Alpha Omega Publication Monarch/Switched on Schoolhouse

[Homeschoolmom4981]

Has anyone used Alpha Omega Publications Monarch/Switched on Schoolhouse science and language arts and had good results? I have trouble getting around to science and thought this would be good for my upcoming 3rd and 5th graders. We use Climbing to Good English for LA, but it doesn't seem to stick/transfer into their writing. Thoughts???

[boobaby]

Bump.

 

Same question from me too!

Any Monarch users out there??

 

Thanks,

Amber

[hermione310]

I used Monarch for one course. I signed up for a monthly plan and ended up discontinuing after 2 weeks. I found the course content to be excellent (it was a middle school bible course), but the interface was so dated and difficult to navigate that it didn't seem worthwhile to me. It had the feel of textbook content that was hastily converted to a web-based format, with little investment in the interface design. Disappointing, as I thought the content was impressive. 

 

As this was a bible course and not a science or language arts course, perhaps those differ. I did poke around a bit in their other course offerings, however, and the interface issues seemed fairly pervasive. 

[boobaby]

Thank You hermione310.  That was exactly what I was worried about. Just another online curriculum tossed out there that is little more than textbook converted to an online format. There are so many of them now.

I was really hoping this would be the Christian alternative to Time4 learning. Time 4 learning is great but has some downfalls that I just can not accept.  Grades K-5 I can stomach, but in 7th, 8th and beyond their videos of adults "teaching" are horrible. The adults act like juveniles. Their gestures and behavior are VERY unprofessional. My dyslexic 7th & 8th graders said they didn't take anything seriously because they just couldn't respect the adults in the videos. I watched.... it was ridiculous... those adults tried to act like they were rapping and acting cool, the caucasian lady was trying to act like she was a different authenticity.  And on and on. It was ridiculous. 

I had to get rid of T4L for the teenagers. What good does it do if the students can't take their education seriously? I pieced together other resources for one of them the following year and now they are both in PennFoster online high school. I am still using Time 4 learning for my 8yr old with Dyslexia but I don't know for how much longer. I was really hoping I could switch her over to Monarch but, if it is nothing more that textbooks converted to online, it won't be the answer for someone in lower school. If a student has Dyslexia, Time4Learning is pretty good for elementary school and maybe middle school as long as you don't care if your children are slowly, systematically, daily getting used to the possibility of not respecting adults b/c the behavior of the adult teacher don't deserve  respect.