Family Tech: Turn to the web for kids’ summer enrichment

Family Tech: Turn to the web for kids’ summer enrichment - June 24, 2016

Parents and teachers know kids lose scholarly momentum over the summer, and research backs them up.

Certain kinds of summer camps go a long way to keep the brain’s synapses firing. They are expensive and most parents can only afford a week or two, if they can afford it at all. And by now it may be too late to sign up for good camps anyway.

How can we keep young brains firing on all cylinders so students can hit the ground running when back in school in late August?

I recently came across a website listing 1,800 online courses. Class-Central.com does not provide the courses but lists courses produced by universities like Harvard, Stanford and Princeton, and companies such as Google and Facebook.

High school students, maybe even some middle schoolers, can watch these videos to get a feel for subjects they are interested in. Even if they do not finish an entire course, it will get them thinking. And it is a wonderful way to dip their toes into subjects they may want to major in at college.

The courses are free, although there may be a cost for add-on benefits such as course credit, certificates and mentoring.

I’ve tried to learn the Java programming language a few times from books. I am having more success with an online course out of San Jose State University. I watch at least a few minutes a day. Today, I watched for an hour or two as I procrastinate writing this column.

I’m not looking for any kind of college credit or certificate. I just want to be able to write my own Android app some day, and that takes Java.

There are courses in history, science, mathematics, engineering, education, social sciences, personal management and others.

Think your kids won’t sit down for an online video course? Check their YouTube viewing history. Younger kids especially are inhaling Minecraft videos to learn how to better play Minecraft.

Read the rest at www.FamilyTechOnline.com

Comments

Notes Folder : My new note taking system

I'm in the process of moving to a new way to keep my notes. It would be best to make a separate post on my long time notetaking app, Evernote, and how it now disappoints me. Bottom line, I no longer trust the company behind Evernote since it was acquired. My first inclination was to finally look at alternatives. like Notion, Joplin, Obsidian, etc. I was not enamored with any of them, so I gritted my teeth and stayed with Evernote. The situation made me think about how I use Evernote. To keep up additional posts on this topic, search on the tag Notes Folder Updates : January 24, 2024 and in updates noted here. Most of the things I store are quick notes, lists, online receipts for online bills, that sort of thing; kind of an online file cabinet if you will. If I were a doctoral student though I could see storing PDFs of papers and research materials. If were working on a large project, then plans, communications etc. would all be there. Back when I began using Evernote way b...

Recording your own notes with Google Voice

Note : April 2016: Frankly I don't know if this works anymore. It is 7 years old. I stopped using this when Google Now became useful on my phone, and I could dictate reminders using it. I found a way a while ago to use Google Voice to record a personal note, transcribe it, and email it to me. A recent Lifehacker post "Five Things We'd Like to See in Google Voice" lists that need as their #5 request, so I realized what I'd figured out is not common knowledge. In GV's Contacts, create a Group "Special Transcription" To avoid listening to my standard voice mail when I call, I recorded a short voice mail greeting for this group simply saying "Record note now" I added a contact with my own cell phone number as the only number, and made it the sole member of this group. In GV's phone settings, I edited the settings for my cell phone. In the section "Direct access to voicemail when calling your Google number from th...

Ten Years of Evernote

This blog post was set to publish exactly as the day begins on Tuesday, July 31, 2018. That is ten years to the day after my first Evernote post. With my second note, I was already getting down to business; recording the agreement I'd come to on the phone on a minor business matter. My affection for Evernote has not dimmed since that day ten years ago. Since then, I've accumulated about 7.8 new notes a day. Ironically, I have needed to pull up only a few notes a year. Yet, when I need them, I need them badly and am glad to have Evernote all over again. My philosophy of what to capture is simple : If you encounter something you might remotely want to see again, it goes into Evernote. from a blog post June 1, 2015 I've written here about Evernote than any other topic. Even wrote a now horribly out-of-date book. Don't get me wrong. If something better comes along that imports my Evernote notes well, I can be enticed to move. But in t...

Ideas from Mark Stout

Search This Blog