Image Source: Pexels
By Katie B.
The decision to homeschool your teenager can be beneficial for everyone involved. There are opportunities to provide a tailored educational experience that is more relevant to your teen’s needs. Further, it gives you more control over incorporating activities focused on charitable work, civic engagement, and tasks catered to your teen’s individual interests.
This isn’t, of course, to say that homeschooling is necessarily easy. Particularly when you’re a parent beginning this journey, you may find it difficult to establish how to be most meaningfully and practically involved with your student’s learning. The good news is that the digital landscape offers some tools that can help in this regard.
We’re going to look a little closer at how EdTech is aiding parental involvement in their children’s learning. Learn which tools can be most useful and where they fit into a positive homeschooling approach.
Improving Visibility and Accessibility
Starting homeschooling can be daunting when you haven’t had much experience. You might be utilizing a curriculum gained from local homeschooling groups, which can leave you feeling a little detached from the process. You may also find that premade materials are not always in-line with your or your teen’s specific learning or mobility needs. EdTech tools can both provide you with visibility of your child’s progress and tools that enhance accessibility.
From a visibility perspective, your ability to have real-time access to your teen’s learning activities is vital. After all, this allows you to make more informed decisions about what they’re struggling with or even what may be below their current ability levels. Many learning software and online education platforms today offer data analytics to both students and parents. In most cases, the platform will provide assessments of current abilities, then offer recommendations for areas of study focus.
In making homeschooling more accessible, it’s worth considering that digitization is a valuable tool for addressing inequality. Wireless EdTech allows parents and students to establish the most appropriate learning environment for their respective needs. The current trend for tailorable technology in digitization also means that on-screen content can be adjusted for contrast, color, and other elements. This means that both you and your child can navigate challenges related to dyslexia, color blindness, neurodivergent traits, and more. The result of this is that neither of you is at an unfair disadvantage in embracing the homeschooling experience.
Maintaining Practicality With Smart Tools
You don’t necessarily need to be a qualified education professional to be an effective homeschooler. However, it can certainly be challenging. You may feel at times that you struggle to design lessons, explain concepts, or stay on top of the administrative aspects. It’s important to utilize tools that enable you to maintain your control over these elements. Smart EdTech devices often prove to be effective in this regard.
Good examples of this are fitness trackers and smartwatches. Firstly, they provide you with actionable information that can be incorporated into your teen’s physical education classes. You and your teen can then use the data from the trackers to identify areas of need and develop relevant lesson plans accordingly. Even the information captured on sleep patterns and heart rates can be useful for health literacy and science lessons.
You can also find that smart speakers are effective EdTech tools that can be deployed for practical purposes. Online voice assistants can be tailored with reminders about task timings and schedule changes. They can also be set up to clearly explain difficult math concepts or guide your student through vocabulary lessons. This means that you can attend to the administrative and planning side of homeschooling while the speaker automates tasks that don’t require your supervision.
Sharing Interactive Experiences
One of the most important things you’ll discover during your homeschooling journey is that your role isn’t to simply dictate lessons or lecture concepts. Rather, the experience tends to be at its most impactful when it’s a collaboration between you and your teen. EdTech can be helpful in ensuring you can share interactive educational activities that are enriching and empowering for you both.
Educational tablets for interactive learning content are increasingly powerful tools. You can utilize tablet-based educational software to collaborate with your student on tailoring the education plan to their pace. Not to mention that you can access gamified lessons that both solidify concepts for your teen and allow you to understand their grasp of these in real-time.
There is also an increasing space for virtual reality (VR) in EdTech. This requires little specialist equipment, and can often be effective by utilizing cardboard headsets attached to a smartphone. You and your teen can then utilize learning simulations or undertake virtual tours of museums together. The accessibility and interactivity of this tech make for a more interesting lesson plan and enable you to be a more present part of the online learning experience with your student.
Conclusion
EdTech tools are proving increasingly useful for helping parents to be more positively involved in the homeschooling process. Data analytics in software can provide visibility of your student’s progress while online software can be tailored to their accessibility needs. Smartwatches and smart speakers are also assets you can use to enhance the practicality of your homeschool routine. You may also find that tablets and VR software offer opportunities for you and your teen to share interactive lessons. By establishing effective places to incorporate EdTech, you can have a more meaningful impact on your teenager’s education.