What's New at Learn in Freedom!

| Newest Links | Home | Site Map | Site Index (A to Z) | Site Search |

Welcome! As of July 19, 2000 I have updated every page on the site, always with new navigation "breadcrumb trails" and also with the new slimmed-down site logo, which links back to the home page. There are plenty of new pages here; check out the site map for a complete listing, or use the links page for an overview of the most popular pages.

As of October 24, 1999 I rewrote the site map page and the A to Z Index page to improve site navigation and reflect the addition of new pages to the site. This was the first round of updates to the site since the 21 September 1999 earthquake in Taiwan, which cut off my electrical power for a while. (This site has a server computer in the United States, perhaps with good earthquake protection, and kept running just fine after the Taiwan earthquake.) In particular, I broke the Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ into still more new subpages, namely the Financial Aid for College Study page, the Sources for the Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ page, and the useful Books on College Admission and Student Financial Aid page. It's no wonder that the Yahoo directory, the most-visited Web site in the world, has broken with its usual policy and set up two links just to the main page of the Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ, even though Yahoo's usual policy is only to link to the home page of a site (as Yahoo does to the home page of this site). I don't want to rest on my laurels, so I have posted the path-breaking Learn in Freedom! Internship Program page. I have already found that the first participants in the site's internship program are examples of the effectiveness of learning in freedom, full of good ideas for improving this site in the next few months.

I have posted revisions to the Books on School and State page, as well as the Bibliographies on Educational Issues page and the Magazines and Selected Articles on Homeschooling page. I have also posted the revised Building Better Web Sites (Technical Notes) page, to link to some helpful advice on other sites. And I have responded to a helpful reader comment by posting the reconsidered Research on Homeschooling Socialization page to reflect a subtle point made by that alert reader.

I rewrote the site's cascading style sheet in response to suggestions from readers. Please let me know what you think about the readability of this site with its current font settings (visible on most new browsers). I also eliminated some in-line graphics from each page on the site to speed downloading time. Thus I have again made technical corrections to all pages on the site. What do you think of the new look?

What else would you like to see at this site? Please let me know. I have one suggestion: check the Search Page before suggesting what to add to this site. You may find it is already here, on one of this site's more than forty pages. But feel free to suggest putting some of the site's content in a different place if you don't like the way things are arranged now.

On August 8, 1999 I rewrote the home page. I revised the corrected site map page to reflect the changes in the home page. I expanded the revised about Karl Bunday page to add more information about my research activities. I made corrections in the site's CSS style sheet that should improve the appearance of all pages for users of newer Web browsing software. And I extensively reworked the reciprocally linking Pages That Link to the Learn in Freedom! Site page.

On July 18, 1999 I posted the expanded Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ and some revisions to subpages of the FAQ. That is always the most updated resource on this site, and is usually updated at least twice between every time this What's New page gets updated. In addition, I posted the revived about Karl Bunday page to let readers know who I am, and to cast privacy to the winds in the interest of letting you know more about "where I come from." The majority of content pages on the site have a link to that page. I also posted the ever more comprehensive Critiques of the School System and the thought-provoking Books on IQ and Human Intelligence pages. I also made technical improvements to every page on the site.

On June 23, 1999 I posted the expanded Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ and its subpages, namely other colleges A-G, other colleges H-S, other colleges T-Z, as well as the earlier Open Admission Colleges That Have Admitted Homeschoolers page. I am glad to hear from Patricia Lines, a researcher on homeschooling with the United States Department of Education, that she will be referring to this on-line College FAQ in a forthcoming publication. The FAQ now lists more than 930 colleges that admit homeschoolers.

I divided the former Site Map and Table of Contents page into two pages, the Site Map page and the A to Z Index page. I added many links to each of those pages throughout the site, and put a navigation bar on the top of most pages that includes both of those links. (This site has had a navigation bar on the bottom of every page from the beginning of its existence, as that was part of the original template for each page on the site. Later suggestions from readers of the site prompted me to add the top navigation bar as well.)

I also posted the Homeschooling Is Growing Worldwide page including a link to Ms. Lines's latest published research on the number of homeschoolers in the United States. I posted the Books on IQ and Human Intelligence page, a resource that enjoys direct links from college departments of psychology and from local Mensa groups. You'll find new content on the revised Research on Homeschooling Socialization page. The extensively restructured colophon page for this has the new name Building Better Web Sites (Technical Notes) page, to reflect its role as a general source of advice for all people who build Web sites about learning in freedom, not just a description of how this site was built. I revised the autoresponder message that goes out to people who comment about the site to the Web master (me) through the E-mail links on each page. Behind-the-scenes technical improvements on almost all pages on the site as of this update include use of CSS style sheets, a new document type declaration, a META tag to declare the character set for each page, a language identifying attribute for each page, and various other improvements that make these pages ready for the next generation of mobile wireless Web access devices. Several of these improvements also make the site more friendly to persons with disabilities.

