Online Home-Schooling

The Homeschooling experience can be further enriched by taking advantage of available online resources. The internet is not restricted by opening hours like a library, and distance is not a problematic logistic. There are online encyclopedias, educational resources, groups and forums to join, access to news articles, and even educational games. If you don't know where to look for any of these, do a search on any one of the available search engines.

Online resources are a great tool for homeschooling your children because:

• Online school articles save a lot of time. There are easier and faster alternatives of most traditional learning practices. If you consider flash cards, for example, you could find an online site that will provide the same exercise in a more interactive enjoyable while saving your time.
• Online tests are fun to take and you get immediate feedback.
• When you are teaching a particular topic, you can easily fish out useful images and video clippings on that. For example, if you were teaching something about the Egyptian civilization, you could find streaming videos and pictures about the Egyptian civilization very easily using a search engines.
• Newer applications and online lectures have animations and 3D graphics which help the child understand things better and visualise them properly in their minds. Even the best teachers pale in front of these visual style lessons.
• As most interactive tests and online lessons have graphics in them, it makes the tests more fun. A nice design could actually make your kids want to take more tests!
• Kids are fast at learning how to type. Once they get a hang of this, you could ask them to write their homework on computers. Typing is a necessary skill for many jobs in the workforce these days, and also makes assignment writing so much easier and quicker.

Online homeschooling is especially useful for high school students. Nowadays there are many complete courses being offered online for high schools and higher degrees. There are interactive online articles, online lectures, online textbooks and course material, and online tests. You could have access to everything a normal school-attending student will have and more.

While you are considering online resources you should also consider some of the best ways to utilise these resources. If you are planning to buy a computer, there are several advantages of using a laptop over a desktop system. With a laptop system, your child has the liberty to move it anywhere. Your child has the freedom to work on the computer at his/her desk, at the dining room table, or even on the verandah. If, like me, you are cautious as to what your children access online, you can ensure that your child works on the computer in your presence. With a laptop, it is possible for you to be preparing dinner in the kitchen while your child is doing homework on the bench in your presence. This sort of flexibility is lost using a desktop system.