As a Home Educating Mother, I know that education can be attained from many different ways, settings and formats. There are always more than one way to achieve a goal. The myth that education can only best be gained while sitting in a classroom setting in a school building was dispelled for me once I began researching alternative methods of educating myself as well as my children.
The internet has proven to be a convenient time saver offering the best opportunity to choose what I want to learn/teach, when I want to learn/teach it and how much time I wish to spend learning and/or teaching in any given subject. For me and my family, it doesn't get any better than that.
If you don't already know about YouTube you really need to check it out. You do not need to create an account/channel if you are not interested in creating/uploading videos in order to watch but it is beneficial to have an account in order to save, tag or share your favorite video clips. There are so many people sharing their knowledge by way of YouTube, it's really the next best thing to discovering electricity. There are channels specifically for just about anything: Home Repair, Home Education/Subject specific, Hair Care, Faith - you name it, it's on there. You can check out some of my favs on my account: - 4UTina.
A word of caution, there are quite a few videos on this site that I am not interested in seeing and are not (imo) appropriate for children to watch so just be mindful of that.
Here are a few others of my favorite online education sites:
The Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization with the mission of providing a high quality education to anyone, anywhere. There are over 1000 Videos covering everything from basic Arithmetic and Algebra to differential equations, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, Finance and SAT and GMAT Preparation.
Kids Space @ The Internet Public Library - Kids Space is just one area on this huge resource site which is just what the title indicates, The Public Library on the Internet. I encourage you to explore the entire site and see all of the knowledge that is available to be gained here.
Verizon Foundation's Thinkfinity - Lesson Plans, Student Materials, Interactive Activities and Educator's Resources. Although their overall goal is to improve student achievement by providing Educator Resources, Training and Professional Development, their mission seeks to improve the giver as well as the receiver of Education overall, so Home Educators can also benefit from the free resources offered on this site.
TV Smarts Program Guide - TV Program list that changes weekly, covering subjects such as Astronomy, Biology, Chemistry, Foreign Languages, Geography and History. These programs are based on the strictest state curricula standards.
Learner's TV - This is a comprehensive site providing Video Lectures and Courses, Science Animations, Live Online Tests and Audio lectures in the fields of Biology, Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics, Computer Science, Engineering, Medicine, Management/Finance/Accounting, Dentistry and a lot more all for FREE.
These are just 6 of the thousands of educational resources sites that are available on the internet today. Sorting through and reviewing them all is a job in of itself. I have compiled a page list of my favorite sites to frequent on my website Blessings2Enjoy.com. Please feel free to visit the Education Resources page and collect a few more for your favorite's list.
Enjoy Your Blessings! Tina
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