Online Homeschooling-Effective or Not?
Jan 18th, 2009 | By Jessica Parnell | Category: Featured Articles, Issues in Homeschooling, Lead Article
Online homeschooling can mean courses that are fully online with all instruction, review, projects and testing completed on the computer. It can also mean online instruction that correlates with a textbook or other learning guide. Other online homeschool options have a textbook or workbook at the core with enrichments available online.
The question is, what is it that homeschoolers really want in an online program?
Please post your comments below. If you are considering turning to an online homeschool option, what format would you prefer? And if you have used online homeschooling for your children, what do you see as its advantages and disadvantages?
Additional homeschooling posts:
“Spring” into Fall! How to Set Up a Successful Homeschooling Academic Year NOW
"Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.
Homeschool Know-How: Identify Your Child’s Learning Style – Today
Children Should Be Taught According to Their Individual Learning Style, or They May Miss the Point Entirely
Do you recall ninety percent of the information you were taught during the grade school years? How about fifty? Twenty? The teaching methods utilized in traditional education settings were – and in many cases still are – the general auditory lecture, supported by some text, the occasional picture, and good old rout memorization.
There is something to be said for printed text on paper. I find it easier to read a long article or really study the information if it is a lot of data.
David
[...] Online Homeschooling-Effective or Not? Online education is clearly on the rise and with it many options for online homeschooling. [...]
Hi Jessica,
My husband and I were just discussing this topic. We’ve been homeschooling for 8 years and our take away is a combination of both physical (pens, paper, books) and online is best. Physical for the core curriculum and online for supplemental learning and activities.
For example, we use Sonlight as our base but reinforce with http://www.BigIQkids.com as an interactive, online learning piece. The children love BigIQkids because as they get older, they want to be “online” but we want them in a safe, nurturing environment and the fact they can practice and learn their spelling, vocabulary, math facts and US geography while having some “online” time is too cool. Plus, it’s a welcomed break for them AND me!