By: Angie DiGiacomo, Amanda D’Errico, Laura Gibson, Staci Silverstein

1. Usefulness of Technology in Home Schooling By: Angie DiGiacomo, Amanda D’Errico, Laura Gibson, Staci Silverstein

2. Usefulness • Eighty five percent of home school families own a computer. • With the aid of technology in a home school setting parents are able to instill moral teachings, religious principles, and are able to strengthen the family by keeping them together longer. • Before the use of technology and the internet students had to learn straight from a book with no deviance.

3. Usefulness continued • The internet and other technological sources are more up to date on current issues. • Students with learning disabilities or students learning to read can use a new text – to – speech component on the internet where the student is able to highlight the text and the computer will audibly read the text back to the student.

4. Programs • Through the internet parents are able to find different CD-ROM programs, educational websites, sponsored websites, and interactive software to educate the home schooled students. • CD-ROM programs can range in their information that is being presented. A program can be a game where the student does not realize they are learning.

5. Programs continued • Technology advances helps the home schooled child and parents to be able to access more information than ever before including technical support for the students. • Homeshooling.com is an example of an education website.

6. Effectiveness of Programs • By home schooling their children, students can utilize many resources especially through the computer and can learn on their own without distraction. • Some sites have filtered software built in so that students do not have access to inappropriate sites.

7. Effectiveness of Programs Continued • Home schoolers have more freedom to succeed or to fail than with their programs than institutional schools because they are only responsible for one child. • By using the computer in home schooling, not only does the computer do minor work like calculating math or flash cards, but it brings students more than just what their parent can teach them.

8. Student Affects • The simple answer to this question is “Yes, technology has affected students education while being home schooled.” • Technology is around us everywhere and doesn’t only affect our education but our personal life as well. • For educational purposes technology allows us to write papers and prepare presenations. The personal advantages are allowing us to check our e-mail and connect to friends through Myspace and Facebook.

9. Student Affects Cont. • Before the popular use of the internet, home schooling resources were mainly located at the public library and home schooling networks were geographically defined. • One fantastic web site used by home schooled students is Jon's Home school Resource Page http://www.midnightbeach.com/hs/. This is one of the best sites for home school resources, with hundreds of links to news groups, mailing lists, Web discussion boards, chat channels, and Web pages.

10. The Credits! • We hope you enjoyed our presentation about the Usefulness of Technology in Home Schooling. • Have a FANTASTIC summer ! ! !