BooksApp2-Organize your home or class library

 

Today I discovered a cell phone Application that I am really excited about!

The APP is called BooksApp2. 

As many of you know, I am a Homeschooling Parent, but this App would be good for Homeschoolers, Book Lovers, Parents of small children, or for those Organizational Gurus that like to organize their lives wherever possible!

I cannot count the number of times that I've either:

• Forgotten who I've lent my books to and never gotten them back.

• Wondered if I had a book already (or an extra one to give away...because I do that.)   You know, that moment when you are at the store, looking at a book, and wondering if you've bought it already.

• Can't remember if I've read a book.  Oh, you know how it goes....you buy lots of books thinking you'll read them all right away.  Some of them you do, and some of them....well.....they may sit a while.  Especially if I really like a particular Author, I sometimes get confused regarding which books I've read and which I bought but haven't read yet.
  
  

The good news is that this App can fix all these issues for me!  

Here is the Description from Google Play's website regarding this App:

Description

BooksApp helps you organize your home library effortlessly. Scan the barcode of a book and all its information is downloaded from the web and saved to your phone automatically¹. You can then easily keep track of your books.
To lend a book to someone, scan it (or open it from the list), press "Lend book" and select your friend. When a month has passed, you will get a notification to remind you where the book is. If you have a book you want to recommend to a friend, you can do that over SMS, e-mail or Facebook etc.

You can organize your books into collections, e.g. "Favorites", "Reading now" or whatever tickles your fancy.

Finding more books is trivial. You can search for books by the same author or publisher, or books dealing with the same subject, all without typing a single character. Saving any of the matches to your phone is just one tap away.

You can export books in two ways, either as a spreadsheet—which you can send to anyone—or to Google Docs². The spreadsheet is a CSV (Comma-separated values) file that you can open in any spreadsheet program. You can also send the file to other BooksApp users, both Android and iPhone users.

Importing books is done by opening a CSV file from an e-mail or from the file manager.
BooksApp exists for iPhone as well, see www.books-app.com for more information.
Happy book organization! :-)

BooksApp is open source and released under the Apache 2.0 License https://github.com/jonasb/BooksApp

¹) Should the book not exist amongst Google Books vast amounts of books, you can always enter it manually.

²) Google Docs export requires Android 2.1 or later.

Here are 2 links to the FREE App:

For Android Phones (FREE)
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.wigwamlabs.booksapp&hl=en

For iPhone (FREE)
https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/booksapp-2/id369366304?mt=8

I hope that this is as exciting to you as it was to me.  If you have kids that are old enough that you trust them with your smart phone, I bet you can recruit them to scan your books!  It is sort of fun and they can play 'Book Store'. 

Here are some Screen Shots (copied from the Google Play webpage)

*POSSIBLE ISSUE & WORK AROUND*

I use AT&T as my cell phone provider and today when I went on my phone to 'Google Play' and searched BooksApp2, nothing came up.  My work around was to go to Google Play on my home computer, plug my cell phone into my computer via the USB plug, and I downloaded it from the computer directly to the cell phone.  It took just a couple minutes and works perfect!

No Stress Curriculum

Today I was thinking about how our year has been going so far, as we are in our first year of High School and 3rd year of homeschool.  I thought about  our specific curriculum and how I tend to spend much of the end of summer/beginning of each new school year worrying over which curriculum to choose and wondering what will be best for us.  I tend to want a No-Stress Curriculum. I was reminded today that much of my worry is in vain.

I recalled how things have worked out in each area of study.  Some areas we had extremely organized curriculum and in some areas we started with a much more open style of learning, pulling resources from the library, internet, or local bookstore.  I'm trying to remember that some of the more flexible times of learning really work better and stick longer in my son's mind than an old style rigid schedule of reading-quiz-reading-test.....

Life itself offers so many (almost endless) opportunities for teaching our children, IF we are paying attention and take advantage of the teachable moments!  

I love the way we teach and learn even in 'non-school' hours as we see something on a movie, or hear something on the radio that prompts conversation or questions.  And even more, as my son is getting older, he will hear adult conversations about life events and culture and join in or ask questions later....eager to have a deeper understanding.  

In our current day, there are SO many resources for learning that are absolutely free!  Libraries, the Internet, and just people that we know who have real and interesting life experiences.

Our first year I did not buy 1 subject of organized curriculum, by year 2 I thought that was a crazy idea (because it was a lot of work!) and we schooled off a 100% pre-organized and very scheduled curriculum.  This year we have the organized curriculum but I am tweaking it a bit so that we have more flexibility to experience some of those more free flowing times of learning...a little 'out of the box' so to speak.

I had previously thought that the more flexible learning style approach seemed to me to be much easier with younger children, and with the pressure of the ever looming 'High School Transcript' I was feeling pressured to revert to a public school style of learning....(to meet those college requirements) then I realized what I was doing. I remembered that I originally decided to homeschool for a purpose and that God has equipped me for every good work, of which I believe this to be (Ephesians 2:10).  Just like Moses, I'm trusting God to put words into my mouth when I don't know what to say, because I trust that I'm doing just what I was called to do...in freedom from the bondage of a strict curriculum.  And guess what....I'm still meeting those college requirements!
  

Doesn't freedom feel so sweet?!?  Why yes, yes it does!

Please don't get me wrong....I do truly adore our curriculum, it has made my life much easier....and yet I enjoy having a good balance.  And with the balance I am finding greater joy for both myself and my son.

If you are a homeschooling family, or just a parent with kids (since parents are teachers whether their kids are formally 'schooled' in the home or out of the home) ... be encouraged to think out of the box the next time their is a learning opportunity.

Also, if you are a parent who has fun or good stories about ways in which you have taught your children, I would love to hear them in the comment section!

Happy Parenting,

~ Jessica ~