Online Home School:
What Should I Look For?
Perhaps you are thinking about online home school options. There are good reasons to consider this home schooling option. For example:
- You find you don’t have the time to properly interact with your child. You may be frustrated that you aren’t able to give the one-on-one time you want to give to help your child process the materials he is learning from.
- You’d like for your child to have more interaction with peers. Being able to discuss (even over the Internet) with other young people about academic issues can offer both encouragement and a good challenge to do one’s best.
- You want more outside accountability in deadlines and evaluations. There are times when it is hard to be both teacher and parent. For some seasons in your child’s life, especially as your child reaches junior or senior high, you may want to bring in more structure, or grading perspectives that aren’t just from your viewpoint.
- Your child speaks English, but it is not your native language. If you don’t feel confident in your English ability, this doesn’t mean you can’t home school in English.
- You don’t have knowledge of a specific subject matter your child wants to or needs to learn. This is not so say that you have to have an online class to have your child learn calculus, advanced physics, or Shakespeare. Certainly your child can learn with resources that don’t require a teacher. However, there may be seasons, subjects, or certain teachers that would really make learning come alive for your child. Why not?
Okay, let’s say you are interested in finding what’s out there in the online world of home schooling. Before reading more, however, let me just mention that while I believe the following information is as accurate as possible, you will want to make sure of the details and course offerings yourself. After all, the online world can change very quickly.
So, what are the steps to finding a good online home school for your child?
- Decide if you want one class or an entire program.
- Determine if you want the classes taught from a Christian or secular worldview. See below why this is so important.
- Find out what to look for in an online home school or class.
- Find out what the options are for online home school curriculum. (This opens a new page.)
Step 1: Decide if you want one class or an entire program.
You may want to have your child take only one or two classes to round out other home schooling classes at home. On the other hand, you may be looking for an entire program that is accredited, especially for high school.
Step 2: Determine if you want the classes taught from a Christian or secular worldview.
Why is this so important, you might ask? Basically, if having your child learn through the lens of a Christian worldview is of great importance to you, you can narrow your choices down significantly to only online Christian home schools or classes. However, if you don’t feel that you need to have your child taught from a Christian viewpoint (or whatever faith you have), you will have more options (both public and private). Naturally, you can mix and match if you prefer. I recommend reading more about
how you may want to include your faith.
Step 3: Find out what to look for in an online home school or class.
There's more than you might realize in the way of options. Here are some basic questions you need to answer to make a good choice for your family:
- Authority: You’ll want to check the fine print about possible legal ramifications of any virtual school you are interested in. If you do come under the jurisdiction of the public school system, there are certain rules and regulations you'll need to know about (such as attendance). Ask the school if you are unsure.
- Interaction: Does your child want to work by herself at her own pace, basically just interacting with the materials? Or does she want to have interaction with a teacher? What about interacting with other students, either about the academic material, or through groups related to an on-line school? Here’s a brief summary:
- Independent Online Classes
Student interacts only with the material.
Student works independently, at the student’s own pace.
May have computerized feedback to correct the student’s work.
- Teacher-Led Online Tutoring
Student interacts with a teacher and material.
Student usually works somewhat independently or has flexible deadlines.
May have one-on-one interaction with the tutor with personal evaluations.
- Teacher-Led Online Class
Student interacts with a teacher and other students on the material.
Student usually has deadlines with some flexibility.
May have one-on-one interaction and evaluations as well as forum participation opportunities. Thus the student can benefit from interacting with other students as well as from seeing the comments of the teacher to other students. Some online schools have discussion boards, online clubs and other ways to promote interaction between the students.
- Kind of curriculum: There are several types of curriculum offered in online home school classes.
- Web-based: This would be where all the materials (quizzes, readings, projects) are available online and done through the Internet.
- Other computer-based: This would include curriculum consisting of mostly ebooks (downloadable books), satellite broadcasts, or DVD materials sent to you.
- Traditional: While some materials may be online, classes with traditional curriculum would be based more on real books or textbooks.
- Synchronous classes or not: For those online home school classes that offer interaction with both a teacher and other students, there are options to have either synchronous (at a specific time when everyone is online at the same time to interact in real time) or asynchronous (no set time, but students log on at their convenience and interact in a forum to other people’s comments). Obviously, for those living in different time zones from the potential school, asynchronous classes may be beneficial.
- Accredited: Some families want to have their high schoolers be able to have a diploma from an accredited institution. Explaining about what this all means is worth another page at least, but that will have to wait for now.
Whew! That’s a lot to cover so far! Congratulations for hanging in there! Now you have some ideas as to what you are looking for – a full program or not, secular or not, and what kind of teaching and curriculum you are interested in. Great! You now will be able to narrow down your choices much easier.
Ready to find out how to apply what you've learned so far? Great!
Step 4: Find out what the options are for online home school curriculum.
I think following these steps will help you find an online home school curriculum option that will be a great fit for you and your child. Let me know if this information has been helpful to you by droping me a note at our
Contact Us
form.
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