Hschooler.net Features
Basic Social Networking Features
Hschooler.net provides a continuously growing set of features. Some are features common to many online social networks, including:
- Profile: This is your description of yourself and your activities that other people can view.
- Dashboard: This is YOUR page. You are the only one who can see this one. It is your gateway into Hschooler.net.
- Status/Activity: This lets you say in a word or a short sentence what you are doing or how you are feeling.
- Journaling: This lets you keep an online journal that you can share with your parents, family, or friends. This is also sometimes called a weblog or blog.
- Groups: This lets you to create or join a group where people with similar interests can discuss those interests.
- Social bookmarking: This lets you share with your friends other sites and resources from around the Internet.
Features for the Christian and Homeschooling Community
Hschooler.net includes many, and will be developing more capabilities specifically designed for the Christian Homeschooling community, including:
- Reviews and ratings of curriculum, books, movies, and more
- Bible reading and sharing tools
- Task management for assigning to-dos and managing multi-faceted group projects
- A Wiki-based homeschooler-created encyclopedia (future)
- Online teaching tools (future)
- Additional Bible study tools (future)
Features for Protecting Your Family
The service is distinctive from secular services by recognizing the authority of parents and giving parents visibility and control over their children's activities using capabilities like:
- Parent controlled security and privacy settings
- Control of what the kids can do
- Control of what plugins kids can use on their profile page
- Control over who can see their kids' shared content
Note that some capabilities are not available until the member is part of a family account. This requirement ensures that certain activities are only be performed with parental approval and oversight. Upgrading to a family account costs $10 per year for the entire family. A free trial is available to be able to evaluate the benefits of the upgrade. A credit card is required for the free trial to ensure that the upgrade is being performed by a parent.
Here's a summary of which features are available for different types of Hschooler.net members:
Tool | Non- Family | Family | |
| Parent | Student | ||
| Activity | S | S | S |
| Book reviews | S | S | S |
| Bookmarks | S | S | |
| Chat | S | S | S |
| Classifieds | S/U | O/U | |
| Curriculum reviews | S | S | S |
| Event reviews | S | S | S |
| Family | S | S | |
| Friends | S | S | S |
| Fun Quizzes | S | S/U | S/U |
| Games | S | O | |
| Groups | S | S/U | S/U |
| Journals | T | T | |
| Music reviews | S | S | S |
| News | S | S | S |
| Photos | O/U | O/U | |
| Polls | S | S/U | S/U |
| Prayer Requests | S | S | S |
| Product reviews | S | S | S |
| Reviews/Ratings | S | S | S |
| The Holy Bible | S | S | S |
| The Wire | S | O | |
| To Do Tasks | S | O | |
| Tuits | S | S | S |
| Video game reviews | S | S | S |
| Video reviews | S | S | S |
| Website reviews | S | S | S |
S = Standard (Enabled by default. Parents can disable.)
O = Optional (Disabled by default. Parents can enable.)
T = Tuits Required (Disabled by default. Parents can enable by paying a fee in Tuits.)
U = Upgrade Available (It may require paying a fee in Tuits to fully use this tool.)