Homeschool Your Teenager

Sometimes I find it to be a real challenge to get my son to read on outings away from home instead of play games on his Nintendo DS. He doesn’t carry a book, even a small paperback, because he says it weighs too much with all his other stuff. My solution is to leave all the other stuff at home and just carry the book, but that goes over like a lead cloud. When I insist, I’m bombarded eventually with the whole I’m bored routine, so I quit insisting he leave the Nintendo DS at home. In fact, the less of an issue I make it, the less he will actually play it in the car or while waiting somewhere.

I have a partial solution to the reading problem, but I am less happy with it as time goes on. I have a couple of ebooks on my old Palm Tungsten E PDA. I’ve read all of them and I need to download some new books. I’ll have to take the old ones off because my old Palm doesn’t have much memory. It’s also hard to read on the small screen and the Palm Reader is really clunky. It’s definitely old technology whose day has come and gone.

I keep a small variety of books on my son’s reading list in the car so he has no excuse for not being able to read. I keep a fair number of my own books in the car, too. The back seat of the car is becoming a junk pile of books! It’s in total disarray and I have to clean up the back seat before anyone else can ride with us.

I also keep all the textbooks I use when tutoring in the car so they’re accessible when I get to any library and I don’t have to remember to put them in the car. Forgetting a textbook for a tutoring session can mean the difference between being productive or wasting the student’s time and my own. At $45/hr that is NOT cool. With gas prices so high, I’ve removed some of the reference books I used to carry because more weight means worse gas mileage.

But what if there was a way to have all your own books, all your homeschooled student’s books and even audiobooks, textbooks, references, newspapers, blogs and Wikipedia available in a single, compact, light-weight, electronic gadget that has a long battery life and can wirelessly download anything formatted for the device without having to use a computer? What if it also came with a USB cable to allow you to download certain other formats of written material, like MS Word documents, pdf files, and some other eBook formats available through your public library? That would be really cool. I’m not sure how good the sound quality is or whether you can download MP3 files to listen to music, podcasts, etc. That would be a great benefit.

Sounds too good to be true, doesn’t it? But it’s not. It’s real and it’s getting more affordable. It’s the Amazon Kindle, and the price just went down $40 to $359. I expect the price will drop again in time for the 2008 Christmas buying season. The price is comparable to an iPod. It’s kind of like an iPod for reading.

Please watch the following introductory video:

That video was published by Amazon.com, so it doesn’t point out any negative features, but there are plenty of YouTube reviews of the Kindle and other eReaders, so hop over there and play several of them. In my own experience and that of several people who made review videos, we all had similar likes and complaints.

There are several eReaders going on the market by several manufacturers including Bookeen Cybook Gen3 ($379 for 512 Mg), iRex iLiad ($599-$649), ECTACO jetBook ($299), Hanlin V3 ($299), and Sony eReader ($269). This list is probably not exhaustive.

Apple is definitely missing from the list. All these eReaders may have sound quality that’s good enough to play music, too, so it could end up replacing the audio iPod. Apple came out with the iPod Touch, which looks a lot like the iPhone, but plays audio, video, podcasts, runs applications and has some games with fantastic graphics. The iPod Touch costs $299 for 8 Gb and $499 for 32 Gb. Apple hasn’t come out with a comparable device for reading yet, and I would like to see what they eventually put on the market. I’m not sure they will want to compete here because what makes for great multimedia generally isn’t great for reading text.

There are a couple of things I don’t like about other eReader devices that the Kindle handles very well. Other readers are much more like reading an ebook on your Palm Pilot. Paging is slow, bookmarking has to be learned, not all models allow you to clip pages and annotate, they don’t have the full resources of the world’s largest bookstore at your fingertips anywhere you can use a cell phone, and you can’t forget you’re reading on a screen rather than a paper book. After a few pages on the Kindle you forget you’re reading on a device.

What I don’t like about the Kindle:

• It’s white and it shows dirt if you carry it around and use it without the cover. I’d like to see a version in black. I’m sure as time goes on and the Kindle’s popularity increases other colors will become available. They chose white because we read books on white paper and they wanted the device to disappear from your reading experience and it truly does that.
• The corners of the device are sharp, and after holding it for a couple of hours they dig into your hands. It’s uncomfortable. I’d like to see new models with rounded, smooth corners.
• You can’t hold the device by the sides easily without accidentally turning pages. There should be some way to hold the reader by its sides and not turn the pages when you don’t intend to.

I have this complaint about all ebooks that aren’t free in the public domain. When you’re done reading it, you can’t pass it on to a friend. But that’s the case with all electronic books. Even when you check ebooks out from the library, you have to download the license to view it and when the license expires (if you haven’t gone online and renewed) you can no longer view the ebook. Same goes for audiobooks. You can’t share them off the device when you’re done with them. If they’re on CD or tape you can pass the CDs or tapes on to someone else.

In my short time of researching and trying eReaders, I find the Kindle to be the best eReader device for the price at present. I expect the price will come down over the next 6-12 months, making it even more attractive.

Computer technology makes homeschooling much easier than it would be without it. We are usually the education pioneers when it comes to innovation, especially to help our kids learn faster and better with superior research and multimedia skills to present their work to us, family members, homeschool groups and even on YouTube or other video/multimedia sharing sites. I predict we will be some of the first parents to introduce a portable technology solution for our children to read more often with greater flexibility.

