The Old SchoolHouse Magazine - DIGITAL!
I have a confession. I think one of my primary reasons for homeschooling my kids is that I am a closet book-a-holic. Well, it’s really anything with words in it actually… I was the kid reading the cereal boxes over breakfast trying to sound out the names of the interesting ingredients (which leads me to the question “why are we eating something that we can’t pronounce??” … but I digress.)
You see, I love books, magazines, newpapers, anything with words… BUT… my Darling Husband does NOT like the clutter of more than a few book cases in any given room. SO, I had to be creative… we spread the bookcases out around the house, never giving any room more than their “permitted” two bookcases (okay, I’ll admit, my dining room has three… but shhhh.. he hasn’t really noticed yet!). And even then my printed word habit was bulging at the seams… but then a glorious day! I was introduced to the E-Book!!!!! (there are not enough exclamation points in the world to express my joy! *wink*)… I could hide a whole LIBRARY in my computer… or collected on a few little, non-intrusive CDs… life was grand.
I never thought it could get better… but it DID - Now there are looks-like-the-real-thing eMagazines! And of course, my favourite kind of magazines are homeschooling related (duh!)… so you can imagine my delight to hear that The Old SchoolHouse Magazine was now being published in digital format… and not just a simple PDF file either… this was a whole new magazine reading experience!
To start with, there is a “pages” option which lays out the entire magazine in clickable thumbnails, just how I can imagine the editors would lay out the mock-up for the real magazine. It is so convenient to browse and click on whatever article (or advertisement!) catches your attention and *FLIP!* a digital page turns and there you are at that article, in full size and colour, ready to enjoy.
And if it wasn’t enough to browse the thumbnails of the articles, there is also a Search option which allows you to type in a keyword and it pops up a list of all the titles, pages and even a little “sample” of the article it’s refering you to… it’s like searching on a real search engine! Talk about your incredible time saver when you are trying to find that one article that you just had to show a friend… very helpful!
On the technical end (as if just being an interactive eMagazine wasn’t enough to impress my socks off), there is a “settings” option where you can choose how you would like to view your magazine (one page at a time, two page spread, fit to width, fit to height, zoomed in close *for those of us with reaaaallly bad eyesight?*) and…. here’s the kicker… it REMEMBERS your settings!!! How cool is that? One of my pet peeves is PDFs who hijack my other PDF settings by opening things not the way I want, and I am forced to WORK (okay, click one little button, but still.. my button-clicking time is precious to me! LOL!) to fix it.
Can you tell how impressed I am?
Okay, onto the content side… because, although I am a card-carrying member of the cereal box readers club, I know that even the “neatest” of eMagazines isn’t worth a thing unless there is something worth reading in it. Well, rest easy… there are LOTS of facinating articles, ranging from schooling styles, learning styles, teaching tots to teaching teens… and LINKS GALORE! That’s another nice thing about the eMagazine - where there is a referral to a site, there is a clickable link… no more typing it in to your browser window only to find out you left out one obscure letter… this is an instant link. AND if you view the magazine online (I did, but it was slow loading on my dial-up connection, so I ended up downloading it to my computer) and like an article, you can even click a button and SHARE the article with your friends! Now that’s a community builder. Picture reading a fantastic article - passing it on to a couple of your best “over a cuppa tea” Homeschool Mommy friends - and *Voilà!* you have an instant conversation starter for the next time you all get together… (you know, in case you DON’T have something to talk about already…. grin!)
So… as you’ve probably gathered, I’m pretty excited about this new way to squeeze more words into my life (and these are those little ones I can hide away on a CD for safe keeping… so, my Sweet Man is happy - less bookcases - and *I* am happy - more words!). I wish ALL magazines offered this option…
… and one more thought: The Old SchoolHouse Magazine DIGITAL version is also a VERY environmentally friendly option - no trees were harmed during the downloading of the magazine! *big wink*
Blessings!