Is it worth investing in a computer just for your homeschool classroom? Yes it is. It may not seem like it initially, but it is a wise investment. You will do so much with the computer that you will recover the cost in terms of man hours within the first month. Here are some ways to ensure that you get the most out of this teaching aid.
User Ids for Each Homeschool Student
Set up a laptop with different user ids for each of your homeschool students. Ensure that you retain administrator rights on your user id. It will allow you to restrict their access to programs that you want them to use. It will also enable you to mark the progress that they make on their different assignments. Make sure that they know that the passwords can not be changed. Also ensure that they do not log into their sibling’s user ids or you will have a problem. This will allow all data on the user id to be preserved as well.
Your Schedules, Reports and Lesson Plans
A homeschool teacher has to do a lot of paperwork. Now when you create a digital version of a document, you can use it as a form to fill in later ones. The amount of time spent duplicating these sheets for formal record keeping or simply trying to keep track of what you need to do will reduce drastically. In addition the lesson plans that you make for a specific grade can be easily stored and reused when the next homeschool student reaches the said grade. It’s easy to have a standard weekly schedule form and use it for different weeks.
Worksheets and Printables
Having your dedicated laptop and printer for the homeschool classroom makes it easier for the homeschool teacher to design and take printouts of customized worksheets. Often worksheets online may include questions of stuff that you may not have taught. You can look over stuff on different websites and then design your own so that your homeschoolers have worksheets based on exactly what has been covered in the theory class.