Humpty wrote in with this question: I want to know what a blog roll is and why someone wants one. What does it do for you?
Aside from being a clever play on words, a blogroll is a roll or list of blogs that have a similar affinity for the topics you address on your blog. For example, Michelle Malkin, being a top blogger in terms of daily visits, has a list of 164 blogs that are very fortunate to be listed there because of the high exposure. That's really what you want to consider. A blogroll is your way of providing exposure to blogs you believe are worthy of attention. It's different from HSB's Friends list because a Friends list can contain anyone and everyone you know. A blogroll is more exclusive. Similarly, if you have a passion for botany or quilting but your blog is limited to political commentary, you're not going to want to put your favorite blog on botany in your blogroll. Such a link would be more suited to an "About Me" section. Setting up a blogroll requires some HTML and some time spent modifying your template. Some enterprising folks have endeavored to make this easier for you. I have not tried them, but it looks like a fairly simple service to manage.
Because of the variances between state to state, I am using my home state of Colorado as the basis for these statements. For educational options in your state, click the table of flags at right to visit your state page with HSLDA. Q: So what is homeschooling anyway?
A: Put simply, homeschooling is choosing not to place your child in public, private, or charter school, and instead choosing to educate your child out of a home-based model. This does not mean the child must remain inside the home to pursue their education. Most homeschooling families have field trips and activities, including team sports, physical education such as dance classes or gymnastics, and science groups or other clubs based on interests. In all cases, however, the parents remain in control of the curricula used and the child does a significant portion of their work based out of the home.
Q: We have our child in a virtual academy. Isn't that Homeschooling?
A: Unfortunately, no, it's not. That is what is called "public school at home." Although many parents choose this option for very valid and good reasons, such as wanting more time with their children or pulling them out of a social situation, it differs from homeschooling in two very important ways.
First, the curriculum is determined by the state, not the parent. This essentially turns the education of the child over to the state. The student must learn whatever the state curriculum contains. This puts Christian parents in the unenviable position of teaching evolution from the time the state introduces it. Also, the parents are locked into the curriculum for their child and may not remove any part, even if the curriculum is unsuitable to the child's learning style. If the child falls off pace, they must catch up with the rest of the class instead of adjusting the school year or the pacing. In reality, the only benefit a virtual academy shares with homeschooling is the obvious fact that the child is physically home, not in a school and therefore learning is done with family involvement without the same threats to your child's safety.
Second, the public or charter school is receiving state funding for the child. This is crucial to understand what's happening. Virtual academies receive most or all of the funding that a public school would receive per student, while the student sees only a fraction of that money in the form of a computer and a curriculum and other such items. The money that most schools use to pay for classrooms, light, heat, air conditioning, plumbing, lunches, and the various other parts of the physical plant costs are offset by...you guessed it...mom and dad. Where do the other thousands of dollars per student go? Regardless, public funds are being used and parents do not direct the funds or the learning.
Q: Isn't homeschooling for children with special needs?
A: Although children with learning disabilities, physical challenges, or other issues that would put them in the special needs category do very well in a homeschool setting, they do not comprise the majority of homeschool students. Most students without such challenges also thrive in the homeschool setting.
Q: I've thought about homeschooling my child. What would it take to get started?
A: It doesn't take much to get started. Homeschooling is something that you grow into and develop for years and years to come.
First of all, search for a homeschool support group. Ideally, one already exists in your church or in a large congregation nearby. Few if any require you to attend that congregation's services. Local secular groups also exist, usually based out of the library, but if you're Christian or Jewish, check with your church or synagogue first. Go to a couple of meetings and meet the people. The leaders are usually the first, best source of information and can usually help you sort out your concerns and questions much better than other sources.
Second, seek out good books and magazines on homeschooling. One book I would recommend is So You're Thinking About Homeschooling by Lisa Whelchel. It's a good introduction and dispells some of the myths about homeschooling that are so popular and so untrue. Ask your support group leaders for recommendations as well.
Third, count the cost. Write down the reasons you want to homeschool and weigh them against what the group leaders and members have told you about the investment in homeschooling your child, such as time and style/curricula (Five in a Row, Saxon, Alpha Omega, unschooling, etc.) options. Consider these against private and public/charter school options. Better to consider these things up front than to get halfway in and then bail out. Additionally, some problems you are looking to resolve, such as behavioral problems or self-esteem issues may or may not vanish overnight.
Fourth and last, you need to pray. This does not help as much if you're an agnostic, but pray anyway. If God has it in mind that you homeschool your child, he will keep the inclination to homeschool on your mind and heart. How you educate your children is critically important to God. Deuteronomy 6:4-9, Proverbs 22:6, Ephesians 6:4, Titus 2:1-8
Trackbacks are an interesting piece of technology as innovative as
blogging itself. Let's say you're reading a blog and what they had to
say spurred you on an inspiring and even exciting new train of thought.
Rather than clutter up someone else's comments section with a long
post, you can post your entry on your own blog. Using the trackback
feature, if the blog site supports it, you can take the Trackback URL, usually a link below the blog entry you read, from the site and put it in the Trackback URL blank on your blog.
Here's where it gets innovative. Your blog site (HSB in this case)
takes the URL and trades information with the other person's blog. Your
site tells their site that you have a posting related to theirs and
tells it to list it as a trackback on the original post that inspired
you.
The practical impact of the trackback is immediate.
