Showing posts with label virtual. Show all posts
Showing posts with label virtual. Show all posts

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

Time4Writing Review: Extreme Paragraphs

Pros: Small time commitment,personally coached by individual teacher, simple way to develop practical skills

Cons: Small icons were at first confusing to navigate after logging in, would love to see more teaching videos, animations to teach writing concepts, or interactive lessons like Time4Learning.

Summary: Overall a great little course with lots of helpful writing tools. My daughter was able to finish with minimal time commitment. Writing teacher was helpful and kind. She usually graded assignments within a 24 hours. Instructions were simple to follow and explained well. I feel that my daughter learned some useful information and had fun using her imagination to write paragraphs.

Full Review: After reading the parent info on the site, we decided that the "Extreme Paragraph" course looked like the right level for our 8 year old. J started off her writing course introducing herself to her teacher Mrs. Jennifer. The course began slowly with exercises and assignments to practice writing all the parts of a paragraph, beginning with topic sentences. 

Each lesson began with a short video clip that explained the concept that she would be learning. Then practice activities and quizzes came before the assignment. After completing her assignments, J's kind writing teacher, Mrs. Jennifer graded her writing and left a grade and helpful feedback to either correct the assignment, or to move on to the next lesson.

J seemed to fly through the lessons and quizzes with ease, but took a lot longer finishing the writing assignments. Once she was finished she was proud of her accomplishment and very excited to get feedback from Mrs. Jennifer.

Overall we thought the course had a lot of useful writing tools and clear instructions. My daughter learned some useful information and had fun using her imagination to write paragraphs. She seems a little more confident and has even expressed an interest in writing a book someday. :)  At the end of the course, J earned an Extreme Paragraph writing certificate. 

Saturday, July 20, 2013

Review: Time4Learning


Pros:   
  • Fun lessons cover lots of material in small amounts of time. 
  • Animations, colorful graphics, and interactive funny dialog keep kids engaged. 
  • Clear explanations and feedback for right and wrong answers. 
  • Parent access to quizes and grades, easily printed for record keeping.  
  • Clutter free schoolwork, great for big families or small living spaces.  

Cons:    
  • Using Time4Learning on a tablet is a little tricky and can be slow.  
  • Parental controls do not include the ability to digitally assign specific lessons or assignments.

Summary:  
If you are a busy parent and looking for an effective educational tool that your children will love to use either as a curriculum, supplement, or tutoring alternative for preschool through 12th grade...Time4Learning is a excellent resource!  

Try it:   Time4Learning.com  

Review:  
There are many things to love about time4learning...but I will keep it simple and just name a few.

1. Effective teaching tool
Time4Learning is both fun and really great at teaching concepts and skills to a large spectrum of learning styles.  The lessons are very well written and designed to help children learn and retain the material. We were pleased with how well our kids did on standardized tests this year.

2. Makes life easier
I don't know about you...but as a homeschooling mama of four, it's hard to juggle everyone's schedule some days. This program is kid and parent user friendly and keeps track of where everyone is at. If a subject comes easy for your child, they can fly through...if its more difficult, they can watch the lesson again until they get the concepts.  Work that is finished and graded for you is easily printable for record keeping and reporting.

3. Stuff Free!
Having had a child in public school, I was amazed at the volume of paper that came through the door! It was a constant battle to stay on top of it all and I found myself having to recycle 99% of it to reclaim the space it took up in our house!  Although Time4Learning has optional printable supplements to go with lessons, the work is almost completely digital. It is an ideal curriculum for families living in small spaces as it eliminates the need for many text books. It's also great for traveling as all you need is a computer (or tablet) and an Internet connection. 
 

Overall we really love this program (we have been using it for years) and we are excited that Time4Learning is launching their new high school program this fall! We hope Time4Learning will become more iPad friendly in the future.  

Disclosure: The opinions we have expressed are honest opinions and have not been influenced by Time4Learning. Compensation was received for this review.