Homeschooling Resources - Using Textbooks And Other Educational Materials

Conventional learning materials such as textbooks are usually easy to find. If you're interested in the type of texts used in the schools, you can check with your local school district or county office of education to see if they have a curriculum library. Sometimes access to such libraries is limited to public school teachers, but often the public is also allowed to peruse school materials there. Media and technology centers, from which laboratory equipment, films, video and audio equipment and tapes, or computer hardware and software can be borrowed. Availability to homeschoolers will depend on state and district regulations.
Your area may also have a used book depository, where textbooks, library books, and equipment no longer used by area schools can be purchased for thrift-store prices or are free for the taking. Old encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other reference books are fairly common but are far outnumbered by the literature: historical novels, literary classics, just plain good reading. Some educational publishers will ask for a school purchase order or for an order on your school letter head. Others are happy to sell textbooks to home-schoolers but draw the line at teachers' guides and answer keys. Some refuse to deal with homeschoolers at all, but a few educational publishers, such as Follett, have set up divisions specifically to serve the homeschool market.
Also worth checking out are local teacher supply stores. Most homeschoolers will not be interested in the endless racks of seasonal bulletin board decorations and "Great Job!" stickers, but many such stores also carry lots of supplementary materials for science, math, and literature. Usually, you'll also find an assortment of paper and other consumables: colored construction paper, newsprint both blank and ruled for various grade levels, poster and finger paints, pens, and pencils. Dozens of catalog businesses are aimed at the home schooling market - with more popping up every day. Some mainly carry books about homeschooling; others carry mainly curricular materials.
Recently, as homeschooling has become more popular and well-known, larger companies have entered the market, some carrying materials previously unavailable directly to homeschoolers and others carrying the more popular products of smaller companies but undercutting their prices. If you tend to enjoy the more obscure resources, you might want to make a point of patronizing the smaller companies, even for those items available elsewhere, just to help keep those interesting but obscure items available.
A relatively new dement in the homeschooling market in recent years are the independent dealers. Dorling Kindersley and Usborne Books are especially active in the homeschooling market, fueled largely by homeschooling parents who sell the books to afford to buy all the volumes they want for themselves.

A Brief History of Online Education

The internet has given us many gifts throughout the years - from music and video game codes to not so G-rated material. Therefore, it is no surprise that e-learning has made such a big splash in the web world. Within the past ten years, online education and internet training has provided many people with a new incentive to learn.
During the early 80's, e-training was just starting to become a potential creation. Companies and educational institutes were strictly hiring instructors to train their students. This was because computers were only beginning to grow, therefore making it difficult to come up with any other plan. These instructors were great at the time because it allowed training to be very hands on, especially since students were able to interact with their classmates and visually see the lessons. However, the problem with having just instructors was that there was a lot of blank time in between. Students were not being able to learn the material on their own time, thus difficulty set in when training with hoards of other people.
Luckily, as the computer industry started to expand, e-training was becoming a reality. For the next ten years, multimedia was at everyone's fingertips. Companies were just starting to use PowerPoint; a program that allowed people to create visually enhanced presentations. Video games and other multimedia programs were also popping up, thus resulting in a technology overhaul. As these advances continued, online education was only a step away.
The first type of online education was in the mid 1990's. This was when the internet was a great success, and multimedia was being taken to another level. The first few e-training companies dedicated their services to mainly businesses who did not want to hire trainers. Although the online education courses were great for new employees who needed training, it was only the beginning of an uphill process. Education online was very slow, as pictures were small and the entire course was text based. Nevertheless, it was beginning to catch the eye of many.
As the 1990's quickly ended, the millennium marked an entirely new period for technology. E-learning was finally on the map as online education courses were now very popular at colleges and businesses. Great streaming media, online video access, and fast web site servers made it possible for online education to make quite a splash. Students were also now able to learn from their homes during their own time, since working a job and going to school was quite a difficult task.
Today, online education has come a long way. Instructors are now being hired to solely teach online, which usually consists of being filmed for lesson videos. Companies are also hiring these online education programs, since a training session can not only be quick, but also be accessed at any time of the day or night. For many, it is a great opportunity because it gives us all more knowledge. We not only are able to get college degrees through this type of e-learning, but we also can have a life, without having to stay at the office overnight just to learn some material.

