in my book review club, and several of us have read it.
To the Lighthouse -- I did not like this one. At all. I read it for a college literature course, and the strangeness of the family culture just didn't do it for me. Well, that, and the incest. (I have a hard time with that kind of thing in lit. Just don't like it.)
Les Misérables -- I've gone back and forth on this one, but after reading a recent review, it's back on my to read list.
Dune -- Vern has read these, and I've watched the first movie. I just can't quite get into it now, as the move ruined them for me forever. They should have waited until now to make them, as they may have been more believable. (Star Wars was more believable than Dune.)
Slaughterhouse-five -- I thought I had read this in high school. But, after reading up on it at Amazon, I realized I hadn't. But I'm going to. And it puts Catch-22 back on my list.
Catch-22 -- Because I didn't read it in high school, and I'm highly intrigued by the reviews.
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything (Nothing by an economist, please.) -- I think you should give this one a chance. I've read several economists, and they're a fascinating bunch (if you get the right type). Economics isn't a finance-bound discipline. It's the study of behavior, and what motivates it. So, banish thoughts of Keynes from your mind, and see what this guy has to say. ;o)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values -- This is one of the most interesting and mind-bending books I've ever read. It's beyond explanation . . . you've just got to read it. (And make sure you've got some quiet time to digest it, too. This isn't a speed-read.)
The Three Musketeers -- Love the story and movie. I wonder if I'll love the book, too? It's on my list.
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West -- I've heard smashing things about the play, and want to read this one. Update: Here's a bit of a note from a friend: "I saw Wicked on your to read list, and I thought I'd tell you that it's pretty nasty. Apparently the musical took the general idea, (I don't know, I haven't seen it, but I've heard it's fabulous), but the book made me cringe. And it is hard to make me cringe." So, this one is off the list.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time -- The title alone had me at "hello". Didn't it for you? (Edited to add: I read some of this at Amazon, and while the book is fascinating, the recurrence of pretty foul language has me looking elsewhere. I was really hooked at first, because I have two autistic nephews, and found the point of view intriguing . . . but my mild OCD kicks in when the f-bomb drops, (don't ask me why) and it's all I hear in my head for at least a day. So, this one's out.) In other news, I found it funny that the reviewer talked about how this "first-time novelist" did such a great job. Well, he's a professor of creative writing at a British college, for Pete's sake. It's not like he's a freshly-stamped BA. ;o)
The Silmarillion -- I've read the beginning part of this, and it's an amazing, epic tale. Written in an arching, (ahem) epic style, there's very little showing and a lot of telling . . . and yet it's gripping and poignant. It has a lot of sorrow and sadness, for it's how middle earth began. It also is where we found the name of one of our daughters. I highly recommend it, and I need to put it on my "to read" list so I don't forget to finish it again in the whirlwind that is my life.
The Tale of Two Cities -- I read this in high school, and remember being really touched at the end. I would definitely read it again, and probably understand it a whole lot better, to boot. I have a far, far better mind now than I did then.
A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man -- Curiosity, mostly, drives my desire to read this one. I've heard it mentioned in enough books that I've read that I want it to be part of my cultural knowledge.
Foucault’s Pendulum -- Ditto.
The Poisonwood Bible: a novel -- I've read Animal, Vegetable, Miracle, and Loved It. I really like Barbara Kingsolver's writing, and this one is currently on my list. It was recommended by one of the women in my book review club, and several of us have read it.
To the Lighthouse -- I did not like this one. At all. I read it for a college literature course, and the strangeness of the family culture just didn't do it for me. Well, that, and the incest. (I have a hard time with that kind of thing in lit. Just don't like it.)
Les Misérables -- I've gone back and forth on this one, but after reading a recent review, it's back on my to read list.
Dune -- Vern has read these, and I've watched the first movie. I just can't quite get into it now, as the move ruined them for me forever. They should have waited until now to make them, as they may have been more believable. (Star Wars was more believable than Dune.)
Slaughterhouse-five -- I thought I had read this in high school. But, after reading up on it at Amazon, I realized I hadn't. But I'm going to. And it puts Catch-22 back on my list.
Catch-22 -- Because I didn't read it in high school, and I'm highly intrigued by the reviews.
Freakonomics : a rogue economist explores the hidden side of everything (Nothing by an economist, please.) -- I think you should give this one a chance. I've read several economists, and they're a fascinating bunch (if you get the right type). Economics isn't a finance-bound discipline. It's the study of behavior, and what motivates it. So, banish thoughts of Keynes from your mind, and see what this guy has to say. ;o)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance : an inquiry into values -- This is one of the most interesting and mind-bending books I've ever read. It's beyond explanation . . . you've just got to read it. (And make sure you've got some quiet time to digest it, too. This isn't a speed-read.)
The Three Musketeers -- Love the story and movie. I wonder if I'll love the book, too? It's on my list.
Wicked: the life and times of the wicked witch of the West -- I've heard smashing things about the play, and want to read this one. Update: Here's a bit of a note from a friend: "I saw Wicked on your to read list, and I thought I'd tell you that it's pretty nasty. Apparently the musical took the general idea, (I don't know, I haven't seen it, but I've heard it's fabulous), but the book made me cringe. And it is hard to make me cringe." So, this one is off the list.
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time -- The title alone had me at "hello". Didn't it for you? (Edited to add: I read some of this at Amazon, and while the book is fascinating, the recurrence of pretty foul language has me looking elsewhere. I was really hooked at first, because I have two autistic nephews, and found the point of view intriguing . . . but my mild OCD kicks in when the f-bomb drops, (don't ask me why) and it's all I hear in my head for at least a day. So, this one's out.) In other news, I found it funny that the reviewer talked about how this "first-time novelist" did such a great job. Well, he's a professor of creative writing at a British college, for Pete's sake. It's not like he's a freshly-stamped BA. ;o)
Sunday, December 19, 2010
Heheheheh . . .
I had no idea Hunt's was dipping its toe into electronics . . .
This was a nice spot in a somewhat stressful day the other day. I don't know how the Hunt's ketchup ended up as #1 in my search results for an external DVD burner (quick tip: Apple's SuperDrives are VERY poorly named), but it sure is great.
Tuesday, December 14, 2010
Small Pig is back!
Finally, Arnold Lobel's Classics
(he's one of my favorite children's book illustrators/authors) are back in print! (And you can often get used library binding editions for about the same price as a new paperback.)
I'm so glad my old copy of Small Pig
is now replaceable. My children love that story. Now, if they would just reprint Prince Bertram the Bad
. . .
(he's one of my favorite children's book illustrators/authors) are back in print! (And you can often get used library binding editions for about the same price as a new paperback.)I'm so glad my old copy of Small Pig
is now replaceable. My children love that story. Now, if they would just reprint Prince Bertram the Bad . . .
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