Techie Homeschoolers

I found a resource that will be valuable to our home school this next upcoming school year:

ClickSchooling.com

I love that they embrace the idea of using so many of the FREE educational resources online.  I am surprised I haven’t found this site sooner.  If I had known about this site, I would have signed up years ago and may have happily homeschooled with these suggested resources alone.

It’s never too late.  Thankfully, I’ve signed up and well on my way to having an abundance of online resources for educating my 3rd grader right at my fingertips.

Here is what they have to say about the services they provide on their site:

Get 1 FREE, Web-Based Curriculum Idea Every Day — Monday Through Saturday!

ClickSchooling brings you daily recommendations by email for entertaining websites that help your kids learn.

This leads me to another topic for another post…

Read/write web is making a lot of progress.  As Google is becoming a prominent leader in the web 2.0 industry, we see them taking over our typical productivity tasks- such as spreadsheets and word docs.

No longer can we just say to our students, “Go ahead and open up Microsoft Word to type up your report…”   At least not when there are so many FREE applications available on the web- like the headway Google is making with Writely.

It’s the epitome of the read/write web phenomenon (web 2.0).  It’s not just about creating content, but being an active participant and developer of content along with a team of other like minded individuals.  It is virtual team building.

Take a look at this google video which shows a scenario of a teen that has a VERY important question to ask someone he really likes.  He needs a little help from his peers, using the Google doc which they all share and collaborate on together.

View Google Writely Video

After reading the news about Phoebe Prince, a freshman at South Hadley High School (in a middle to upper class community in Massachusetts), who hung herself due to cyber bullying, I couldn’t help but to wonder how this kind of behavior could have gone unnoticed, or untreated for that matter.

The “untouchables” is the nickname they’ve been dubbed on The Boston Globe. These mean girls who hounded Phoebe through text messages, social networking groups, and even in person, have been left literally unscathed by the event- even further mocking Phoebe after her death.

The main question I had for this situation was: how do we 21st century parents help to prevent this kind of bullying?

Do we restrict or limit access to the computer?  Do we prevent our children from having social networking accounts?

As a tech savvy parent, I have had to think about this often and mull over some solutions that will fit my kids now in the early years and in the years to come when they become teens.  For now, my children lay low in the social networking arena since they are underage and don’t have Facebook or MySpace accounts.  I have even had to reconsider using full first names for my children under my own blogs and accounts online as well.

But when they are older and become more media savvy, how do I prevent cyber bullying from happening to them?  Some children/teens can be cruel–there’s no getting around that.  How do parents take a proactive role in keeping our kids and teens safe from the exploitation of cyber bullying?

1. Educate our children on web savvy behavior, such as never revealing last names or passwords. I think one of the most important steps to helping to prevent cyber bullying is to help our children to become aware of how to keep themselves safe online.  Small tips like keeping passwords safe and not revealing last names helps.
2. Supervise your kids online.  When at home, it is important for parents to keep tabs on what your kids are doing on the internet.  Placing the computer in a safe, common area (such as the living room), helps keep us parents aware of what is happening with our kids online.
3. Install parenting controls. With software such as Net Nanny, a parent can install internet filtering on home computers as well as for cell phones.  With the onslaught of cyber bullying via text messaging today, parents can also some control over at least knowing what is going on via their kids’ phones.  Here is what the Net Nanny website quotes their software solution does for the cell phones:

Parents now have the ability to view all e-mail messages, along with all (SMS) text messages and multi media (MMS) messages transmitted and received by the device.

Key Word Alert: Net Nanny Mobile “Alert” notification monitors keywords identified by the parents as words that could be potentially alarming. When one of the key words is contained within a text message or email, to or from the child, the parent is notified immediately via e-mail by Net Nanny Mobile.

From any computer on the Internet, parents are given complete insight into the mobile activities of their children.

4.)  Another tip: train your kids to delete messages without opening them.  Not only will this prevent spam and virus attacks, but it also helps to filter out info that could be emotionally harmful to your children.  If they don’t recognize the sender or the subject line looks “fishy”, don’t open it.  Generally, I like to do a quick scan on my email accounts each day for emails that appear in my inbox (which are not first caught by my “junk mail” folders).  If there are emails that I don’t recognize, I have trained myself to automatically highlight and delete them without fully opening messages or attachments.  This should be something we train our students to do as well.

5.)  Apply message blocks. If we learn to use the technology our kids are using, we can effectively help them to block unwanted messages on their cell phones, social networking accounts, and email accounts.

