Articles by Phyllis Wheeler

The Computer Lady from MotherboardBooks.com (that’s me) dispensed wisdom this month to the many thousand subscribers of The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s online newsletter, Teacher’s Toolbox.

It’s a newsletter available only to subscribers of the magazine, so I can’t share the whole newsletter with you. But I CAN share my article. Here it is.

FIVE WAYS TO IMPLEMENT COMPUTERS IN YOUR HOMESCHOOL

Coursework: There are plenty of computer-based curriculums and online courses that may provide just the education your child needs in a particular subject. You can experiment to find out whether a particular child takes to it or not.

Research safety: The Internet is a marvelous tool, supplying answers to all kinds of questions. But how do you protect your children? I recommend:

• Put the computer in the same room where you are.
• Use a login password that only the adults know.
• Let younger kids use your email account.
• Use a good filter. Which one? My family is happy with Covenant Eyes, but there are plenty of others.

Fun collaboration: A little-known fact about the Internet is that students can use it to work together on projects, and they like doing this. Public schools have found that when kids collaborate in researching and writing a common online document, kids get interested in learning.

For instance, your kids could write a report about current events or snails or whatever and create an illustrated report with friends who live somewhere else. I’ve written an ebook about this, How Flat Is Your Homeschool World? It will tell you what the tools are. Best thing: the tools are free.

Learn by doing: Computers can help you address another lesser-known need in your homeschool. I’m sure you know that young children love to learn by doing. Kids love to act and explore, not just memorize. This is the teaching of educator Charlotte Mason, and many homeschooling families have picked up on it.

But can kids explore on the computer in a way that sharpens their minds? Yes! Through Logo, a computer language created just for kids as young as 8 at MIT.

Seymour Papert, Logo’s creator, said it’s one thing for a child to play a computer game. But “it’s another thing altogether for a child to build his or her own game. In building his own game, the child hypothesizes, explores, experiments, evaluates, and draws conclusions. In short, he learns.”

And for older kids: Reasoning challenges in programming can sharpen the brain for middle and high schoolers. And if there are creative elements, computer training becomes part of a great education for any student, not just the technically inclined. And my curriculums from MotherboardBooks.com have plenty of exercises to get creative juices flowing!

Phyllis Wheeler of MotherboardBooks.com wrote the award-winning computer enrichment curriculum, Computer Science Pure and Simple, beloved by thousands of homeschoolers. A writer and an engineer, she believes in creative exercises alongside logic challenges, exercising both halves of our brains.

The Ultimate Homeschool Expo and The Old Schoolhouse Magazine’s Expo are both over now. Whew! I talked to a number of people, and shared my passion for computer literacy in homeschools.

A hot topic: one of the main roadblocks for computer literacy in homeschools is the Internet safety issue, as I am sure you are aware. Families are wary of computers because they know they must protect their kids from the dark side of the Internet. Yet they need to prepare their kids for the workplace. What to do?

I recommend that families get an Internet filter, and also that they not rely on it. Be sure to put the computer where you can watch it. Also be sure you have a login password that only the adults know, and limit time on the computer.

Some people wanted to know what I recommend in the way of Internet filters. I know of at least three decent ones: NetNanny, SafeEyes, and Covenant Eyes. I believe them to be pretty similar. A filter blocks sites that the software finds may contain objectionable material. For sites that are blocked by mistake, a filter guardian (you, the parent) can make an exception. Levels can be set: strict, not-so strict, and so on.

But what about your kids as they grow up? More than 70% of men from 18 to 34 visit a pornographic site in a typical month, according to a study. Plenty of women do it too. And of course, it’s addictive.

Covenant Eyes also offers software that allows adults to stay accountable. This lifts Covenant Eyes above the competition in my opinion. As your children grow up, they can transition to the accountability software, keeping the filter if they choose to.

Here’s how the accountability software works: the individual installs it on his computer and chooses an accountability partner, normally a close friend or a mentor. This software keeps track of where the individual went on the Internet and emails a regular report to the accountability partner, with any problem sites flagged.The partner will hold the individual accountable.

This will empower your family member to take charge of the situation. Perhaps you know marriages that have been destroyed by this addiction. I do. The stakes are high.

The Covenant Eyes website has plenty of articles on this subject, which is a subject we all need to look at without fooling ourselves. It’s a scourge for our nation.

I urge you to take action and protect your children, now and in the future. In fact, I’ve asked the Covenant Eyes people for a discount for you, my friends. Here it is: you can get the first month free if you use the discount code “MBB” at checkout. This applies to either the filter or the accountability software, or both. For more information, go to the Covenant Eyes website at http://www.covenanteyes.com/?promocode=MBB

I hope this is a blessing for you.–Phyllis Wheeler

Photo credit:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24258698@N04/ / CC BY 2.0

by Phyllis Wheeler

Is homeschooling something YOU could do?

