Thread: How much does media play a part in your actual homeschooling?

Media (including television/internet/videogames/etc) has cropped up a lot in forum conversations lately. Many parents are concerned with how much time their kids are spending on various forms of media, and rightly so. But we also live in a time when it is difficult to divorce the impact of media from any part of our lives...including our homeschooling.

What about you? How much do you incorporate the varied forms of media into your day-to-day homeschooling?

Technically you didn't have my answer up there. I voted that media plays no part, but in reality it does play a very small part. My son will play on starfall for about 30 minutes a week. We also use some Audio books and CD's, such as the Story of the World audio books ( after we read the chapter ), OPGTR Audio Companion ( occasionally ), First Language Lessons CD ( occassionally), Song School Latin ( Latin often has audio or dvd included, but doesn't take much time throughout. ) And of course for all of our music, some art, etc. We will occasionally use DVD's or tv for history, science, & etc.

Over all, even with my older children all through their education, I would consider our Media usage to be about 5% at the extreme max. I just prefer to unplug and learn in a more classical way.

We completely embrace media so I would go for 50-75 percent depending on the child.

Probably this will change as DS gets older and more independent (he's only 4 and just learning to read) but for now media is a huge part of his learning. We watch Discover and Science and History Channel shows a lot, use videos and games to supplement his reading and math, and use the Internet heavily.

I have no plan on media being a big part of our homeschool. That said, our curriculum has the spelling on CD-Rom (it's an interactive program that adjusts to the child, or so they told me) and I have ordered some DVDs from History Channel. DH is a serious TV watcher so when he gets back I am sure he will embrace the History Channel videos and watch with the kids when he can. I am sure he'll use them to teach more in-depth (he's the History buff and will be great supplementing the curriculum). I prefer my kids learn in a more classic bookish way. They are so connected during down time (I am trying to cut them back some) that I'd like them to learn how to use a real dictionary in a book! Maybe I'm just old-fashioned. I like my entertainment in book form.

I chose 50%. I hope to keep it at that level so that they get a good balanced and healthy habit with using media and going the classical way. As it is now some days are more heavily media then other mostly because some days they are more interested in reading from a book then playing an educational game or watching a documentary.

At least 50%... We love movies, audio bks, web sites, tv documentaries, etc.

I chose 50%. We use the internet daily, my daughter plays several software games and also uses a couple educational websites on her own. Then of course we have our Wii. We formed our own band and according to our fake manager we are almost famous.

While we don't use media officially for any of our homeschooling (oops--other than for typing, and the occasional educational computer game!), DS does like to watch Discovery Channel, National Geographic, and the occasional Animal Planet show. He learns so much from these shows, plus the educational DVDs that we get from the library, but he uses them as "downtime". He doesn't watch any other TV other than sports (hockey, World Cup, Tour de France). He also asks about a million and a half questions a day, virtually none of which I can answer, so we use google constantly to find out the answers. He is extremely detail oriented and his questions are quite technical, so sorting through books would be a useless endeavor to find the answers he needs (even though I would prefer it). I don't know what we would do without wiki!

We don't have a DS or any of the other video games, except for a wii. It rarely gets used, and then only for sports.

Media plays some part in our homechooling, but it's not 25%. There are lots of educational media resources that my son plays or watches but they're more for his entertainment time, with covert or not so covert learning occurring. I don't really count them as part of our homeschooling, since I don't use them in place of other educational tools or study. The majority of media that I use in conjunction with schooling is in the form of educational youtube videos and foreign language programs.