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cybertreks
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| Posted: June 23 2006 at 3:00pm | IP Logged
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Is there anyone out there who does it all digitally? This is what I've tried these past few weeks of homeschooling, and my ds (14) has responded wonderfully. So I'm thinking that's how I'm going to handle all his work next year. In fact this morning I gave him a paper final exam, and he scowled at me for printing it out! Having all his work in a digital file seems to help with organization, which has been one of his major challenges at traditional school; and it helps me with record keeping.
I was wondering if there are others who are paperless, and if you've found it to be helpful.
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cathhomeschool
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| Posted: June 24 2006 at 8:31am | IP Logged
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We would have to have too many computers in our house to make this workable. While my dh wouldn't mind, and neither would the kids, I (the decluttering nut) would lose it! And even if we could do it, I don't think I'd want to. Two of my children are very visual and hands-on. They like craft projects and cutting out drawings and such to illustrate their lapbooks and notebook pages. My oldest isn't into crafts, but loves to copy fancy calligraphy fonts and make elaborate maps. So working on paper is great for him too. We do use computers to type up narrations and stories, to do research and play online games, to digitally design lego worlds...and much more.
It'll be interesting to see what others say.
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Janette (4 boys - 22, 21, 15, 14)
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lapazfarm
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| Posted: June 24 2006 at 10:20am | IP Logged
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We are not paperless, by any stretch of the imagination! But ds does almost all of his writing on the computer. His handwriting is slow and sloppy and it frustrates him to no end to have so many ideas to get down on paper and be held back by the mechanics of writing. It also makes editing and revising so much simpler! Plus it enables him to keep alot of pieces going at once without losing them! (organization is an issue here, too) The computer has been a wonderful tool!
We also use alot of websites for research, rather than reference books because of the cost (free!) timeliness, and spontaneity they offer.
I think that the more you can do productively on the computer, the better. Handwriting is useful, but the keyboard is the way adults communicate, for the most part now, and more so in the future.
That being said, we also do alot of paper stuff, too. I print out everything ds types and add it to notebooks, etc. But that is certainly not necessary and could be eliminated if ds thrives on the digital format.
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Theresa
us-schooling in beautiful Fairbanks, Alaska.
LaPaz Home Learning
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cybertreks
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| Posted: June 24 2006 at 10:47am | IP Logged
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cathhomeschool wrote:
| We would have to have too many computers in our house to make this workable. |
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We are moving towards laptops for all, but right now we have 4: dh, me, daughter in college, and 18 year old. The younger boys use mine. But since I'm only homeschooling one of them, it really isn't a problem. I can see how shared computer time might make it unworkable for a several children. Funny thing is that everyone here wants to use mine or dd's because we have Apples and everyone around here likes them better...so even though there are 4 in the house, only 2 really get used all the time!
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| Two of my children are very visual and hands-on. They like craft projects and cutting out drawings and such to illustrate their lapbooks and notebook pages. My oldest isn't into crafts, but loves to copy fancy calligraphy fonts and make elaborate maps. So working on paper is great for him too. |
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I can see that. We use paper for math and things I can throw away, but I imagine that the ages of the children would matter as well...as a high schooler, he isn't into glue and scissors!  I guess in my case, if he did something on paper that was worth keeping (but not frame-worthy or something he wanted to keep for sentiment) I'd scan it into his file.
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cybertreks
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| Posted: June 24 2006 at 11:01am | IP Logged
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lapazfarm wrote:
| But ds does almost all of his writing on the computer. His handwriting is slow and sloppy and it frustrates him to no end to have so many ideas to get down on paper and be held back by the mechanics of writing. It also makes editing and revising so much simpler! Plus it enables him to keep alot of pieces going at once without losing them! (organization is an issue here, too) The computer has been a wonderful tool! |
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I guess that's the major benefits I see...it helps him and ME with organization, and editing is a breeze. I've always kept my lesson plans on spreadsheets and done my planning on computer, but I would always print them out and post them. Then the kids would write out their assignments and I'd have to keep up with them. What is different now is that I don't print anything out, so he goes to the computer to pull up his assignments and check them off; he does his assignments on the computer and stores them in a file there; and no one ever has to look for anything, except maybe the charger for the computer! I don't have to print anything off for grading because I can just annotate on his assignments in red marker font., and keep the grades and the completed work all together.
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We also use alot of websites for research, rather than reference books because of the cost (free!) timeliness, and spontaneity they offer.
I think that the more you can do productively on the computer, the better. Handwriting is useful, but the keyboard is the way adults communicate, for the most part now, and more so in the future. |
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I agree.
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| That being said, we also do alot of paper stuff, too. I print out everything ds types and add it to notebooks, etc. But that is certainly not necessary and could be eliminated if ds thrives on the digital format. |
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I think what changed me around was when I started doing my photos on the computer with iPhoto. Seeing how much easier it was to stay on top of photo organization (don't even get me started about all the boxes of photos from years past!), and seeing how much nicer the bound books I could order off the internet were from the scrapbooks I'd spent loads of time and $$ on before ... it just sort of all clicked. How much easier to keep schoolwork -- another millstone around my neck, kind of like 'the ironing pile' or 'the stuff to be mended pile' -- also digitally organized. I don't think I could possibly turn back now!
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4Real Forums : Living Learning
Topic: Laptop schooling
