Distractions

Opportunities abound in this blink of an eye that we call the modern world. The sky is the limit, the world is our oyster. We can learn about anything, keep up with everything, be whatever we want to be.

In these exciting times I am constantly inspired to great and worthwhile pursuits. Opportunities that were once available to only a lucky few can now be done by anyone who will. Write a book, start a movement, teach others, share what you've learned, connect with people around the world, make art, design anything.

Possibilities are enchanting; potential enthralls.

If you think about it, however, you can predict the downside to all this bounty:

Somehow, someday, when I'm ready to actually bring even one of those possibilities into reality ...

I will probably have to focus,
to look all that limitless potential
right in the eye
and start slamming doors, pruning ruthlessly, eyes closed, fingers in ears, la-la-la-la, choosing over and over to ignore, pass by, forego.

Opportunities that were golden just moments ago, before the decision to Actually Do Something, are now nothing more than shiny traps and siren songs luring the unwary into the Bog of Distraction.

In case you haven't figured out, it's a problem for me. Just sayin'

The Future of Learning?

What if you could hold pretty much everything you needed to know right in your lap?

Riding down the road, waiting at the dentist, lying on your couch, tucked into bed, and any time you needed to know something, or read something, or make a note, or jot down a poem, or whip out a sketch, or plan a trip, or add a doctor's visit to your schedule, or look up reviews, or watch a movie, or listen to music, or check the weather, or find out where, exactly, you are, anyway, (and which way is North), or how to get where you are going, or play a game or ten, or check your email, or look in on Facebook, or look up a recipe (and display it while you cook), or share photos, or write a report - or a letter (typed or handwritten), or research the habits of bees, or look up an address, or remember a birthday, or make out a grocery list (that you'll always actually have with you), or check the news, or find out what constellation you are facing, or play some Scrabble with your friends, or look up your bank account, or bid on an auction, or keep an eye on Craig's list, or look up a phone number, or check the store hours, or find the movie times, or learn a foreign language, or learn how to knit, or find a synonym or an elusive definition, or design a zen garden, or update your blog, or complete an iTunes University video course, or read all the classics that you missed, or meditate to a custom sound experience as you drift off to sleep - any time you need to do any of that, no matter where you are, you just can.

It is hard to explain what an iPad is. It is even harder to explain what an iPad is without coming across as the world's gushiest tech geek. Truthfully, the iPad does do a lot of things that other machines can do already. . . But not in your lap. Not in your purse. Not big enough to be beautiful and practical as well as convenient. Not long lasting enough to go all day, everywhere that you do.

No laptop is always there when you need it, as convenient as any paper notebook - just open and go, instantly, without taking longer to boot than to do what you needed to do in the first place. No cell phone has such smooth and appealing navigation. Things look the way they are supposed to, and you can type!

My bold prediction is that the iPad and its forthcoming competitors will be just as useful to jocks as to geeks. Especially if the jocks carry purses big enough to hold them.

My next big prediction is that because of that purse thing, women will find the iPad to be more insanely useful than men. . .

And there will be competitors coming out of the woodwork!

Competition is a very good thing for getting pricing down to the place where everyone can afford a tablet like this!

Until then, there's always selling things on Ebay to raise funds. Ask me how I know! (Just don't ask me where my poor Kindle is ...)

Many Rooms

In all my years as a homeschooler, and as a homeschooling parent (heck, as a human being!) I've learned ... that I have a lot to learn.

It's not so much a matter of the more I learn the less I know, but rather the more I learn, the more I seem to recognize how much there is to know ... and how little of it I've mastered.

Does that sound discouraging? I guess I don't really think of it as a bad thing, though I do frequently wish for more hours in the day. I feel as if rather than living life stuck in a few small, familiar rooms, I've had chances to open up lots of doors, I've seen lots of rooms, (more than some, less than others) and I've even made inroads into learning quite a bit about some of them.

I could have lived my life in those first little rooms, happy, but ignorant of the whole rest of the blueprint, the rest of the story. Maybe not even knowing how small those first little rooms were. And maybe even missing a lot of what's really going on.

My point here, though, is not that I am particularly special. Of course, we'd all like to think we are especially refined, but don't you think the truth is that nobody actually stays in those first small rooms? Pretty much everybody opens doors and broadens horizons throughout their lives, one way or another.

No, to me, the interesting question is:

Which doors do you open, and why?

Free Planitarium DVD from NASA

NASA and the National Museum of Natural History area teaming up to offer a free planetarium DVD to parents and educators. You are free to request as many DVD's as you need. Go to this page to request your copy. Non US residents can email them to request a copy, as well.

We are looking forward to getting our copy!