These are just a few small tips to help parents and teachers to step into the direction of being proactive with our kids’ technology experiences.  Although taking away all access to social media and technology can actually prevent our children from experiencing cyber bullying when we are present, it does not effectively prepare our kids to learn how to be proactively careful in their own online and cell phone activities.  We just have to teach them and train them to use technology safely.

As for cyber bullies- obviously these kids have severe emotional and psychological hang ups, that they would get some demented type of pleasure out of harrassing other people online.

But….that’s another story and another set of solutions to be tackled on another day.

For now, let’s just learn to keep our own kids safe…

And last tip:

Perhaps we can bring more community awareness to this problem by starting up community-wide and school initiatives. Our schools and community programs need policies in place to deal with these types of behaviors.  We can’t wait until it’s already happened- then it’s too late.

Wow…

Okay, July was lightyears away.

Here we are in November…two days away from Thanksgiving, to be exact, and I’m JUST NOW digging up these wonderful recordings that we did way back in the summer.

But no worries…no longer shall we wait to expose the fact that we began our year-round school in early July.
While we splashed in water fountains and beaches, we had school in between. Those summer days were AWESOME.

Below are TWO recordings we did for our podcast.

1. The first one is a Memorial Day recording we did.  Very quick and simple cast.
2. The second is a lengthier cast that showcases all that NyGirl had learned that day as a wrap-up for the entire week’s lessons.

For the second cast, she wanted to watch me piece all the bells and whistles together to form a podcast.

I showed her how I:

1. grab royalty free audio clips for sound effects and jingles
2. record each individual segment
3. piece the audio clips and segments together in sound recording software to form one seamless sound file

At which point she thought I was done…then the uploading part came.

I can already tell I am going to have so much fun teaching her how to create and upload her own audios at some point. 

Until then…enjoy these 2 audio clips!

 Memorial Day: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

 Weekly Cast: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We know how much our little homeschoolers love to connect with other friends.  I have two social butterflies that can’t wait for the next playdate and co-op classes.

Well, in between church, co-op, play dates, and gym class (as if that doesn’t keep us busy enough), we still have room for a little extra socializing – in the form of pen pals.

There is a pretty cool website created for the educational world by education professionals- – and it serves as a good jumping off point for educators and students to get connected to other classrooms across the globe through online project collaboration.

EPALS.  So far I haven’t found a techie-er site that homeschoolers can use to not only meet other people, but enjoy participating in online projects.  (I know techie-er is not a word, but it just feels really nice to use it!)  If you’re not into subjects like global warming, habitats, and natural disasters, however, you might find your stay at Epals limited to just the pen pal portion.  To be fair, though, I hear the digital storytelling is a really good project.  I just wish I could find another homeschooler to participate in the project with!!!

There are projects to collaborate on, emails to check, friends to meet. It’s all done within a safe and secure online environment, and is very much embraced by the education community- public and private educators, as well as homeschoolers.

My daughter has met a pen pal from the Phillipines.  They are at the moment exchanging ideas about their likes and dislikes (“i like pizza, how about you?”) kind of stuff.  I do stay completely involved in the email exchange process as it comes to my inbox within Epals and I review it first before passing it off to NyGirl.

But if you want to meet with just other homeschool families (which I recommend if you homeschool, since the majority of the public and private schools have classrooms much larger than a typical homeschool classroom when connecting regarding a project)…then just type in the search phrase “homeschool” in the search box when looking to connect.  You’ll end up with a list of homeschoolers who also want to connect, and you can start there.

At any rate, I’ve only begun using the system since July and am still learning my way around.  I haven’t participated in any of the projects because it has been difficult to find other homeschool families who are also interested in the same projects.  So, if you homeschool and want to participate in any of these, PLEASE let me know (leave a reply here or something– or contact me on Twitter- twitter.com/MamaTechie).

Just found a really neat site that allows you to expand the abilities of a thesaurus:

ThinkMapVisual Thesaurus.

There is a subscription fee of $19.95 a year (or $2.95 a month) for the online subscription…or you can purchase the desktop version for $39.95.

I can see the possibilities for homeschoolers as endless for those language arts and grammar subjects.  Here is an example of what the software can do…directly quoted from the site:

The Visual Thesaurus is an interactive dictionary and thesaurus which creates word maps that blossom with meanings and branch to related words. Its innovative display encourages exploration and learning. You’ll understand language in a powerful new way.

Say you have a meaning in mind, like “happy.” The VT helps you find related words, from “cheerful” to “euphoric.” The best part is the VT works like your brain, not a paper-bound book. You’ll want to explore just to see what might happen. You’ll discover — and learn — naturally and intuitively. You’ll find the right word, write more descriptively, free associate — and gain a more precise understanding of the English language.

