How Can Small Schools and Home Schools Benefit From Using Online Resources?

On line resources provide high quality resourcesaren't great for children at this point instead just
often at low or free cost. These are resourcesfocus on making sure the right information is
that every small school and home school mustavailable. Next print out the relevant pages of the
seriously consider.site and then arm yourself with a marker pen.
Unlike larger schools small schools and homeThe next stage is something I'm sure we've all
schools often don't have much of a free budget.done lots of times. Go through the material and
Instead the budget is mostly put into payinghighlight the material you think will be useful. Now
teacher salaries and building costs. What little isyou should have the material you need. Pulling this
left over goes into books and materials for pupils.material together should now be relatively
Using on line resources can help overcome thisstraightforward. Work out the order you want
cost difficulty.the highlighted text and then simply copy and
Often the Internet is viewed as a great place forpaste it into WORD or a similar word processor.
free resources. However many teachers will tellYou're nearly at the final stage. Highlight all the
you it's not that great for resources that you cantext and format it into the same font and font
give directly to pupils. Often the material is poorlysize and then read through it and turn it into a
written and sometimes is just plain inappropriatereadable piece of prose.
for children. However despite the difficulties withThe final step is to grab a few of the pictures
the material it is often the only choice. So how doform the various web sites (assuming you are
you tackle using the resources.allowed to by the license) and print them out. You
Perhaps the first thing to consider is just what itshould now have a great article for teaching from.
is that you are looking for. It might sound an oddIf this isn't for you then you could go to the next
thing to say but all too often people start tolevel up and buy a subscription to a site like
search with a very broad topic range and spendLearning Huddle or similar who specialise in
hours finding lots of material that isn't helpful.providing topic information for school children.
Instead you should try to focus the topic area atThese site generally have done all the hard work
the start. Pick on something very specific. Forfor you including getting licenses etc.
example building Roman roads in the UK and thenWhatever you decide the Internet can be a great
depending on the results widen or narrow theplace but if you decide to use the "free" option
search.remember that you're going to have to put in
You should aim to find up to five sites that havesome personal time to make it worthwhile.
relevant information. Don't worry if the sites