| Here are some of your Frequently Asked Questions.
FAQ's are taken directly from your E-Mails and shared here for everyone's
benefit.
Help each other out and ask plenty of
questions.
- How do I see a lesson... ?
- Where can I find lessons?
- Why doesn't my State's standards show in the
correlations?
- Do you have performance assessments?
- What grades are Homerschool.com made for?
- When are new modules coming out?
- How much does it cost?
- How often are the sites updated?
- What kind of training is needed?
How do I see a lesson... ?
I've taken a look at the demo, and I like what I see so far.
Maybe I missed it, but where is the actual lesson? I saw the lab activity and
the content included there.
Answer: The lesson is
the lab in that demo.
Where can I find lessons?
Lessons are It seems like there is a separate area where the
lesson is contained--did I miss it or am I just not able to view it?
Answer: Go to the
"Start Here" link on the left side of the
home page.
Here are a sample of
lessons for earthquakes:
http://homerschool.com/lessons/sci_e/ieps/115e.htm
Lessons are listed in
the center, lessons plans on the left, the actual lessons are the numbered links
on the right, leveled for easy, intermediate or advanced.
Why doesn't my State's standards show in the correlations?
Being in NYS we have strict guidelines on
following the standards. Everyone wants "standards based" lessons, and we (my
department) already support software that is specifically aligned with the NYS
standards (mind you, it's for elementary math and language arts). Would this be
a possibility--to include NYS standards?
Answer:
We looked at that, and until we go to a
database driven model of Homerschool.com, we have put that on hold. We are also
waiting to see the shakeout of standards too. (Once everyone figures out that
the state standards will be replaced by National standards or something like
that.)
Good
teachers teach all these things anyway. The only difference is the
reporting and documentation. You are dealing with New York, we are also
dealing with New York, Maine, Hawaii, Mexico, Canada, Australia, Kenya, New
Zealand, and what used to be the USSR.
We
have made a goes-into listing:
http://www.homerschool.com/help/hlp_stds.htm
This may
help. Do it once and all the lessons fall into place.
Do you have performance assessments?
Would it be possible to have performance assessments? From the description, it
sounds as if the quizzes and tests are all objective questions. These are
the buzzwords that our administrators and teachers are looking for.
Answer:
We leave that to the classroom teacher
with rubrics and teacher defined assessments - completions, group work,
projects, portfolio, etc.
Look under RUBRICS here:
http://homerschool.com/lessons/free_stuff.htm
Answer:
We have expanded the modules to address
6th grade to 10 the grade. We have re-purposed Homerschool.com from being a
'Virtual Middle School" to being a "I3 Learning" resource at the
request of High School teachers that use it as a resource. When you think about
it, the difference between a Middle Schooler and a High Schooler is sometimes
only 2 months and the concepts still hold.
Answer:
We are
designing our next modules to address "Weather and Instrumentation"
rounded out by Water and Oceans.
We are always recruiting good teachers with
good lessons to share with others within the Homerschool.com framework.
Contact us to become a part of the Homerschool.com™ team if you'd
like to put your content into an I3 Learning™ modality.
How much does it cost?
I saw the price is about $20 for 2 months, plus the balance of the current
month. Does this include as many users as we wish?
Answer:
This is for a class site license for one
teacher for however many classes/students he/she teaches. We restrict the
time so that teachers do not pass the passwords around.
$19.95 is under the normal $20.00 petty cash
limit which is why we priced it there. No teacher needs ask permission to
use Homerschool.com, they just buy the subscription, Amazon.com handles the
transaction, and they start learning. The teacher is handed the receipt
with the passwords when they submit the credit card information.
We can negotiate a site license for a school
building, a district, a year or a multi-year contract.
How often are the sites updated?
How often are the sites updated, ie to keep up
to date with the ever-changing field of science and technology?
Answer:
Site
migration is a major problem with internet sites. We tag out sites and monitor
them for changes and dropout. Why should thousands of teachers have to do this
when we can do it for them, and when a site does move, or disappear, we can modify not
only the online lesson but also the single page lesson too!
What kind of training is needed?
If this were to be something that our
department would adapt or support, we would need some training--is this a
possibility?
Answer:
No!
No training is
involved! We made Homerschool.com as easy to use as an ATM machine. The problem with most
computer assisted learning is the steep learning curve. We saw that and said
NO! Our instructions are simple, click on a lesson and follow the directions.
If you need information, here is our 8 page instruction manual for out CD
version which we are putting out for the home school market:
http://homerschool.com/stuff/homerman.pdf
Notice that
the instructions (and yes there are pictures) for actually operating
Homerschool.com start on page 5 and end 3 pages later.
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