Distance Education Opportunities for All Ages

Are you familiar with distance education? It is an educational program by which the teaching or the learning occurs in a different place than where the program is based. Now, what does that mean? The best way to describe distance education is to give examples of it. One example is outreach programs; another is college extension programs, some home schooling programs, and online universities, colleges, and technical schools. Below you will find a more detailed description of each of these types of distance education and a reason why it might be an option for you.
Outreach programs are often conducted by organizations to bring information and distance education to students in outlying areas. It may be a zoo, a museum, or even a university which is conducting the outreach. It may be offered as a single one time course, or there may be a series of courses. Some of these distance education courses result in certification or training that the participants can use for work or school.
College extension courses are offered by main college campuses, but at smaller campuses in rural or outlying areas, to reach those who normally would not be able to attend a regular university due to family situation, money, time or any other reason. Although course offerings in this type of distance education are more limited it is a great resource for many people to get a degree that may not otherwise be able to get one and still have the "on campus" experience.
Home schooling is becoming more popular but it may be difficult to get all of the curriculum and materials that are needed. So, you can go online and get distance education courses for grades K through 12 in many different subjects, or you can order packets which are delivered to your home.
The final and one of the best examples of distance learning is online college, university and technical schools. You can get a degree from one of hundreds of accredited institutions right in the privacy of home at your own time and speed. These schools offer everything from a short specialized training program to a two year degree to a doctorate. You can become qualified for almost anything from medical transcription to doctorate in Educational Administration.
The key thing for any of these programs is to make sure that it is a qualified and respected program in whatever area you live and work.

Nursing Continuing Education Providers

In North America, several Continuing Education organizations and university departments provide accredited CE courses in Nursing-related subjects. Let's have a glimpse of some of these course providers and their courses.
The Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago offers many short online CE courses in Nursing-related areas.
e Continuing Medical Education [eCME] hosts a free online medical library and a list of highly interactive Continuing Medical Education (CME) courses, on its website. The site recommends for nurses based in the US and UK, respectively. Besides, the site contains links for professionals based in other countries. By entering the relevant website, it's possible to instantly view course demos, access local eCME programs or register for any of the local or global courses. The sites contain email alert services when new courses are introduced. Most of their courses require the animation software `flash' which can be downloaded free from the website.
NY-based Cicatelli Associates Incorporated, one of the major players in the field, hosts an interesting . The company delivers its courses by using online chats, satellite broadcasts, teleconferences, video conferences and CD-ROMs. The website contains a number of relevant links on its home page. One such connects to their Online Course Catalog.
According to Drexel University's website, its College of Nursing and Health Professions has been offering Online CE programs since 1997. The website has a link for any clarifications about the university or its courses. All that the user has to do is to just type the concerned question, for instance, ""Is Drexel accredited?"" in the link.
Besides Drexel, there are very popular Online CE courses offered by the Universities of Phoenix, Walden, Kaplan and more. Traditionally, well-known older Universities such as Johns Hopkins continue to offer excellent CE courses that draw nurses from different countries of the world.

Nursing Continuing Education Credits

According to a popular dictionary, the term 'Credit' means a "course unit", that is, "a unit of study, often equivalent to an hour of class time, in a course of higher education."

, the official website of the American Nurses Association, defines a Continuing Education Credit as "A unit of measurement that describes 50 minutes of an organized learning activity, that is either didactic or clinical experience".

There are several ways in which Credits can be earned. These include completion of regular college/in-house courses, completion of any relevant Continuing Education Courses offered by professional bodies, completion of distance learning or online course workshops and tutorials, presenting or attending course seminars, nursing-related medical presentations, and developing or teaching some course material, published papers, articles or books.

Broadly speaking, there are three types of Credits that one can earn.

The first one is known as `PLAR' (Prior Learning Assessment and Recognition) Credit. In this, the learner's previous workplace experience is compared to the learning requirements of a particular Continuing Education Course or program, and an assessment is made and a Credit awarded in recognition.

The Canadian Labor Force Development Board defines PLAR as a "process of identifying, assessing and recognizing what a person knows and can do for the purpose of awarding academic Credit".

The second is `transfer' Credit. This type of Credit award is based on some college and university courses completed already. In this, the learner's portfolio, transcripts and referee reports are assessed before awarding a Credit. This type of Credit can compensate for part of current or intended course requirements.

The third type is the `exemption' Credit. Here too, the assessment method is the same as in transfer Credit. But here, instead of getting a percent of Credit, the learner gets full [100%] Credit and is totally exempted from fulfilling any one course requirement.

Continuing Education agencies usually charge a non-refundable service fee for processing the application for Credit. Many of them conduct online quizzes and tests as part of their assessment before awarding Credits.