jayb842 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 Who uses Discovery streaming plus? Do you like it or not? What are they charging Homeschools? How do you use it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joyful_Journey Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommyx5 Posted March 13, 2012 Share Posted March 13, 2012 I don't think we have "plus" just the regular. It is free in SC for homeschoolers. I mostly use it for videos for the kids. They have really loved the videos, even the baby (2 1/2) does. It may be because they don't get to watch alot of TV so most anything makes them happy in the way of videos. There is definitely alot of educational material. I can see where you could find anything pertaining to the subject you are on at the time. I plan to schedule them with our studies next year, we didn't have it when I planned this year out. They also have lesson plans & print outs to go with some of the videos, although I haven't made use of this yet. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
southmetromom Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 I'm looking into this, too. I notice the Homeschool Buyers Co-Op offers it for $199. I don't think it's free here in CO. I am searching these fora right now for feedback. Sandy Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lillehei Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 We are going to get the plus edition in a few days from HSBC and use it with SOTW and other subjects. It will be $199 for the year. It looks great! We can't get free either, only SC and GA. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ChrissySC Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 (edited) I use it. Yes, we love it for science the most. It is free to us through our PBS station! You need to check with your state and PBS station before buying a subscription. (I do not know about the Plus version, but I can create entrie lessons and plans as well.) And to answer the "how to use it" ... We do Bookless Fridays - this means that we do not use "books" for history and science on Fridays. We use videos, posters, internet, audio, etc. This is when we use the streaming. There is nothing like creating a set of links and sending them outside with the tablet to wander around the internet. (I give big thumbs up to the quadcore in the Asus e, as well as the Acer 100's performance for a small book-sized tablet - just in case you are not Apple fans.) Edited March 23, 2012 by ChrissySC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KarenNC Posted March 23, 2012 Share Posted March 23, 2012 (edited) We don't have a free option in NC. This year we bought the $199 version through HSBC, but next year, I plan to go with the $59 bundle of DS and Brainpop through http://www.onlineg3.com's subscription forums (bundle also comes free with any of their courses, which I think run about $199). It's not exactly the same subscription as either the basic or plus subscriptions through HSBC and you have to order it on their school year schedule (starts in August), but I think it will work for our purposes and the price differential will be worth it. Some considerations about DS (based on my experience with the $199 one). I've only used it for my 6th grader, so can't speak to elementary materials. Pros: There's definitely a large amount of material and I am usually able to find something related to what we are studying. My daughter likes visual aids, so this is helpful. It's very convenient to have it at home to be able to just go search and pull up something quickly. Some of the programs come with related teacher materials that can be printed out.--note that I seem to remember a comment that the onlineg3 version may not have these, but not sure. Cons: Optimized for viewing on the small viewer on the computer. For some of the videos, even going to fullscreen on my 17 inch monitor makes it a bit blurry, so I don't expect it to be a good option if you want to view it on your TV, particularly if you're used to HD. Does not work with the Roku and they have no plans to make it do so. The Roku is the way we stream to the TV, so this was a bit disappointing. While some of the videos are from PBS, etc and quite good, many resemble the ones we watched in high school. Adequate but not thrilling. My daughter found the middle school Spanish program (one of our main reasons for buying it) to be tedious and retained little. We ended up buying Tell Me More Spanish and getting a lot more out of it. Personally, I haven't found the assignment interface, etc to be very intuitive, so I just stick everything in "My Content" and pull it from there as needed. Spending more time (or having more patience;)) might alleviate this con. Some of the specific programs we've found useful on DS: Horrible Histories (animated), Time Warp Trio (for younger, but she likes it), Standard Deviants Shakespearean Tragedies, PBS Empires, TOP! Spanish (gameshow format), Maths Mansion, Connections, Dear America videos, Royal Diaries videos. Edited March 23, 2012 by KarenNC Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
besroma Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 :lurk5: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ElizaG Posted March 24, 2012 Share Posted March 24, 2012 (edited) We have it, and enjoy it. It's a good source for entertaining videos when mom needs a little break. My children like Number Crew (UK math program for early childhood), Magic School Bus, and WordGirl. I tried to get them interested in the elementary Spanish, but my 6 year old absolutely loathed it. We also use it for school. We don't use the history videos, as the ones I looked at were full of bias and factual errors. (Did you know that Thomas More's criticisms of the Catholic Church were a main cause of the Protestant Reformation? Or that the golden rectangle has sides in a ratio of 5 to 1? Neither did I... :tongue_smilie::tongue_smilie::tongue_smilie: ;)) But other related topics can be useful in cases where we might ideally have a field trip. I look around the site at times when the children are in bed, and save any promising looking ones in folders. To give an example, we're getting ready to learn about the explorers in North America. We've looked at geography videos of the regions of North America, the eastern Canadian provinces, a dramatization of woodland Native American life, and nature videos of woodland animals. We've also looked at video of some places the explorers came from in Europe, and performances by a group that plays medieval and Renaissance music. That sounds like a lot, but many of these videos are only a few minutes long. Some are old-fashioned, but I like the simplicity. Though the dramatization of the Native American family was so obviously fake, it was almost MST3K worthy. Then the hunter started cutting up a deer (for real). I probably shouldn't have put that one on during lunch. :lol: Edited March 24, 2012 by Eleanor Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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