This is software lots of homeschoolers might consider for an extra language arts curriculum boost- definitely excellent for journalism and writing topics.  Thanks to Technology Teacher I was inspired to write this post.

There is a lot of talk these days about whether or not the internet is safe for our kids. I think this is a valid discussion and has its place in education.  We definitely need to keep our kids safe online.

But there is a flipside…

If we become too stringent on keeping our kids totally away from the dangers of the internet, we may neglect to introduce them to the wonderful educational opportunities that are available.  These opportunities  may include online educational games, math drills, news for kids, podcasts of classical books -and for our older children, courses on how to use multimedia- such as designing websites, creatively podcasting, and even enriching their online experience even more through keeping a weblog.  That’s not to mention the variety of college level courses offered by universities such as MIT, which are absolutely FREE.  Our kids are living in an age when they can not only be a consumer of online media, but can also be creators.

I don’t think this is the time to passively let these opportunities slip by us.  As homeschoolers, we can use this digital era in history to our advantage- capitalizing on all the GOOD that the web has to offer our students.

There was a study conducted by Yahoo which indicated technology online is actually helping kids and families – keeping families connected and helping kids with homework, etc.  To directly quote:

The learning channels. As for the purpose of the time spent with technology, parents pointed to beneficial uses such as access to news and information. More than half (56%) said the Internet has helped children with schoolwork, and nearly two thirds (61%) said the Internet has “exposed my children to a broad range of cultures.”

That’s good news for homeschoolers.  Again, with all the dangers that ARE pervasive on the web, we need to begin looking for the positive factors involved in using online media in our home schools.

We don’t have to allow technology to control us - either through negatively impacting our families by taking up too much of our time, energy, and resources.  Examples of this are improper usage of Twitter, Facebook, and chat rooms.  If we spend too much time using social media it has the same demise as spending way too much time in front of the television screen, too much time on the phone, too much time at the coffee shop, too much time at the hair and nail salons…you name it.  ANYTHING can be controlling of our time, if we allow it too.  Same with technology.  Don’t be afraid of using it, but neither let it control your family.

Joe Uva says it best:

“It’s clear that within the ’43-hour day,’ families are making concerted efforts to spend time together and to live out a new family value that says ‘we control technology — it does not control us,’” said Joe Uva, president and CEO, OMD Worldwide.

Michele Madanski, Yahoo’s vice president of sales research had this to say about the idea of technology and how it impacts families:

“Father doesn’t always know best. He may not have a clue about what MP3 player is the best value, but daughter can be the expert because she has spent time online comparison shopping prices and features.”

And what does this mean for us home educating parents? It means that we can finally take a deep breath and relax, knowing that as our children have grasped the basics of the three R’s and are ready for more, they can learn to use technologies (with our supervision) and explore these things on their own. Before long, they will be teaching us!

Isn’t that what we want- children who are independent learners and can turn around and teach what they have discovered?

I know that’s what I’ve set out for.  I want to raise godly, independent children who are able to think and reason beyond the reach of my influence.  I want them to be empowered to conduct online research and creatively explore the opportunities for delivering a project in more ways than a 3 dimensional poster board.  I want them to tinker with ideas through collaboration with other kids (this can be done online on group projects with kids from around the globe, or in local homeschool co-ops).

Creativity, exploration, independent learning, group learning…all of this can be accomplished online for the homeschooler.

The internet is far from a perfect environment, but there are definitely things we parent teachers can do to ensure a much safer and meaningful online experience for our kids.

I’ll be covering these ideas in later posts…

Here’s what I think…

The educational community at large is on the roll when it comes to understanding where we are in the 21st century at keeping our kids on top of learning about technology.  (Pulling off the actual programs to make it happen may be another issue- but to the credit of those schools that are succeeding, I must admit that I have read about some of those schools who are doing a great job at integrating tech and ed in Edutopia).

That said, I think the homeschooling community (of which I am a part) does a good job of remaining open to the unique possibilities available in modern education: distance education, to be exact.  This can only be done through the use of computers, hardware and equipment, plus software which allow for communication between children and teachers who are physically far apart from one another.

Our kids (as well as the parent teachers) must learn how to adapt to and utilize the technology so that we can do the work (for those of us who do use distance learning, and in the homeschool arena there are quite a few).  It would be cool to find a statistic on that.

There is one thing, however, that I want to encourage home educators to pay close attention to regarding technology use, and that’s: not ignoring the potential benefits of web 2.0 and multimedia use in the home classroom.