The improved Learn in Freedom Internet Resource Hot-List includes new external links, and now links to a Pages That Link to the Learn in Freedom! Site page. So I now can say that I give reciprocal links to pretty much every one of the hundreds of sites that link to this site. Another first-time page on this site is the Awards for and Press Notices of the Learn in Freedom! Site page. I'm grateful for the awards this site has received, and for the attention it has gained from professional journalists.

On February 12, 1999 (earlier mistyped as "1998") I posted the expanded Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ which is now divided into additional subpages, namely other colleges A-G, other colleges H-S, other colleges T-Z, as well as the earlier Open Admission Colleges That Have Admitted Homeschoolers page. I hope this further division of the Colleges FAQ makes it more convenient to download (it was getting to be quite large, the largest file on my site) and draws more attention to what is now exclusively shown on the main FAQ page: selective colleges (more than 300!) that are known for certain to have admitted homeschoolers. Professional journalists are taking note of the effort and care I put into researching and maintaining the Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ, which was recommended in a January 29, 1999 article about homeschooling in the San Francisco Chronicle: "Singing the Praises of Home-Schooling" (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/1999/01/29/NB66774.DTL).

Pages appearing for the first time are the controversial Genuine Multiculturalism page. I'm asking for help from readers for the Site Improvement Project that will lead up to the next round of revisions to this site. Your suggestions for improving this site are always very welcome.

I posted the revised site map page to reflect the newly added pages. The improved Learn in Freedom Internet Resource Hot-List includes new external links. The revised Homeschooling Is Growing Worldwide page mentions recent research on the homeschooling population of the United States and includes the names of new countries from which I have received E-mails from homeschooling parents. I revised the autoresponder message that goes out to people who comment about the site to the Web master (me) through the E-mail links on each page. All other pages on this site include various technical corrections to improve navigation, and include my new postal address in Taiwan.

I recently moved to Taiwan to do missionary work, in a rather unusual circumstance. Rather than being sent over by an American mission agency, I have been called over by the local denomination that is the sister denomination of my denomination in the United States. As such, I am truly living off the local economy, with visa restrictions that prevent me from accepting any gainful employment here but church work, making me dependent on the weekly generosity of persons who on average have much lower incomes than people in the United States. Their sacrificial giving makes it possible for me to pay for my on-line access here and keep this Web site going. (I have time to post updates now because of the forthcoming Chinese New Year holiday, which has resulted in cancellation of many of my usual scheduled activities.) I greatly enjoy being in Taiwan, and appreciate the calling to share the message of God's salvation in Jesus Christ. Your prayers for my work would be much appreciated, and will be made known to all the world on the day of revelation of our Lord.

Adapting to my new workplace, and the busier schedule of my new job, sending in forthcoming new and revised Web pages for copyright registration, and intensifying my involvement in homeschooling my own growing children is sure to delay writing my long-forthcoming book on homeschooling (which will be targeted not to duplicate what is already written on the subject). Those and various other tasks mean the next set of new pages for this site will come some time well into the new Chinese Year of the Rabbit (that is, probably many months into 1999). Before then, I will be updating the existing bibliography pages with links to on-line booksellers, which has been a frequent reader request. There are forty pages on this site so far (and also two archived pages, and one page that is generated by a script). New pages now in preparation include

1. a bibliography of theses and research reports on homeschooling,
2. a starter guide to homeschooling research,
3. a basic "talking points" sheet on homeschooling and its benefits,
4. a bibliography of audiovisual materials on homeschooling,
5. a chart of the world's most-spoken languages,
6. a page about learning Biblical languages at home (so you can look it up in the original languages),
7. a bibliography of fictional works with homeschooling themes,
8. a bibliography about college admission and student financial aid,
9. a completely restructured colophon for this site, which will become a guide to the best on-line information on Web site design,
10. a bibliography about Web site site design,
11. a bibliography about the Nobel Prize and Nobel Prize winners (my thanks to a public school teacher who referred me to some of the best sources on this subject),
12. and a bibliography of favorite books of mine that don't fit into categories related to other pages on this site but are worth reading.

1. a Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page for this site (needed now that I've seen almost three years' worth of incoming E-mail about this site, so much that the autoresponder message is becoming quite large),
2. a page about the economics of education,
3. and various other pages that time permits.