Perhaps you are not happy with your other options, and you are starting to toy with this idea. But you can’t imagine yourself doing it. After all, doesn’t it take a superwoman to juggle lessons and all the other things Moms have to do?

Take it from a homeschooling veteran, you can do it IF you love your kids. That’s the only qualification. As you move through the homeschooling journey, you will develop the skills you need, as you need them. That’s how jugglers start–juggling just one thing. Then they add another, and after a while another. And here’s another secret: homeschooling can actually be easier than the standard soccer mom routine. Soccer moms are everywhere but home, juggling same-age activities that are different for each kid (unless you have twins). In contrast, when you homeschool, you focus on what you can all do together.

Here’s one option for larger families. Homeschoolers look for activities that their kids can share, working with the fact that their ages are different. You can all study one topic, peeling off different layers of it for kids of different ages. You can all study this topic and various aspects of it for a month or so, and then move on to another. This structure is called a unit study. You don’t have to invent them, either–plenty of moms who have invented one have published it.

Other options include using workbooks and curriculum so that each child has something to work on that is appropriate for his age, such as at K12.com . These all come with an answer key–you don’t need to be a college graduate to make sure your kid is getting the right answer. In fact, many homeschoolers do almost no direct teaching–their kids learn from the book or workbook. (This is a great study skill for college!) There are also correspondence schools that do all the teaching for you, if your child needs that. An example of that is LaurelSprings.com.

For Christians, there is plenty of available curriculum. Alpha Omega Publications produces a broad range of workbooks, and they include activities you can do together. Sonlight produces a curriculum that focuses on historical fiction. If you buy one module, you can use much of it for several children who are less than about four years apart in age. There are also curriculums that focus on high academic achievement, such as Covenant Home Curriculum. I used both Sonlight and Covenant Home and was pleased with them. I used plenty of curriculum from A Beka to fill gaps as well.

Here’s an example of a unit study for Ancient Egypt. You head to the library and check out lots of books for the different ages of your kids, all about Egypt. You figure out math problems related to building pyramids–all about triangles, for instance, or calculating the barley harvest in 2000 BC. For art you can observe and copy Egyptian paintings, using high-quality markers and background grids to help you transfer the image (the Egyptians used grids too). You can study hieroglyphics and what sounds they stand for. You can read about Egypt together. For the older kids you can have them read a mystery about Ancient Egypt called Mara, Daughter of the Nile, and discuss whether you think the people in the book behave like modern Americans or like ancient Egyptians. If you are Christian or Jewish, you can work in Joseph and his story. You can give writing assignments on Egypt appropriate to the age of your kids, and go over lists of spelling words for them using the effective method outlined in a multi-age spelling book called Spelling Power.

If this sounds like more than you want to create on your own, just look around for a published unit study on it. Go to a search engine and type in “unit study Egypt homeschool,” and you will see quite a few options for you.

Structuring your day is a question for you to ponder. Many homeschoolers get all their less-fun schoolwork done in the morning, leaving the afternoon for projects, goofing off, housework, or whatever. If you want to include your child in an organized activity, you can join regularly schooled children in their sports teams in the late afternoon. But there are daytime activities too. You can also ask around–some of these activities providers are creating daytime classes (in gymastics, for example) for homeschoolers. You do have to be careful to avoid burnout here, though. If you the parent are teaching in the morning, grading in the early afternoon (or near bedtime), and operating weekly field trips in the afternoon, you have to watch how much soccer-mom running around you do. You can’t do it all.

But you do want your children to be “socialized.” Here’s a question homeschoolers get all the time: “Aren’t you worried about socialization for your child?” Here’s the answer: you have the ability to choose whom your child socializes with, unlike parents of schooled children. You do have to go out of your way to set it up. And you can count socialization with adults–that’s the best kind, after all. Adults are generally well-mannered and kind. Unsupervised schoolkids often are not. Homeschooled kids are usually quite comfortable talking to adults! Don’t you want your kids to be like that?

A homeschool co-op is one of the best solutions to the need for socialization. If you meet once a week with other homeschoolers for class or field trips, your child gets well-supervised social interaction, and can learn and grow socially in a way that a schooled child cannot. Bullying is simply not a problem for homeschoolers! So how do you find a co-op? You have to ask other homeschoolers. If your area has a homeschooling convention, by all means go to it, and go to workshops if they have any. You need to network with other homeschoolers until you find or can create a co-op.

Lastly, how will you find support? Homeschooling is not for the faint of heart, and it’s not for the unsupported parent, either. You will need to find someone to share your challenges with. Many homeschooling parents support each other online. There are plenty of discussion forums attached to homeschooling Web sites. There are plenty of e-mail groups for homeschoolers also. Again, ask around until you find the right one for you.

Here’s the answer to the homeschooling question: You can do it!

About the author
Phyllis Wheeler writes books for homeschoolers aged 8 and up, including fun computer science curriculums. Check out http://www.motherboardbooks.com for plenty of homeschooling ideas.

