Don't let the hassle of record-keeping and lesson planning drive you away from homeschooling!
Use Home School CD-ROM Curriculum like Switched-On-Schoolhouse!

• Have you ever wondered if there was some home school CD-ROM curriculum that could utilize technology to help teach your child more effectively?
• Feel overwhelmed with the constant demands of lesson planning and grading?
• Wish there was a way for lesson plans to write themselves and keep up with your calendar?
• New to home schooling and not sure if you can really teach everything your child needs to know?
• Need something to keep your child on track and learning while you work with one of your other children?
• Long to have the record-keeping and planning taken care of so you can have more quality time with your child actually learning together?
• Going through a rough time in your family and need to make sure school gets done while you take care of other pressing needs?

If you can relate to any of these scenarios, could be the answer for your home school curriculum needs.

Background on Switched-On-Schoolhouse Home School CD-ROM Curriculum

Alpha Omega is an award-winning publisher and one of the most well-established of the Christian home school CD-ROM curriculum providers. Their home school CD-ROM curriculum is and their more traditional paper version is their Curriculums. Switched-On-Schoolhouse is a complete home school CD-ROM curriculum, as opposed to an on-line school or CD-ROMs which supplement other textbooks. According to Alpha Omega, the new SOS version 2.0 R2 has been “rewired and revised” (thus the R2) for easy installation, for user simplicity and for learning accuracy and appeal.

What SOS Home School CD-ROM Curriculum Offers:Switched-On-Schoolhouse offers interactive home school CD-ROM curriculum for grades 3-12 in all core subjects:

• Math
• Science
• History and Geography
• Language Arts
• Bible

• Foreign Languages
• State History
• Health
• College planning
• Other

Benefits for You the Teacher with this Home School CD-ROM Curriculum

Automatic Lesson Planning and Grading Saves Hours of Time -- Spend More Time With Your Child, Not With Your Lesson Planner

• Lesson plans are always current and customized around your schedule,
• Your record books are always up-to-date!
• Always have up-to-the-minute status on your child's progress,
• Save time with spelling tests given directly by the computer.

Past Due Notices and Message Center –- You Can Stop Nagging Your Child

• Automatic reminders to your child when a project is due or past due mean less nagging from you!
• Message center allows you and your child to communicate easily even if you aren’t there face-to-face. Your child can send you a message about specific questions in a lesson, and you can notify her of specific things to do or notice.

Complete Teacher Control -- You Can Adjust Lessons to Your Child's Strengths and Weaknesses

• Skip over lessons or assign extra projects
• Choose what kind of grading options you want (letter or percent or both) and relative weight of the assignments
• Pick and choose course material based on your student's interests
• Create and print out report cards, assignments, vocabulary lists or written problems
• Individualized options if your child is not a good speller or if he needs a few chances to get the right answer.
• Quizzes and tests with a variety of formats (multiple choice, essay, fill in the blank, etc.) to make sure your child is really mastering the subject
• No guesswork about what level is right for your child with Alpha Omega’s free and detailed placement testing.

Intelligent Text Retry -- To Test What Your Child Really Knows

• This feature ends the frustration of having a “wrong answer” because it accepts a variety of correct answers. Alpha Omega listened to customer feedback and included this technology. I don’t know how it does it, but it allows for a variety of correct answers for questions. The real added bonus? This ability promotes more than just "find the answer they want" but real critical thinking skills. Technology at its best, if you ask me!

Helpful Support -- When You Need Someone to Walk With You

• Teacher's handbook and manual
• Easy to use Installation Wizard
• Practice lessons walk you through the features and how to get the most from SOS. Perfect for first-timers.

Benefits for Your Child with this Home School CD-ROM Curriculum

Interactive -- It Keeps Attention Focused

• Engaging and motivating format. Lots of text, video, slide shows, comics, games and illustrations – good for various learning styles.
• Variety of problems (fill in the blank, essay, puzzles, multiple choice to name a few) ensures real learning is taking place and kids don't get bored with the same test format
• Daily tasks and due dates are clearly marked, with the next assignment posted right away, eliminating guesswork about what comes next.

Lots of Help Through Multimedia -- Learning Comes Through a Variety of Methods

• Examples of science experiments in video,
• Video clips illustrating literature, Bible or history.
• Sounds of vocabulary words allow your child to hear the correct pronunciation
• Voice automated lessons are great for those students who struggle with reading long passages or who are not yet fluent readers.

Study Helps -- To Enhance Learning

• Interactive periodic table, dictionary, calculator,
• Printable notepads and the ability to highlight vocabulary words or favorite passages, or key ideas
• Learning journal to encourage your child to process what she’s learning and have ownership of it,
• your child can personalize the look of the home page and buttons to suit the student's interests. While this isn't a main selling point, I know my kids love to be able to choose and personalize everything! This is one more example of how Alpha Omega has thought through the needs of the student and tailored the program to enhance their learning.

System Requirements (check their website for updated details)

PC (sorry, no Mac version available)
Pentium class processor 500 MHZ or better
Microsoft Windows XP, Windows 2000, Windows ME, or Windows 98 Second Edition
256MB of memory
200 MB of hard disk space
800x600 or higher resolution monitor, 16 bit color
CDROM drive
Printer Recommended

Reviews

In researching home school CD-ROM curriculum choices, I have looked over numerous reviews and posts on various forums by actual users of the products. While in no way comprehensive, I have compiled a list of some of the typical feedback from these reviews. Please be aware that these are the opinions of certain individual users (not me), and that some date back several years. Thus, some of the complaints listed here may very well have been resolved already in the most recent update of the software, Switched-On-Schoolhouse 2.0.

