“Technology: Friend or Foe?”

Lisa:  When you homeschool a child, it’s very easy sometimes to go through the motions and loose sight of the end result:  PROGRESS!  Sophie is now at the age where she can easily implement a lot of her homeschool program activities herself.  While this sounds great, I need to be careful that what she is doing is completed with good quality and that it contributes to her PROGRESS!  This is where her smart phone comes in handy.  While John was very hesitant to allow Sophie to have one, I pushed for it because I wanted to use it as an accountability tool.  In the end, he caved.  So we got Sophie a refurbished/cheap iPhone, disabled the data, and turned on the location function for safety purposes.  How does the smart phone help us?  When I send Sophie off to do something independently on the computer or in another area of the house, I ask her to snap a photo of her completed work or to video record her activity.  Rather than policing her through the activity, the smart phone is proof of completion.

There’s just something about the process of her working independently and then texting a video or photo of completion that somehow “ups the ante.”  To use NACD lingo, the process is very high intensity.  Last night, I watched a video of her doing calisthenics with our helper Kathleen.  Kathleen pushed her like a drill sergeant as she recorded, and it helped keep Sophie on track!

Sophie:  I use the stop watch on my phone to brush my teeth for 3 full minutes, to remind myself to take my Synthroid medicine, and for lots of homeschool activities. My mom does not like it when I listen to music on my phone.  Goodbye folks!