The Quest for Zest
by Phyllis Wheeler

We all want to shape a homeschool where the kids love what they are learning.

Pursuing that idea, many of us like to build our homeschools around a theory. Here are some popular ones:

• Unschooling: As your day unfolds naturally, recognize teaching opportunities and take advantage of them.
• Charlotte Mason: learning by doing. Seek out exploratory activities that flesh out the concept you are working on.
• The time-tested classical method.

In a nutshell, this is the classical method: when the kids are in elementary school, you stuff them with facts. When they are in middle school, teach them logic. When they are in high school, teach them to identify and challenge assumptions. It’s a formula that’s worked for a very long time–since about 500 BC.

But young children need more than memory work. Over the years, educators have addressed this need. Englishwoman Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), for example, suggested teaching young children by allowing them to learn by doing.

Somewhat later and in that same vein, Jean Piaget, a Swiss psychologist (1896-1980), carefully observed young children learning. His experiments showed the critical role of action and exploring for kids who are learning. Kids can handle simple child-centered logic when as young as 7, said Piaget. They also need to explore in order to learn.

A disciple of Piaget’s, Seymour Papert of MIT, took both of those assertions in the 1960′s and helped create Logo, a computer language for children—for even those as young as the 7-11 age group.

The computer provides a marvelous tool for learning by exploring, said Papert. “It’s one thing for a child to play a computer game; it’s another thing altogether for a child to build his or her own game. In building his own game, the child hypothesizes, explores, experiments, evaluates, and draws conclusions. In short, he learns.” (Interview by Dan Schwartz at http://www.papert.org/articles/GhostInTheMachine.html )

The Logo logic can be very simple–drawing a box or a triangle using a set of commands to a turtle on the screen. It’s so easy that any child over the age of 7 who is able to type a few letters can do it.

But Logo logic also can be more complex at a middle school level, and very complex at a high school level. It is a robust computer language with modern capabilities.

So how does Logo fit in with classical education? In the middle school years, the logic stage. Those middle schoolers can be working on reasoning, and they can also be working on the logic used by a computer as it steps through a program. There are many similarities, ideal for those developing brains!

In fact, it’s my experience that kids of a variety of ages love working with Logo. You give them an achievable goal, and they work like busy bees, experimenting with this and that until it works. The computer lab we used at our homeschool co-op was abuzz with happy noises as they worked on bossing their turtles around to create their versions of the projects I laid out for them.

The kids love the creative aspect, tailoring each project with their preferences. My son at age 11 was told to use turtle commands to draw a group of houses and to create an animated character walking through it. He created an army camp with a jeep driving through, its headlights flashing, all in olive drab camouflage.

What will your child come up with?

Middle-school and high-school kids can learn computer programming and create Web sites using Phyllis Wheeler’s self-study books. Get a free Internet scavenger hunt download at www.MotherboardBooks.com.

by Phyllis Wheeler

In Star Trek, there’s the purely logical guy, Mr. Spock, and the purely emotional guy, who is just about any other character. Real life isn’t like that–we need to be able to function both ways, with our minds and with our emotions.

Unfortunately, learning logical thinking doesn’t just come naturally for most people. But it’s an important skill. Logic traps are everywhere.

Here’s what you can do about it: teach logic to your child. Why?

1. Your child will be able to understand cause and effect, and make better life choices. For instance, a child who understands logical consequences will be more able to counter the voices of “friends” who urge him to misuse his money and his time.

2. Your child will be a good problem-solver. Good problem-solving involves coming up with a list of options to consider. This will help later on in a range of situations, from how to deal with a plugged-up sink to what to do about a car that breaks down.

3. Your child will be better prepared to challenge advertising. He will be able to identify fallacies such as circular reasoning. For example, an advertiser might tell us, “Happy folks buy Toastie Puffs.” What he means is, “Buy Toastie Puffs, and you’ll be happy!” This is circular logic! Can your child recognize it?

4. Your child will be able to carefully consider persuasion from politicians and the media. What if a TV reporter interviews five people who say the US should allow illegal immigrants to stay? Then the reporter concludes that everyone in the state wants illegal immigrants to stay. What is the problem here? This is an error in generalizing from too small a sample group. The reporter needs opinions from a much wider sample group. Can your child see the error?

5. Your child will be able to evaluate what someone says by looking at who said it. For instance, if your dentist tells you how to take care of your teeth, you should follow his advice–he’s an expert. But if he tells you how to fix your car, you might not consider him an expert on that!

6. Your child will be able to understand how computers think. Computers think in nitty-gritty ways: if statement A is true, then do action B. Otherwise, do action C. Our brains tend to skip around in comparison. But learning to program a computer to follow a logical sequence helps the child learn to think logically, too. In the Information Age, this is a very useful skill to develop, now or later. The more your child knows about computers, the more he will be master of that device that is mastering our lives.

Kids and teens can learn logic through computer programming and create Web sites through computer curriculum from Computer Lady Phyllis Wheeler at MotherboardBooks.com