unSocialized Educated at Home; Engaging the World

Do you use textbooks as “spines” for particular subjects? You may want to check out the textbook correlations feature at Hippocampus. It allows you to match lessons in a textbook you’re using to corresponding Web resources, such as videos or animations.

This can be useful for homeschoolers who may be using the local school system’s curriculum for some subjects. Here in NC, for example, one credit of high school social studies is granted for Civics and Economics. The textbook that is used is Civics Today; Citizenship, Economics and You, by Glencoe. This is one of the books listed at Hippocampus. When you click into it, you’re provided with a list of topics covered on specific pages and a link to a corresponding video. Textbook correlations are listed for American history and government, maths, and sciences.

Another site that provides a multimedia element to math and science textbooks is ExploreLearning. This site has a large number of online activities called “gizmos,” virtual labs that require students to manipulate conditions, run simulations, compare data, and answer questions. These activities are also correlated with particular textbooks. Here in NC, for example, one of the high school sciences is earth/environmental science, and the textbook used is Glencoe/McGraw-Hill’s Earth Science Geology, the Environment, and the Universe. Some gizmos we’ve used that correspond to this textbook covered such topics as plate tectonics, topographic maps, covalent and ionic bonds, and the water cycle. It’s good stuff, but the problem is, you can only access the gizmos for five-minute intervals, unless you sign up for a free 30-day trial, or have a “class code.”  As to the latter, I’m sure you’ve heard the expression, “There’s more than one way to skin a cat.” Let’s just say, there’s more than one way to obtain a class code than to be enrolled in school.

If you are using textbooks, something else you can try is to find an online version, although, alas, they are more than likely “locked” unless you have the proper access code. (Again, not impossible to obtain). What’s nice about the e-versions, is that they have links to associated web content built into the text, so you can watch the animations or whatever as you’re reading. Great if you’re using an iPad or other tablet. In addition, today’s textbooks, whether online or traditional, have companion websites that have links to corresponding content, such as projects, and study aids, like flashcards. One feature that’s kind of cool with these sites is that they have chapter tests and quizzes that your student can take online, and the site will deliver the graded tests to your e-mail.

Yet another textbook option is to access the “open textbooks” that are increasingly becoming available online, and not just for college students.  CK-12 offers “flexbooks” for middle and high school maths and sciences. The “flex” part comes from the ability to create your own customized textbook by downloading whatever content you want to include – and it’s free.

There’s also K-12 Handhelds Ebooks, a site that offers free, open-licensed books you can read online, or download to your Kindle or ePUB format. They have fiction and non-fiction early reading books, and elementary and middle school books for language arts, math, social studies and science.

While curating my new "pinterest," ​Teaching With Sci-Fi ​I came across a site with some teaching ideas using Star Wars and ​Star Trek:

​Formulate Your Star Wars Name: Two variations of this is presented. I like the first one, because my name comes out sounding much cooler. I am Trako Enbro. They suggest adding a "Darth" or "Grand" on there to make it more dramatic. Darth Trako​ - hmm, not bad.

So what does this have to do with learning language arts? Well, the site suggests this as a way to reinforce the use of capital letters in names. I think that's a bit weak. But what about using it as a lead-in to talking about the origins and meanings of names? For example, the name ​Anakin ​is like the name for the giants, the ​Anakims, found in the book of Deuteronomy. This could, in turn, lead to a further study of names in the Bible. We like to read the Bible together as a family, and one of the things we've come to enjoy is the somewhat strange and humorous names we come across. For example, in the books of ​Ezra and ​Nehemiah, there are references to the ​children of Darkon, which sounds like the title of a sci-fi. Then there's Mahli and Mushi; Bebai; the Zamzummims, Jehoshaphat, Mehuman, Zelophehad -- there are so many I can't think of off the top of my head. And what about the origins and meanings of surnames of the many ethnicities and nationalities that make up our country? That could make an interesting study too.

​Metaphor and Allegory With Captain Picard If you're a ​Star Trek: TNG ​fan, you may remember the episode, "Darmok," in which Captain Picard struggles to communicate with an alien captain whose language is expressed through allegory and metaphor based on his race's history and folklore. The site suggests this could be used to examine misconceptions in communication: how a metaphor may mean one thing to one person, and something different to another; and also the need for grammar and structure in language. 

If you love to read, you know very well the excitement you feel when you purchase a new book. There’s something about holding it in your hands, smelling the crisp pages, and feeling each page as you turn it that’s almost as important as the content of the book. When you read, it’s not just the words that captivate you, it’s the entire experience.

However, it seems that now-a-days, everyone is insisting that books are going the way of the dinosaur, and e-readers have risen to the top. With Barnes and Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle for sale at relatively low prices, more and more people are making the switch every day. Not that there aren’t some advantages for using e-readers. Thousands and thousands of books are available for your download from pay sites, library sites, and free sites; and you never have to leave home. With a click of a mouse you can have that newly released novel you’ve been wanting instantly. It’ll be on your reading device in a couple of seconds. You don’t have to go to the bookstore, or the library, or wait 5 days to get it in the mail. I’ll admit, that sounds pretty appealing.

My parents and my sister all got Kindle’s recently, and while on vacation, there was this sci-fi book they downloaded. I read it, partly because I didn’t have anything else to read, and partly because it looked interesting. It was a great book, it really was. I enjoyed it immensely, and at the end I wished it had continued on forever. It was the very first time I had ever read a book in its electronic form, and honestly, I didn’t think much about it.

Weeks later, I was at the library. There was a book on the end cap and I picked it up because it looked like something I might enjoy reading. After skimming the paragraph on the back cover, I realized it was the same book I had read on the Kindle only a month ago! I quickly flipped through the book, looking at the font, the size, the layout of the page, and after a few moments, I realized to my dismay that I didn’t even recognize the book. It was foreign to me. How could a book that I had read so recently and loved so much be unknown in my mind?

That’s when I realized it was because I had missed out on the full experience of the book. All the comfort and emotion you find by having a physical copy of a book cannot be translated through a cold, hard computer. Every book on the Kindle is the same. It’s a page of text within a piece of machinery. Books have personalities that are portrayed through the formatting and the fonts, and each book is very unique. When you read a book, you not only get to know the characters and the story, but you get to know the book itself. It’s not so when you read things on a Kindle.

What if by the time my kids are ready to start reading and loving the wonderful things books can bring them, hard copies have become obsolete and e-readers are the only way new books are available? What if my grandkids never get to enjoy the smell of brand new printed pages and the comfort of turning a page and seeing that the story continues and the world you’ve grown to love lives on? How could I expect them to discover the same love for reading I have by looking on computers instead of paper?

Some things are sacred.

And in a world where everything is becoming computers and technology, some things should be left alone.