Photo credit: www.anneruthmann.com

I get a lot of questions from parents who are considering homeschooling for the first time.  Most of the questions sound something like, “What curriculum should I use,” or “What do I do about socialization?”

My wife (Lisa) has responded frequently to new homeschoolers on various list serves and in meetings who have the same questions.  What she and I try remind new homeschoolers is that homeschooling is a lifestyle choice.  It’s not about curriculum, socialization, or the degradation of the public school system in the United States. It’s a choice you make that affects every facet of your life.

Below is a post to a list serve my wife wrote to some mothers considering homeschooling.  Some of the content is geared towards homeschooling in New York but much of it really expresses our heart and philosophy behind homeschooling.  It doesn’t touch on everything that motivates us to homeschool but it does express our hearts and the crux of why we have chosen the “homeschooling lifestyle”.
(more…)

Here’s a rather curious quiz I ran across online via homeschoolbuzz.com that aim to test your knowledge of homeschooling technology.

Seems a bit odd to me. Some of the information is contradictory and there are no sources cited for their statistics.

If you take the quiz, feel free to share your results in the comments below. I scored a 14/20. Go figure.

Technology can help significantly improve the homeschooling experience when used well. Take this quiz to see if you’re schooled on all of the tools out their that can enrich the experience for students learning at home.

http://curiosity.discovery.com/topic/computer-software/homeschool-technology-quiz.htm

Last year Cisco commissioned a survey of 590 men ages 25-54 with children ages 17 and under. The survey found that although there are many benefits to being a geek dad, there’s also a downside – like having to do all the family tech support.

Cisco’s survey reveals geek dads think they’re cool

What’s a “geek dad”? Cisco defines the term:

A “geek dad” is a father who is enthusiastic about technology and knowledgeable about the latest innovations. The Confessions of a Geek Dad survey* conducted in December by Answers Research, found that 71 percent of geek dads say they spend more time doing activities with their kids than their fathers did with them. Today’s geek dads have a wide variety of interests, including being music lovers (82 percent), outdoor enthusiasts (65 percent), all-around fix-it guys (79 percent), gaming fanatics (78 percent) and sports buffs (77 percent). In fact, 70 percent of geek dads say their kids think they are cool because they’re a tech geek. And when called a “tech geek” by their kids, 87 percent say that makes them feel proud or humored. Also, most geek dads (69 percent) say they’re cooler than other dads, attributing their coolness factor to creating a home where their kids’ friends love hanging out (75 percent).

Are you a geek dad? Do you find yourself doing all the tech support in the house? Is your house the cool place to hang out? Let me know in the comments.

Download the full infographic!

Let’s say you’re a publisher of homeschool textbooks and you want to give iBooks Author a try. Let’s also say you’re only running Mac OS 10.6 (Snow Leopard) and not 10.7 (Lion). This could be because you don’t want to spend $29 just to test an application or your hardware doesn’t support Apple’s latest OS.

Fear not! I’ve got a method for you to install iBooks Author. Now, this is not officially supported by Apple and you’re supposed to have OS X Lion in order to sell books in the iBookstore. Also, if you brick your computer because you did this I can take no responsibility or provide you with any support. In other words: proceed at your own risk!

• Update iTunes to 10.5.3
• Open Finder
• Click on your hard drive
• Double click System
• Double click Library
• Double click CoreServices
• Right click (or Control Click) SystemVersion.plist and select copy (leave this window open or minimized)
• Right click (or Control Click) on your desktop and select paste item
• Now open the file from your desktop by double clicking
• Now change the two places near the bottom of the file where they say <string>10.6.8</string> to <string>10.7.2</string>. Your version may differ such as 10.6.x
• Click File->Save
• You will be asked to overwrite, select overwrite
• Right click (or Control Click) on the file you just edited and select copy
• Open the window that you copied SystemVersion.plist from and select Edit->Paste Item. (You will be asked to authenticate, select authenticate) and if you would like to replace the file. Select replace. Enter your password if it asks)
• Now go to the Mac App Store and search for iBooks Author and install (Don’t Run Yet)
• Be sure to close the Mac App Store (yes you can close as app downloads)
• Open the SystemVersion.plist that you edited on your desktop and change what you did previously back to your original version. Example: change both instances of <string>10.7.2</string> to <string>10.6.8</string>
• Click File->Save
• You will be asked to overwrite, select overwrite
• Right click (or Control Click) on the file you just edited and select copy
• Open the window that you copied SystemVersion.plist from and select Edit->Paste Item. (You will be asked to authenticate, select authenticate) and if you would like to replace the file. Select replace. Enter your password if it asks)
• Now, Go to your Applications folder under your Snow Leopard Hard drive
• Right Click (or Control Click) iBooks Author and click Show Contents
• Double click Contents folder
• Double click Info.plist
• Search for 10.7.2 and change to your version of Snow Leopard, in our case 10.6.8
• Go to File in the Menu bar and select save
• Now open iBooks Author, you should be good to go!
• iBooks Author may seem not to work when you open it, but just click File->New to start

(Source: http://www.digitaltweaker.com/mac/mac-tips/2012/01/how-to-install-ibooks-author-on-os-x-snow-leopard/)