Installing Switched-On Schoolhouse

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I write the Switched-On Schoolhouse Series twice a month to share our family’s experience using this software based curriculum in our home.

When sharing about our experiences with Switched-On Schoolhouse offline with some homeschoolers, I was asked the question:

“Can I install Switched-On Schoolhouse on more than one computer?”

The answer is YES if you have a home network!

There would be a number of reasons a family would want to do this if you have multiple computers in your home.  Perhaps you have two children working with Switched-On Schoolhouse courses and they would both like to do their schoolwork at the same time.  Or maybe you have a dedicated computer for your children and a ‘hands-off’ parent computer, so you would like to install the teacher’s software on one, and the student software on the other.  For those reasons (and probably more) being able to install Switched-On Schoolhouse on more than one computer is so helpful!

SOS is easy to install because really everything pretty much installs itself, you just follow the prompts so you don’t have to be a ‘tech genius’ to do it.  In order to install it on multiple computers though, you have to choose one that will be your “home base” so to speak.  On that computer you will want to do a FULL INSTALL.

The reason you need to have a home network is because the CLIENT INSTALL (the computer(s) other than the “home base” does not have its own copy of the database.  It will be dependent on the computer with the full install to provide the database.  So SOS won’t work with a laptop on the go if it has the client install on it, because it won’t be able to ‘speak’ with the “home base” computer while it isn’t connected to the home network.

We decided to make our laptop the full install, and then the desktop the client install.  That way we can still take our studies on the road with us, and it doesn’t matter that the desktop can’t connect…because we aren’t home to use it anyway!  It works really well, and I like having it on the desktop for when we’re at home.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received the products mentioned above for free for review purposes from Alpha and Omega Publishing. I was not required to write a positive review and this product may not have the same results for all people, please do additional research of your own when purchasing products mentioned in reviews. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

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