What We're Hearing from the Field

We received some feedback about our new weekly series with Dean Graziano, Vice President of Education at izzit.org, called Civics with Dean.

Have you had a chance to check out these new blogs? If not, read our latest blog here.

From the Homeschool Front … Online learning aids by Colleen Hroncich

Home educators today are incredibly lucky. Homeschooling is increasingly embraced by society; there are numerous homeschool clubs, co-ops, sports leagues, and more; and many colleges have adopted flexible admissions guidelines that allow them to evaluate homeschoolers individually. However, the thing that I am most frequently thankful for as a home educator is the internet. 

It never ceases to amaze me how many online learning options there are today, many of which are free or very low cost. The most well-known of these is probably Khan Academy, which includes thousands of videos covering math, science, history, civics, and more. These videos are great supplements to other curricula and are particularly helpful to students who are struggling in specific areas. Skill checks are built into the courses so students can focus on areas where they need extra work.  In recent years, Khan Academy has partnered with the College Board to produce prep courses for the SAT and AP exams.

There are also online options to help you learn or improve at a foreign language. Duolingo’s website and app allow you to learn a language for free. Many libraries subscribe to language-learning sites like Mango Languages – you just need to enter your library card number to create an account. Rosetta Stone, Babbel, and Rocket Language are some of the fee-based sites. While these online learning options won’t have the same structure as a language course in school, they can help you become conversational, improve your pronunciation, and build your vocabulary.

For students who are interested in computer programming, online options abound. Codecademy has free and fee-based courses in multiple computer languages. We haven’t tried code.org, which is free, but I’ve heard good things about it. Scratch and Scratch Jr. are geared toward younger kids to get them used to the language and structure of coding. Khan Academy also includes computer programming courses.  

If your older students are interested in history and civics, Hillsdale College has tremendous online courses at no charge. Offerings include U.S. History, the Constitution, Literature, and Economics. Liberty Classroom is a fee-based option that covers Economics, History (U.S. and Western Civilization), and logic. Many other sites, including banks and financial service firms, offer free or low cost financial and stock market courses.

Whether you’re a homeschooler or a teacher in a public or private school, these tools can open new horizons for your students … and for you. I’ve taken advantage of several online classes with my kids and on my own. These days the biggest problem is choosing which ones to take given the numerous options and limited time.

I’ve barely scratched the surface when it comes to online learning options. If you have other suggestions of courses you’ve used, please share them in the comment section.

Colleen Hroncich loves that homeschooling allows her to learn right alongside her children. A published author and former policy analyst, Colleen’s favorite subjects are economics/public policy and history. She has been active in several homeschool co-ops and is a speech and debate coach.

Teaching with Videos by Mike Siekkinen

As a history teacher, I regularly use video when teaching. I would love to be able to take my students to the places we study, to actually see and experience where history took place, but that is not really an option in most cases. Video can be the next best thing.

Some of my favorite sites are Discovery Channel and I also use GPB (Georgia Public Broadcasting) frequently. YouTube can also be a great source for content, not just in history but all subjects.  And of course, I can’t forget izzit.org!

As with any video used in the classroom, I always ensure I watch everything first. I learned this early on in my educational career when teaching biology. I found a great (I thought) frog dissection video on YouTube. On the surface, it was excellent, going over each step of the dissection process with the students doing the narration. That was, until several of the students started using cuss words. In hindsight, I am so glad I watched this video in its entirety as this could have been very embarrassing otherwise.

Hollywood has done a great job in a number of circumstances with historical period pieces. As with any video, I always have things for students to do as they are watching. Additionally, for videos of any length, I will often pause and we will discuss points I want to bring up, and/or have students respond to prompts I give them during parts of the video.

Please do look at your school systems policy regarding video use in the classroom. Some districts have very strict policies about video use, while others leave everything up to the discretion of the teacher.

izzit.org has great videos that can be streamed directly by students. This year, I started assigning students videos to watch and then having them take the online quizzes. Students can do these at their own pace from individual Chromebooks. These would be supplemental to instruction. Give them a try. 

Dr. Mike Siekkinen, a retired U.S. Navy submariner, became a teacher as a second career. He teaches history at St Marys Middle School as well as Adult and Career Education at Valdosta State in Georgia.