It is worth repeating here that reviews are very subjective, and what is one person's frustration, could be another person's salvation!

Just because all your friends don't think computer-based education or textbooks promote a love of learning (or whatever negative comments you are hearing!) doesn't mean that it will be that way for your family. These materials could be just the thing to cover the basics so you can focus your time learning together in other ways that you could never do if you were bogged down in all the lesson planning and record-keeping.

Of course, any curriculum you choose, whether that is a home school CD-ROM curriculum or textbooks or something else, is a tool, and will thus still require you to be involved at some level with the teaching, and be at least familiar with the concepts presented.

Some of the positive feedback from real customers on review sites and user forums is:

Potential Advantages:

• hassle-free, automatic daily lesson plans and grading,
• it encourages independent learning,
• easy-to-understand video clips demonstrate most of the science experiments,
• cost-effectiveness of being able to use one set for up to 5 students,
• good match for students with short attention spans (such as ADHD students),
• checklists of what to do are great for both students and teacher,
• report cards showtangible and motivating progress,
• Biblical principles throughout, though non-Christians were still satisfied with the science materials,
• corresponding science equipment available through Home Training Tools (we'll update the link soon),
• easy to customize, including various methods of testing, from open-book tests, to those which require word-for-word answers, to those which require abstract thinking,
• easy for first-time homeschoolers to set up, learn, and use,
• focused and incremental learning leads to feelings of success for your child as he masters the lower skills needed to move on to more difficult material,
• timely and helpful technical support.

They absolutely love the question/answer format of SOS and LIFEPAC [Alpha Omega’s textbook version of Switched-On-Schoolhouse]. The tests are even fun because they love to see the final grade. They both have an 'A' average in all their subjects and it just thrills them to get grades. I knew they were learning through listening to the [another curriculum’s] books but they had nothing to really motivate them like completed work and grades. For now, Alpha Omega is really our best choice. Beth M.

There is of course, negative feedback on the reviews. We'll tell it to you straight. Some of the potential disadvantages are:

Potential Disadvantages:

• some students found the material "boring",
• some felt not enough review material in some subjects,
• some found errors in the automated grading,
• Others did not find the technical support helpful,
• Some tests required word-for-word answers or else were counted as incorrect (note: this may have been with the old version of SOS, not the newer 2.0 which includes an "intelligent text" feature, which counts similar words as correct),
• Lessons may be finished very quickly,
• Sometimes the computer would freeze-up on the puzzles,
• Not enough explanation on the math concepts in the teacher's manual,
• Too frequent testing,

Dealing With Potential Problems

First of all, remember that some of the technical problems may well have been resolved ages ago, or not be a problem at all on your computer. For other problems, remember there are thousands of happy customers who overcome these difficulties or who see no problem with them. They...

• Use Switched-On-Schoolhouse for only some of the subjects, and use other curriculum for other subjects (such as math),
• Use a combination of SOS and Alpha Omega's LIFEPACs (the written version of SOS) for added practice in handwriting, hands-on writing assignments or non-computer-related learning,
• Realize some kids will find anything boring, be it computer, textbooks or another type of curriculum. Successful parents take their children's complaints with a grain of salt and supplement with some good books or projects on a subject of interest to their child,
• Use the errors as a teaching tool for their students,
• Find the instant feedback from the numerous tests very helpful - both for parents and the students,
• Make time to supervise and interact with their child about what he or she is learning,
• Order directly from Alpha Omega so that they can take advantage of full technical support.

Recommendation: Alpha Omega is one of the leading home school curriculum providers, and their Switched-On-Schoolhouse CD-ROM curriculum has numerous benefits that can be a life-saver to you, and a boon to your child. This is an especially good home school CD-ROM curriculum choice for single parents parents of many children parents working at home while home schooling parents fed up with bother of time-consuming lesson planning and record keeping Don't let the hassle of lesson planning and grading keep you from having a great home school experience! SOS is very reasonably priced for all the features it has and what it can do for your home school. Having a curriculum that is right for you and your child is priceless. There are many ways to bring education alive. With SOS education comes alive through multimedia.

Note: Alpha Omega provides customer service for their SOS home school CD-ROM curriculum only if you buy directly from them (selling it after you download it onto your computer is against their contract with customers). If you are interested in Switched-On-Schoolhouse, do yourself a favor and order directly from Alpha Omega. You may never need the technical help, but ordering from them directly will ensure that you will get the help you need to get the most out of these products. Since this is a leader in the market for home school CD-ROM curriculum, and it can be a great fit for you and your child, make sure you give yourself the best opportunity to succeed by ordering directly from Alpha Omega.

Note: This program, as with most other home school CD-ROM curriculum choices, also requires that your child be a fluent reader. Be sure your child has a firm foundation in reading before trying to use this as the main curriculum. We'll be linking soon to our recommendations for phonics programs, so check back soon. (We are still home schooling, you know, so things don't get done as quickly as we'd like!)

Note: You will also want to make sure your child is familiar with the keyboard and is becoming more than a hunt-and-peck typist. Here is a fine program we've used very successfully in our home school. 1 Stop Learn to Type Program for Home Schoolers

Note:You will also want to have enough memory in your computer (PC not Mac) for this.

We hope you have felt the above information is valuable. Is the home school CD-ROM curriculum of Switched-On-Schoolhouse for everyone? No. Have some people had problems in the past? Sure, nothing is perfect or works all the time. However, Alpha Omega is an award-winning, respected and well-established home school CD-ROM curriculum provider that is committed to making excellent home school CD-ROM curriculum to enhance your home school experience. You can even get a discount if you go through here .

May you have wisdom as you choose the home school CD-ROM curriculum that is right for you and your child -- to inspire your child's success!

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