Lazy Sunday
Now that I'm coming to from my traditional Sunday afternoon nap, made all that much easier because it's one of those murky overcast days that makes you uncertain about just what time it is and makes you sleepy all day anyway, I've been lollygagging about the web looking up sites that I've meant to look at all week when 'I got around to it'.
One was "Cosmeo". Their ads have been in heavy rotation lately. Happy, bright, well co-ordinated and ethnically diverse youngsters frollicking through their school, all singing a version of "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomarrow)"-I never cared for that tune when Fleetwood Mac did it and when the Dems adopted it as a theme song that really nailed it shut for me, but I digress. Took me a few times to actually figure out just what the heck they were hawking. It's a "homework help" site under the auspices of the Discovery channel. Now I dig that channel. Watch it alot-except during Shark Week-sorry, ain't the least interested in sharks. It's a subscription service, but their loud and happy ads say you can sign up for a month free. OK, I'll bite. I'll go look. I'll read up on it. Might be of some value...might.
Maybe I just caught 'em on a bad day, maybe my dial-up just can't cope with the newer, hi techy sites, but honest to God, this thing loaded up slower than a snail on 'Luudes! Took a good 5 minutes before I saw anything that might actually be something. Jeez, dare I click the 'about us' button? That'll take forever I fear. I click and go make a pot of coffee.
Came back just as the new page was finishing up, here's what it said:
"Why Cosmeo? Cosmeo can:
* Facilitate learning with a constantly updated video library, including more than 30,000 video clips across all age and grade levels
* Match videos to your state's curriculum standards
* Make learning fun with a wide variety of interactive games, and homework help tools
* Help your student succeed with 15,000+ images and a library of teacher-selected websites for students to use for school projects and presentations
* Make your student's work stand out with an online encyclopedia of 27,000 full-text articles
* Give you the ability to monitor usage and learn alongside your students"
30,000 video clips, eh? Nope, pass. I found it slightly amusing that no periods were used in the pitch.
If this site is relying on vid clips to convey most of the information and if just getting the first 2 pages to come up were any indication, I honestly don't need to be wasting my money OR my kids' time with this crap.Vids take forever to download in my world. Besides, we have 2 full sets of encyclopedias right here and we could have accessed 7 different topics in the time it took just to find out what the frig this site was about. This site is too Buck Rogers for us. We will always be doomed to the dial-up gulag. Here in the boonies it's the only viable option, for at least the next 6 years.
So, no go Cosmeo. My kids are already smarter than me, anyhow.
Dang! I was hopin' that Blogger would have it's act together, so I could post some pics from our adventures yesterday. It's still smokin' crack. Still stupid as the day is long. Oh well, someday perhaps...I've fiddle farted around with it too long now. I got younguns to feed, it's dinnertime!
One was "Cosmeo". Their ads have been in heavy rotation lately. Happy, bright, well co-ordinated and ethnically diverse youngsters frollicking through their school, all singing a version of "Don't Stop (Thinking About Tomarrow)"-I never cared for that tune when Fleetwood Mac did it and when the Dems adopted it as a theme song that really nailed it shut for me, but I digress. Took me a few times to actually figure out just what the heck they were hawking. It's a "homework help" site under the auspices of the Discovery channel. Now I dig that channel. Watch it alot-except during Shark Week-sorry, ain't the least interested in sharks. It's a subscription service, but their loud and happy ads say you can sign up for a month free. OK, I'll bite. I'll go look. I'll read up on it. Might be of some value...might.
Maybe I just caught 'em on a bad day, maybe my dial-up just can't cope with the newer, hi techy sites, but honest to God, this thing loaded up slower than a snail on 'Luudes! Took a good 5 minutes before I saw anything that might actually be something. Jeez, dare I click the 'about us' button? That'll take forever I fear. I click and go make a pot of coffee.
Came back just as the new page was finishing up, here's what it said:
"Why Cosmeo? Cosmeo can:
* Facilitate learning with a constantly updated video library, including more than 30,000 video clips across all age and grade levels
* Match videos to your state's curriculum standards
* Make learning fun with a wide variety of interactive games, and homework help tools
* Help your student succeed with 15,000+ images and a library of teacher-selected websites for students to use for school projects and presentations
* Make your student's work stand out with an online encyclopedia of 27,000 full-text articles
* Give you the ability to monitor usage and learn alongside your students"
30,000 video clips, eh? Nope, pass. I found it slightly amusing that no periods were used in the pitch.
If this site is relying on vid clips to convey most of the information and if just getting the first 2 pages to come up were any indication, I honestly don't need to be wasting my money OR my kids' time with this crap.Vids take forever to download in my world. Besides, we have 2 full sets of encyclopedias right here and we could have accessed 7 different topics in the time it took just to find out what the frig this site was about. This site is too Buck Rogers for us. We will always be doomed to the dial-up gulag. Here in the boonies it's the only viable option, for at least the next 6 years.
So, no go Cosmeo. My kids are already smarter than me, anyhow.
Dang! I was hopin' that Blogger would have it's act together, so I could post some pics from our adventures yesterday. It's still smokin' crack. Still stupid as the day is long. Oh well, someday perhaps...I've fiddle farted around with it too long now. I got younguns to feed, it's dinnertime!
posted by white trash republican at Sunday, March 19, 2006
2 Comments:
It is becoming a broad band world.
Everywhere but here.
The folks closer to town or actually in town have a plethora of options.
We don't and probably never will.
Wait, that's not true...we can get satellite internet. For about 70 bucks a month. No thanks. Remoteness does have it's downsides-but not very many. This is just one of a few.The goodies outweigh being a jackrabbit on the 'net.
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