Day 5: Distance/Online homeschool options
Online Learning- students can be in a virtual classroom with their teacher while working through their lessons and completing assignments online. The difference in distance learning is that, students aren’t in a virtual classroom with a live teacher, rather they work online at home and teacher can assign work and check-in some digital format at a different time.
Blended learning combines classroom learning (virtual or on-site) with online learning. Students will have control of their own learning in some shape or form (they can control the time, place or pace of learning). The aim of blended learning is to combine the strengths of both online and offline learning, by giving students some offline tasks to take ownership of their learning while still maintaining teacher’s presence in an online classroom when they get together (teacher instructs online, gives assignments. Students go offline to complete their assignments. Teacher gives feedback)
- Time4Learning (all subjects, Online)
- IXL ( all core subjects, Online)
- Reading Eggs (Maths and English, Online)
- Mystery Science (Online Science curriculum, interactive video lessons/assessment)
- K-12 (complete online school, US curriculum)
- Interhigh (complete online school/virtual classrooms, UK curriculum)
- My Online School (complete online school, UK curriculum)
- Calvert (Blended Learning with books)
- Wolsey Hall Oxford (Blended Learning with books)
- Bob Jones Distance
- Liberty Online Academy
Personally, I would only recommend online/distance schools for secondary and above students, children 11+ can take ownership of their learning and can do online schooling independently. While primary school kids, especially Foundation and Key stage 1, to do online schooling requires great parental involvement at home. If you are traditional learner/digital hermit like me, you may be frustrated to help your child to complete interactive online worksheets. I am just not used to it and prefer a pen, paper, books etc. But if children can get on with it by themselves, then it is great as teachers will give feedback, progress report and customized dashboards where you can look at your child’s schedule/lessons/learning topics at a glance. I am also considering an online school for the first time this year for my DD 13, and taking time to decide between Interhigh, Wolsey Hall and My Online School.
We already use IXL and Edplace to practice their academic skills, but these aren’t complete online schools, just good to supplement as children can practice via app on different devices on the go.
What ages are your children? Have you used Charlotte Mason curriculum? If so, what was your experience? If not, I would highly recommend it mashaAllah. We have been very happy with it.
What online/distance learning schools have you used in the past? What was your experience?