Future readers of the original post can click on that trackback link
you created, directing them from that site to yours, increasing your
traffic.Depending on the settings of the blog, readers of the original
post may be able to see some of what you said before they visit your
site. Some advice: Make sure the title of your post and the first few
lines of your post are relevant to the original post. People will use
the trackback more often if they see that what you have to say is
interesting to them.
There are benefits to trackbacks over
commenting and vise-versa. Trackbacks allow you to keep your insights
on your blog and not scatter them all over the blogosphere.
Additionally, they allow you to make full use of HTML such as links, bolded text, colors, sizes, and fonts, and even pictures to illustrate your point. Yipes!
On the other hand, trackbacks are a feature few people understand.
People grasp what comments are and how to use the feature. Yet because
they don't understand what a trackback is, they don't click on the
link. If they don't click on the trackback, they don't get to see what
you say. It may be better just commenting and hoping someone clicks on
your link to find your site.
Still, I have used the
trackback feature often. That alone has brought some people here to my
blog that wouldn't have found me otherwise, some of which appear to
come back time and again. This is most folks' primary objective of
blogging.
Give it a shot! Take the Trackback URL here
and use it to put a trackback on your own blog post. Come back to this
post, refresh the page, and you will likely find your trackback listed
here.
Q: "I tagged you with 'X.' What happened to my tag?"
A: In short, I deleted it. This is not personal. I simply don't do tags. I have no shortage of things to write about on my blog, and although I appreciate how tags help bloggers get to know other bloggers, tagging is too generic, too random, and sometimes too silly for me to spend my time on. While reading and writing is something that I enjoy immensely, I have a disability and and have to choose wisely how I spend my time at the keyboard.
If you have questions about me, I invite you to write me at waldenswits@gmail.com. I will then post your question(s) and respond to them on my blog when I can.
RSS is short for Really Simple Syndication. For a detailed, technical answer, click here. From an end-user point of view, what RSS allows you to do is take syndicated content, like headlines from your favorite online newspaper or recent posts from your favorite blogger and add them to a custom interface, such as the very intuitive and user-friendly Personalized Google page. Content by RSS is called a feed and there are feed readers, like Google Reader that allow you to grab all of your feeds at once and view them. This will save you time if you're used to going to more than a few different sites to pull in all of your information.
An RSS feed can be used in other ways, too. Mozilla's Thunderbird e-mail client, which is like Outlook Express, but better, allows you to create an RSS folder that lets you see all the RSS feeds at a glance and read them like you would your e-mail. Every time you open your e-mail, it will pull the latest data from each of the sources for you to read when you want and when you've read it, it takes away the bold so you know you've seen it. You can even create several different folders, like one for news, one for weather or sports, and even one for news from Sioux Falls, if you're interested. Just follow the help files with your e-mail client to set it up.
XML is short for eXtensible Markup Language. If RSS is the car, XML is the engine. You can take an engine from an Oldsmobile and put it in a Chevy. The car looks different and handles different, but the power and substance of the car is in the engine. People use the XML button to point to the XML code used for driving the feed. The actual creation of the file is determined by the publisher (the blogger, author, or webmaster) of the site. Although clients can change how their RSS client (like Thunderbird or Google Reader) displays the content, choices whether the feed shows the full content or just a summary is left up to the publisher.
Why do some bloggers chose just a summary? Well, because they want people to get interested and come to their blog to read their content. This is valuable for those displaying ads on their site because it boosts their "impressions" or times ads are displayed to a viewer.
I've added my blog to Feedburner. What that means is you can get Walden's Wits in your favorite feed reader simply by clicking on this feed icon: Pretty nifty, huh?
You don't want to use a feed reader? No problem. Feedburner will send you an old fashioned e-mail with my posts if you subscribe using the very simple subscription box in the right column under Feeds & FAQs. Complete the anti-spam safeguard and you're all set to get my incoherent meanderings by e-mail.
Questions? E-mail me using the link at right under The Usual Links.
Much as I'd like to avoid it, deleting comments is necessary for any blog with significant traffic. Here's the way you can keep your comment from being deleted:
Keep your tone respectful of others. State your opinion on the topic, but do so like a mature human being. Abusive comments -- especially those with profanity -- will not be tolerated. I don't feed trolls, either.
Stay on topic. If you have a really cool site that you really want to tell me about, send an e-mail to waldenswits@gmail.com and I will consider putting up a link to your site. Otherwise, links must have a relevant connection to the post.
Log in or give your web site and/or e-mail address so that people can contact you and follow you back to hear more of what you have to say. Anonymous comments are rarely considered worth responding to because I believe that if you want to be taken seriously, you stand by what you say. Anonymous allows you to dodge responsibility for what you've said. Additionally, signing a name, real or not, carries as much weight as Anonymous.
That's it. I hardly ever delete comments, but if I do, it's for the three reasons above.
I have allowed all visitors to be able to comment again because I value people's input. Previously, some very unruly folk were being quite troublesome. In the future, I will likely ban them directly. If you're blocked, it's because the offending party is using the same IP address as you. There's no other way to block them without restricting the comments to members of HSB.
If you'd like, shoot an e-mail to me at dadscorner@gmail.com with your specific comments and I will see about posting them for you.
. It's a good introduction and dispells some of the myths about homeschooling that are so popular and so untrue. Ask your support group leaders for recommendations as well. 
