By Sarah Fudin
In recent years, with the growth of public interest in education, the resources and tools available to homeschooled students have increased exponentially. As the United States strives to raise the bar and improve the quality of education for everyone, a greater emphasis has been placed on the performance of students everywhere.
Due to the nature of homeschooling, however, it can sometimes be difficult for students to access these resources as easily. It is important for parents and students in homeschooling families to stay up to date with the very latest in educational tools, college prep materials, and information about jobs and scholarships. The following are great online resources that homeschooling students should be aware of.
1. The College Board
College Board is not just a place to register for the SAT, it’s also an amazing wealth of information that all students should be familiar with. Among test prep and guidance regarding college applications, the College Board also has a useful page for high school students. This page contains invaluable information about time management, study skills, resume writing, searching for an internship and preparing for college. Additionally, the College Board has several pages geared specifically towards homeschooled students that offer important information you might not be able to get elsewhere, such as Homeschooled Students & the SAT and Homeschooled Students & College Admissions.
2. CollegeScholarships.org
Since its creation in 1999, CollegeScholarships.org has dedicated itself to helping students locate the resources they need to finance their education and pursue their dreams. In addition to offering some of their own scholarships, CollegeScholarships.org breaks down scholarships into categories such as scholarships for athletes, minorities, etc. They also offer resources on essay writing, resume building and cautionary advice about scholarship scams as well. Most interestingly, Collegescholarships.org has a page dedicated to scholarships for home school students, which includes general information as well as links to some resources.
All of that said, CollegeScholarships.org is certainly not the only scholarship search for homeschooled students. Both FastWeb.com and FinAid.org allow you to incorporate homeschooling into your search as well.
3. HippoCampus
HippoCampus is an extremely useful educational site that is offered for free to high school and college students everywhere. Their content is geared towards any student with an active desire to learn, regardless of where they go to school, so it is easily accessible to homeschooled students. Through a wide array of multimedia content, HippoCampus provides detailed slide-show presentations and videos in subjects ranging from algebra and calculus to religion and U.S. history. This site is an excellent study tool for tests and a good way to visually reiterate what you’ve learned throughout the day.
4. eduTecher
eduTecher maintains an enormous compilation of useful web tools that can help enrich and expand your learning. Developed in 2007, eduTecher sought to keep track of the rapidly growing number of online educational resources that are part of the trend of integrating technology into learning. While many of the site’s resources are geared towards teachers, any student wishing to enhance their learning can access these materials and will likely find them very useful. On the site, you can narrow down your search for resources by grade level and subject matter, and from there you can view seemingly endless lists of different websites and programs geared towards education. For high school students in particular, eduTecher features resources for performance and time management, file sharing (safe access to videos and documents for multimedia presentations), note taking, shopping and further enrichment in different academic subjects.
Sarah Fudin currently works in community relations for the University of Southern California’s Master of Arts in Teaching program, which provides aspiring teachers the opportunity to earn a Masters degree in teaching and teacher certification online. Outside of work Sarah enjoys running, reading, and Pinkberry frozen yogurt.
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