Little Bears

23 February 2009

Technoschoolers

We've been amazingly busy of late, and I've been encouraged to get blogging again.

The UK is currently in the throes of what amounts to a very biased government review of Home Education law, and one of the questions that has been thrown into the pot is what is a suitable education for the 21st century.

I've been having an interesting conversation online with a real-life friend of mine who is a 'learning technologist'. She believes - with a passion - that today's schools prepare children perfectly for life - in the 1890s! She also believes that what is needed is technology, and lots of it! To be specific, social media - Web 2.0 collaborative learning & networking technologies, and among the best of these she suggests the following:

- YouTube
- Animoto
- Blogs
- Twitter
- wikis

Of course, homeschoolers in the US and home educators in the UK are already well connected through things like yahoo groups, curriculum forums, and the newer Ning communities such as the Homeschool Lounge, the Home Ed UK Network and so on.

But something I've been working on lately has been to try and encourage the home educated children themselves to get involved with collaborative projects such as wikis (I particularly like wetpaint).

As and when I get round to it, I'll try and re-do my links to include some of the social networks that I find most interesting and helpful.

But I'd also like to add a couple of resources to the 'must-have' list of learning technologies:

- VoiceThread
- Piknik

I've also heard good things about

- Moodle and
- Elluminate

but I'm not sure how appropriate these would be for children who are learning at home autonomously (as most UK home educators do), I would need to investigate further how these can be used.

I'm interested to know other people's views on technology, and what might constitute an education that would prepare children who are studying now and in the 2010s for life in the 2020s, 2030s and beyond.

And which technologies do you consider to be crucial, interesting or useful?

And next time, I promise to try and up-date you about exactly what it is we've been doing and where we've been going!

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Comments

24 February 2009 - Interesting...........

Posted by deedeeuk

That is an interesting point Shoshana. I do have a blog (actually two) and am on one home ed yahoo group and of course the wonderful HomeEdUKNing!! :o)

However, at the ages of 7 and 9 I feel that most internet technology is inappropriate for our boys. It is not safe enough to let them online individually. They DO have our old (not linked to any internet) computer in their room. They can play educational games, sodukus, art programs and word processing. At this stage we feel that is the best technology for them to access and the safest.

We do also use the webcam ALOT since my parents are in America. The kids regularly do 'Grandma School' via the webcam. It is set up in the schoolroom and I send her copies of ebooks we are doing in school and she does some of the lessons with them over the webcam. They love it!! And she feels a part of their schooling even from 3,500 miles away!

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24 February 2009 - Untitled Comment

Posted by TomySky

I use Blogger (among many other Google products) and Wetpaint. I exist on Twitter, but I haven't found it particularly useful yet. And I'm on Ning as well, but, again, not much activity there either.

So, yes, I love technology [smile].

~Luke

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14 April 2009 - Technology

Posted by Laura

I think an absolute must is Linux - any child that learns Linux alongside windows will be able to turn their hand to any computer task when they are adults. Besides which it's free and has lots of great educational software applications from preschool to undergraduate level.

The best options I've found so far are Edubuntu and Fedora.

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7 June 2009 - technology/IT

Posted by Melissa

My four year old can already boot up, log in, access the internet, use the search engine to find the games sites he wants and save them in favourites on his own. He opens a word document, change the font style, size and colour, use autoshapes, and save. He can use Paint. He can also open limewire, go to the library and choose the track he wants to listen to. He can reload a page if there's a problem. He can close any pop-ups. He can also delete and add things to my google home page!!!!!! As I have learnt to my frustration when he decided the news, weather, horoscope and quote of the day are boring and replaced them in pacman, hangman and some penguin thing!!!! As for my 15 year old, I don't even understand myself half the stuff he can do on the computer - creates presentations, videos, his own original cartoon, and usually ends up helping me. And of course none of my three boys has ever spent a single day in school. They have learnt it all completely autonomously. I hear again and again that home education doesn't prepare a child for life in the 'real world' but clearly it's the other way around - state school prepares children for the Victorian era whilst home educated children are in the 21st Century and creating the 22nd.

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About Me

We are UK home educators, using an ecclectic mixture of resources, leaning towards unschooling, with some Charlotte Mason principles, Classical, Sonlight curriculum, lapbooking, unit studies/ themes/ projects and much more besides.