This whole technology thing goes way beyond the idea of our students being able to look up a few key phrases in Google and do a web search on the virtual library.  It’s also more than the idea of we (the parent teachers) blogging about our students’ achievements (although this can be a real PART of how we introduce technology to our children)…but I believe it is only a small fraction of what web 2.0 has to offer.

Just my opinion–and I am passionate about this topic because I’ve been really pondering this, studying and reading about this topic for years.  Society is moving along, and it’s imperative that we at least offer opportunities for our children to stay abreast of what’s happening, and giving them the tools to learn them.

One of the things I studied in grad school was how online collaboration efforts improve learning in kids by drastic measures.

It’s the notion that a student can take his or her idea, type it up in a document, read it as a script into a computer mic, save it as an audio file, upload it to the web via FTP, create an RSS feed and wrap it in Feedburner, promote it via her own website as a podcast, upload the podcast into Itunes for the world to listen and enjoy…

That is an educational experience.

(And I didn’t yet mention the ongoing blog that could accompany the podcast, and so many other venues that could add more depth and meaning to her experience online, plus subject mastery.)

Which brings up another point: internet safety.

We can’t be teaching our kids how to use all of this stuff without the means to protect them from harmful material online.

What I am advocating is a balanced approach to tech ed.

Just how do we pull it off?

That’s a great question.  I have some ideas, and I’ll keep sharing those in later posts!

I was reading the ISTE (International Society for Technology In Education) website, and found that President Obama signed into law an act that poured over $100 billion dollars into education.

That’s a LOT of money.

Fortunately, technology programs and such were not left out of this.  According to the website:

ISTE worked closely with the Obama Administration and the U.S. Congress to ensure that the ARRA included a dedicated funding stream for classroom technology and professional development through the Enhancing Education Through Technology program

What this means is, technology programs in many of our nation’s schools (U.S.) will be receiving extra money in the budget specifically for technology.

I can imagine there will be more spending for :

• professional technology staff/technology specialists
• software
• curriculum developers
• computers and hardware
• computer furniture
• …and perhaps even extra tech training for teachers

With more money, comes more spending.

What I’m wondering is: how much of the spending will actually translate to kids truly learning the basics of technology and its functions?

Kids are really smart…they can pick up just about any technology gadget and figure it out in a matter of minutes.

But put them online, and sometimes they make unwise decisions.  If they haven’t been taught the importance of internet safety, that is.

Give them access to Word, Excel, or Power Point and see if they can effectively use the software to write a paper, perform a calculation, or create a presentation…and for many kids and teens, it just isn’t happening for them.  (This is a case for the majority, and I cheer for every kid who learns this stuff before graduating high school b/c it’s so crucial for the work force).

It’s not that the public and private education sector is failing at technology education because they don’t have enough money or misappropriate the money (although I am sure this is the case in some schools), but what’s a technology budget without a technology education PLAN?

The questions that I think should be addressed are:

1. WHAT do our kids need to learn about technology in each grade level?
2. WHYdo our students need to learn this material?
3. HOW can we keep our children safe while teaching the material?
4. HOW can we teach technology without cutting too deeply into a budget, AND without neglecting needed time on other subjects?

So how does this apply to homeschoolers? Read my next post…

GEEKY POST DISCLAIMER

Okay that said…

I got so excited today when I saw the online interactive version of the Edutopia magazine. For those of you who don’t know, my field of study the last 2 years was in Interactive Technology and my interests lie in digital media and e-training.

Anyways, I thumbed through this magazine, almost literally. I mean, they have the page turn shuffle sounds and everything, plus areas where you can write and save notes. I thought that was pretty cool.

I love to see how our school systems are integrating technology into their curriculum. The few schools who are doing an awesome job are worthy of Edutopia’s feature stories…I just wish there were more schools in Alabama who got featured for tech integration…and maybe I just wish there were more schools in Alabama that integrated technology successfully — and by this I mean teacher training and less emphasis on standardized testing to make way for creativity in the classroom, which could lead to room for tech learning.

I could actually go on a soapbox about this…about how technology is paving our future and without the necessary knowledge, tools, and resources, our kids are leaving high school without so much as an inkling about how to successfully type a paper in Microsoft Word or create a presentation in Power Point.
Of course, this isn’t true in all cases, but for the most part it is. Some people would argue that our kids are bombarded with TOO much technology (video games, television, cell phones, the infamous Ipod)…but what I say is…why shouldn’t it be utilized within academia to actually REACH our kids with their own language?

Just maybe this is to be my project some time in the near future…hence the business loan (or maybe even a grant?) All I know is, technology should be happening in today’s classroom.