On November 30, 1998, I posted the corrected Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ and its subpages the Open Admission Colleges That Have Admitted Homeschoolers page and the Colleges Rated by College Rating Guides page. I also made technical corrections to various pages (mostly to reduce error messages generated by Web robots) and have expanded the acknowledgments in the home page.

On October 3, 1998, I posted a very preliminary first draft of my Web page on the relationship between school attendance and youth suicide. This page still needs a lot of expanding and revising, so I appreciate your comments about it. Please look up and tell me about any research on that issue that you know about. I also posted the corrected Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ.

In its October 8, 1998 cover story on homeschooling, "Learning at Home: Does It Pass the Test?" Newsweek magazine recommended this Web site as a source of information about homeschooling. In particular, the sidebar on page 70 (of the United States edition) noted that this Learn in Freedom! site has information about colleges for homeschooled applicants, an evident endorsement of the Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ.

As of September 8, 1998, I revised both the ever-growing Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ and the expanded Learn in Freedom Internet Resource Hot-List once again. The Colleges That Admit Homeschoolers FAQ is becoming so enormous that an increasing number of would-be readers are telling me it is too big to access with their computers (presumably because those would-be readers have computers with limited RAM), so I will try to split that FAQ among multiple pages in the next major revision. I have already split off and revised the Open Admission Colleges That Have Admitted Homeschoolers page, which is a subpage to the college FAQ. I have also added still more new information to the Homeschooling is Growing Worldwide page. I have added entries to the Current and Choice Books on Homeschooling page, reflecting comments from readers of this site about their favorite homeschooling books. I have added some information to the Schools and Crime page, a page about which I'd like to hear more comments from readers.

I temporarily disabled the guest book as I plan to upgrade it, so you can read old entries there (if you can find a link to it, which I won't provide here) but can't add new entries until I get a new guest book script for this site. The old add guest book entry page (also not linked to here, for the moment) is now a clone of the useful Comments to Web master Form Page which you may wish to use instead of using the E-mail link on every page to send me your comments. I made corresponding alterations in the Site Map. Please note that if you would like to ask informational questions for which you desire a rapid answer, your best hope is to refer to the Web-based discussion boards listed on the Learn in Freedom Internet Resource Hot-List, this site's links page. I made various technical corrections to all other pages on this site, revised the autoresponder message that goes out to people who comment about the site to the Web master (me) through the E-mail links on each page, and also revised the Robots Exclusion Standard file for this site.

By December 25, 1997, I moved this whole two-year-old Learn in Freedom! ^TM site to its second, and I hope permanent, new domain name:

http://learninfreedom.org

Here you can find all of the old favorite Learn in Freedom! ^TM Web pages, all included on the Site Map and Table of Contents, and now also accessible through the Search Page first available with this site, which sends your keyword queries through a computerized script and searches every page on this site. Cool.

People reading this site at public libraries or other places without E-mail facilities can now comment to the Web master (me) by a comment form, which should make it possible for me to hear from more readers. One change that doesn't appear as you read these pages, but will appear if you send E-mail to the Web master, is that the new site has an "autoresponder," which should help me keep up with E-mail a bit better.

(I usually only show about the most recent few sets of changes on this what's new page. I encourage you to come back to the Learn in Freedom! site at least every half year or so to see what's new.)

On January 14, 1996 everything was new here. That was the first day the Learn in Freedom! site was complete enough to publicize. (It was first posted on January 3, 1996.) Enjoy every page. In days to come, as I add new pages to the site, I will list them and link to them from this What's New page, so you can go right to the latest additions to the site.

Please let me know what you think of this site, so I'll know what new things to put here. Thank you for any suggestions you have.

webmaster@learninfreedom.org
Karl M. Bunday
Minnetonka, MN 55345

Please write with your comments! I really appreciate your comments. All E-mail to the Web master with a valid return address receives an immediate, automated reply with answers to the questions readers have most frequently asked me about this site. Please note that my E-mail address in the link on this page is protected against robots collecting addresses for junk E-mailers by adding the characters "%20" before the actual E-mail address in all my E-mail links. You can simply remove those characters from the beginning of the address line on your E-mail program if they appear on the address line, to ensure you send E-mail to the real Web master address for this site. You can usually get fast and helpful answers to specific questions about education policy, homeschooling, or other issues brought up on this site from public discussion groups where many people participate, because "in multitude of counselors there is victory."

Feel free to come back to the Learn in Freedom! ^TM site (http://learninfreedom.org) again soon!

Site Search Form

This School Is Dead: What's New at the Site page is copyright © 1996 Karl M. Bunday, all rights reserved.