Tapestry of Grace End of Unit Celebration

A couple of weeks ago, we finished our first unit of Tapestry of Grace, and I thought I'd upload a few pictures of the displays that the girls created for our end of unit celebration.  We were studying colonial America (Year 2, Unit 3), and the girls had undertaken several projects to commemorate their learning.  Here's a slideshow of our photos (click on the slideshow image to view larger photos):

iSchooling - Homeschooling with Your Ebook Reader

For the past year, one of my most beloved possessions has been my Kindle. And, a couple of weeks ago, I replaced the Kindle with an iPad. Since I started using eBook readers, I've been able to read reading countless novels and public domain classics, like all the novels Jane Austen ever wrote.

Lately, I've been finding more and more classic educational materials for ebook readers. Many of these materials have long been available for reading on your computer. Project Gutenberg alone has thousands and thousands of public domain books available. I've found, though, that I really dislike reading books on the computer. Too much time in awkward positions spent staring at the glare of my laptop is sure to send me into a massive migraine! (For some reason the iPad doesn't do the same, possibly due to the ease of adjusting the display characteristics.) Plus, it is often difficult to take notes or add highlighting on the computer screen. Last, but definitely not least, many of the public domain classics are UGLY on the computer. Usually these are plain text documents, with minimal formatting and ugly fonts.

In the past, I have avoided a few of these issues by printing the documents. I've found, though, that ink and paper costs often eat up any savings you may have had over just purchasing the printed book in the first place. Not to mention, I've found myself swimming in stacks of printouts and unwieldy binders from various sources.

Now that ebook readers are readily available, I foresee a huge spike in the usefulness of all these plain public domain documents. Many of them are available in formats designed for your reader, but even plain text documents can look good on your eBook reader. There may be a few wonky paragraph breaks or alignment issues, but the standard font and spacing that the reader uses means that these books basically look and feel just like any other book! I find this to be an advantage even over reading classics that you purchase from your neighborhood bookstore. Those public domain classics are often printed in ugly or old fashioned type on cheap paper, with stiff and unwieldy bindings.

With an eBook reader, all books are created equal. Those theoretically-nice-but-unpleasant-to-use plain text online repositories are finally coming into their own.

The homeschooling movement's love of "living books" means that many homeschoolers appreciate children's classics. The lesson plans and curricula that have been developed for homeschoolers reflect that appreciation for children's literature. Works by Thornton Burgess, Andrew Lang, Edith Nesbit, and more can be at your fingertips in moments, in a format that you can use and love!

Beyond classic literature, it also turns out that there are many books for parents and educators available in the public domain. Educators of the 19th and early 20th centuries like Charlotte Mason and Maria Montessori wrote books that are popular with many homeschoolers today.

If you've been thinking about purchasing an ebook reader but are worried about the cost of getting one, perhaps it would help if you look at it this way: For $200-$600 (depending on the model), you are purchasing a collection of all the greatest adult and children's classics throughout history. And you get a cool ebook reader thrown into the deal!

I've started collecting links to free books that homeschoolers. teachers, and autodidacts may find useful. Check them out, and then check back often as I add more. I'm sorting by method or type of resource, as well as curriculum, so that you can find the books that will be most useful to you.

Enjoy!

Updated on 6/21/10: Changed name of this post from Kindle-Schooling to iSchooling. Figured there was no reason to get too device specific, and I think most people associate that little "i" with personal mobile devices, which is consistent with the real spirit of the post - the ability to get information and read it where you are, when you need it!

What we are working on . . .

I wanted to start this semester off by moving on from our medieval overview and into a focus on early American history.  Here's how we're accomplishing that:

We are using Unit 3 of Tapestry of Grace's Year 2 curriculum.  This is an 8 week unit study of colonial American history, a topic which we have never specifically addressed before.  It will probably take us a bit longer than that, since we have several "life" events that will be popping up here and there.  My children like that they get to help schedule what they will be doing each week and when, so for now they are liking it very much!

We will be using it in a more secular manner than it is written, and I started up a Yahoo group for anyone else who wants to discuss the ins and outs of using Tapestry of Grace from a more secular perspective.  Here's the link for anyone who is interested:  togsecular.

This has been a tough winter, healthwise, so I am happy to be using a program that gives me some direction for planning lessons.  It doesn't plan out every detail, however, so I can still feed my need to have fun with planning without getting overwhelmed by researching every possible resource on Amazon, which is what I had been doing!

I can commit to this for 8 weeks of instruction, no problem!  And because you purchase the program unit by unit, I can change to something else at any point that it stops working for us or fitting our needs.  I don't have to feel like I am locked in to something for an entire year, whether it works or not.  I'm really hoping that this is a good match for our unique health AND educational needs.