KarlieQ
- Reviewed on Thursday, August 26, 2010
- Grades Used: 9th-10th
- Dates used: 2009-2010
I first started using the SOS software last school year. My son was quite bored with textbooks & workbooks. I purchased just the SOS World History to see if this would be a good fit for him and it was. So, for this school year, we are doing the entire 10th grade SOS curriculum. He seems to be able to follow it well and it keeps him interested. I also feel the price of this product is very fair.
I've been reading that other users have had trouble getting SOS to load properly on their computers. I, myself, haven't had that problem. I purchased this years 2010 SOS from PennyWise Learning in May and didn't load it on my computer until July and things went very smooth.
In closing,I think this is a good curriculum and I will continue using SOS throughout my son's high school years.
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Sparky
- Reviewed on Monday, August 23, 2010
- Grades Used: 8th and 11th
- Dates used: 2010
I am writing this more as a warning to anyone thinking about this software. Please read it and then make your decision.
This is our first year to homeschool, and, trying to be organized, we purchased the AOP Switched on Schoolhouse 2010 edition, specifcally the Secondary Spanish and Secondary French, in May 2010. We did not open it however, until July 2010. I installed on July 3, 2010, and soon realized the product was not going to work, and so decided to return it.
Why did I want to return it? Simply, because it did not work. The software is clunky (and I am a progammer, so I can say that). Once I had installed the main SOS part, it would not recognize the language packs. I had to physically install the files where I thought the SOS program was looking for them. Even then, I had to point the SOS at the files, each time. This is completely unacceptable, and tells me that they did not test this product very well. Are you telling me, every time I want to use the program, I have to tell it where to locate the files that it needs? This is pre-floppy-disk '1981' quality at best.
I attempted to contact AOP directly about this and other glitches (time and space do not permit me to list them all); they were very rigid about this point: because we bought early, we were past the 60 days. Because we opened the product, no returns were possible. Catch 22. I asked them, how do I know then if your product works? Are you telling me I cannot return a product, even if it doesn't work? 'Yes, of course' they said. 'OK' I said, 'give me a new set then'. 'No' they responded, 'you have not proved that yours does not work, and you are also past 60 days'.
Are you kidding me? I asked them to be reasonable, look at the fact that yes, we did buy early, but that also, the product did not work as advertised. They just said No.
** WARNING # 1 - be careful where you buy. AOP claims a 60-day 'no hassle return' policy. Hmmm. Despite clear evidence that we had neither installed the program nor registered it (by their own records) until July 5, 2010, because we were past 60 days after purchase, we had no claim. We later found out that had we purchased from a reputable reseller, we would have had no problems. Their position is 'well, you opened it, so it's yours, period'.
** WARNING # 2 - Get it in writing that, should you decide for whatever reason to return a purchase, you will not get such a run-around.
AOP is apparently the only company with that even has such an intractable policy. Every other company we have dealt with, without exception, has been terrific about returns. I understand AOP has to draw the line somewhere. It's just unfortunate that they are so unwilling to consider their customers.
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Regina G.
- Reviewed on Wednesday, August 11, 2010
- Grades Used: 6th
- Dates used: 2010
I will be starting my 6th grader on SOS this week. I am having trouble already getting around the website and software. I am NOT a computer person. So far I was not able to go to their webiar, to find out more about the software, when I called no one could help me. The software has a bit too many options and steps to navigate. The tutorials were okay but time consuming! I would like to see more user friendly software, less headaches from the hoops I have to jump through just to get started with SCHOOL!
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c21cg
- Reviewed on Wednesday, March 31, 2010
- Grades Used: 4th
- Dates used: 8/2009 - 4/2010
I am homeschooling my grandson who has mild autism. He couldnot function in streamlined school. I am able to adjust his lessons to all one subject per day, instead of switching back and forth between 4 different lessons. He is very computer literate and gets a kick out of the silly games on the software. I am glad the lessons are short as his attention span is too. We supplement the school is History channel, A&E, Discovery etc and he seems to retain what he is learning. We are doing this as a family effort for him. We will continue on with 5th grade. Originally I signed up with the academy and it was 1200.00 but 5th grade will be just the software. It was difficult to learn how to rearrange the days but now we have it down.
In other words, we love SOS
Nana
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