His Wife Was Ready to Quit Homeschooling. Then He Built a Free Tool.

Daniel Lowe and his wife Ruth were ready to give up on homeschooling. Six kids, no structured curriculum, and a growing sense they were falling behind. Then Daniel built a simple spreadsheet that tracked how much work each kid needed to finish by year's end. That spreadsheet saved their homeschool - and eight years later, it's a free app that seven families independently nominated him for OpenEd's 2026 Innovator of the Year award. Read the full story: https://opened.co/blog/self-directed-... About Daniel Lowe: Daniel J. Lowe is a senior principal software engineer at Collins Aerospace and a homeschooling father of six in Sandy, Utah. He and his brother built Course Tracker to solve their own families' homeschool tracking challenges. Try Course Tracker (free): https://loweware.net 0:00 Why He Built Course Tracker 3:04 Kids Choose Their Own Subjects 5:32 The Pull Toward Homeschooling 7:08 The Deschooling Process 8:53 Conversations with the Kids 10:17 Scaling with Multiple Kids 13:55 Six Kids, One Tool 16:04 Both Parents on the Same Page 17:52 Adjusting Curriculum Mid-Year 18:38 A Day in the Life 21:30 Learning from Consequences 23:21 Building Work Autonomy Skills 26:07 Why High School Outside the Home 28:18 The Case for Homeschooling Early 30:52 Kindergarten as a Preview 33:41 Why Mastery Matters 35:40 Lessons Learned: Writing 37:32 Academic Wins and Love of Learning 41:13 Rapid Fire 45:21 Where to Find Course Tracker 📬 Get daily homeschool insights + free guide: 110+ Most Popular Homeschool Curricula (And How to Get Them At No Cost) → https://opened.co/resources Subscribe for weekly videos on designing education around your child—not the other way around:    / @openedhq   --- Connect: Instagram:   / openedhq   LinkedIn:   / openedhq