What do you think? Please speak your mind about technology and homeschooling in general or the Kindle in particular in the comments.

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written by joubess \\ tags: Amazon Kindle, download content directly, eBook Reader, electronic reading device, eReader, Kindle, reading technology solution

Aside from the often superior education homeschool students receive, here are some more reasons to homeschool your teenager:

Because homeschooling can be done at any time of the day and takes a lot less time than traditional school, many homeschooled teens can work part-time or full-time to earn money for college, their own spending money or car, or just to gain work experience. They can volunteer their time and skills during regular work hours when many agencies are open and need help. They can also spend more time learning life skills around the house and doing chores many teens just don’t have time to do.

Homeschooled students are less influenced by other teenagers and their sophomoric, cruel or even criminal behavior. Homeschooled teens are influenced much more by responsible adults and are held accountable to them. In school, a student can skate by on C’s and D’s and still go on to the next grade while goofing off. In a homeschool environment, parents can demand excellence in students’ studies and not allow them to pass if they don’t have an A or B level of understanding in a subject. My son soon learned he was better off doing something right the first time if he didn’t want to spend a bunch of time doing it over until I was satisfied with his work.

You can tailor a student’s curriculum to fit his or her specific needs and interests. If your child wants to pursue fashion design you can avoid teaching him or her three hard sciences and math beyond Algebra I and Geometry. Measurements relevant to the fashion industry can be taught instead. For example, sales and marketing could be taught instead of a third or fourth history course. To fill in any gaps in knowledge from not taking a class, the student can read a few books on a subject to get the main ideas. This is what we do as adults. When we need or want to learn something we get a book and read about it. An overview appreciation course could also be substituted for individual classes in subjects a student won’t use again. Someone going into the arts or business needs to know enough about science to be an informed citizen, but that knowledge could be covered in a physical science course about all the hard sciences (physics, chemistry, and astronomy) and one life sciences course covering biology, botany, earth and environmental science.

One of the biggest advantages of homeschooling is you can focus your teen on the three most important skills her or she will need:

• to read something and discuss it or write about it knowledgeably and well
• to find information quickly and independently
• basic and everyday math skills

If you can read and comprehend it, you can learn anything. If you have a great deal of skill and practice in basic math, you are equipped to learn more advanced math subjects.

I’m sure there are many more reasons to homeschool. Please speak your mind in the comments and share your ideas with us.

Sherri

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written by joubess \\ tags: advantages, homeschool, teenager

I’m a homeschooler of a teenager and a high school math and science tutor. The biggest weakness I see in most of my students is they lack a clear understanding of the basic math, algebra, geometry and trigonometry skills required to work problems in math, physical science, chemistry and physics.

Once I show them how to solve a problem, they usually tell me they don’t remember the math I used, or they remember seeing it but don’t remember it well enough to use it.

In algebra I, students don’t remember key elements of basic math. In geometry, students don’t remember key elements of algebra I. In algebra II, students don’t remember key elements of algebra I or geometry. In trigonometry, students don’t remember the key elements of algebra I, geometry, and algebra II. I also run into a lot of kids who are very weak with fractions and rearranging equations. Most students today have trouble adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing one and two digit numbers without a calculator as well. I believe they don’t learn these skills well because they are permitted to use calculators and are not forced to practice.

These and other math skills are essential to learning the hard sciences and advancing in math courses through high school and into college.

Unfortunately, a lot of the problem with students’ lack of skills has more to do with how they were taught math rather than a failure to learn. Teachers don’t always teach the thinking process of approaching math and hard science problems. Homework isn’t always graded or reviewed in class. Even if it is, students are given less time to ask questions and teachers seem less willing to go back over skills students should already know.

I hear classroom time is so tight these days that teachers don’t have time to go back over previous concepts. Then I hear about “dead” days and days where students just hang out and watch movies or get free hours because a teacher doesn’t have a lesson planned.

In my opinion, if teachers have time for movie and dead days, they could spend more time going back over concepts students missed. They could also spend more class time working homework problems and explaining exactly how to go about approaching them instead of having a dead hour. The best math teacher I ever had was in college, and she would spend the entire next hour working homework problems and explaining how to think about them if we had questions. Granted, that was in college. But in college, you move a lot faster in your coursework than you do in high school. If a college instructor can take the time to go over homework and thoroughly answer questions, so can a high school teacher.

Why is it so hard to take one minute and quickly review a math concept and then move on? It’s not.

Since schools aren’t likely to change their ways and a lot of people can’t afford a tutor, I have some solutions:

The books are from the “For Dummies” series, but they are anything but low level. They are written by experts in each field, take the subject from the beginning concepts to more advanced material focusing on the learning process. They don’t beat around the bush. They get straight to the point and teach the subject thoroughly with relevant examples and step-by-step instructions.

If your student is struggling in math in school, or if you are looking for a good series of books to use in your high school homeschool math curriculum, I highly recommend the above books, and I use them myself to teach my son. I hope you will pick up any “For Dummies” book at your local library and read it before buying. I’m sure you’ll find them extremely helpful. You may even find some “For Dummies” books on subjects you’re interested in learning quickly.

I’d love the hear your thoughts and ideas in the comments,
Sherri

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written by joubess \\ tags: Math, math for dummies, math help, resource book