Home education and online schooling are the two most popular alternative forms of education. Both incorporate different learning systems as compared to that of conventional schools.
Home education is mainly parent-organized education. Homeschooling parents either choose an individualized curriculum to match their child’s learning style or build a curriculum themselves to serve the same purpose. The parents have the full control here. The knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values given to the child are all chosen by them. Usually, they play the role of teachers. However, if they find themselves lacking in certain teaching abilities or techniques, they usually hire private tutors to help their children. They strongly believe that teaching family, religious and moral values are as important as imparting bookish knowledge.
A virtual private school is one that already provides your child with a vast range of curriculums. These curriculums are highly specialized ones and are customizable as per your individual child’s needs and objectives. These online schools provide a qualified and efficient online faculty. Good accredited online private schools usually employ only those teachers who are highly certified and specialized in their subjective areas. Parents just need to select a specific curriculum that is the best fit for their child. The Admissions Officer of the specific online institution helps the parents in making the decision. These curriculums are quite innovative and blend education with fun. Online school courses come with an extensive set of online tools and resources to help the child at every step. The certified teacher constantly evaluates the records and progress of the student. The faith-based curriculum is usually not included.
Major differences between homeschools and online private schools
Parental intervention
In traditional homeschooling, parental intervention is maximum. It has to be since these curriculums are usually fully managed by the parents. Parents either select the curriculum entirely or build it on their own. They even decide which educational resources should the child take help from. These resources involve textbooks, notes, games etc. They might incorporate alternate fun activities to add variation to the study-related schedule. These fun-filled activities include quiz shows, some kind of game show such as group spelling test or story writing etc. In short, parental information is a must.
As far as online schools concerned, minimal or even no parental intervention will suffice. It is because specialized online teachers form the crew. You just need to monitor and check your kid’s progress. There is no need to keep a private tutor. An online group of instructors is more than enough. Almost all the resources are predominantly online.
Faith-based education
Homeschooling is a highly faith-based education system. Along with the textbook knowledge, values related to family, moral science and personality are also imparted. The contents of this part of the education are decided and supervised solely by the parents.
The online curriculum does not involve faith-related education. These courses are mainly textbook syllabus based. But, the mediums used to impart education is pretty different. The contents provided are highly engaging, resourceful, vibrant and appealing. It is because these schools make use of different mediums such as video lessons, audiobooks, powerpoint presentation etc.
Flexibility
While both curriculums are flexible, the schedules are highly based on personalized issues of the child as well. In case of traditional homeschooling, the parents do the whole building up of curriculums and organizing of the activities.
On the other hand, online courses are highly flexible as well. Though the curriculums are built from before, they can be tailored as per the student needs.
In fact, it can be concluded that private online courses are more flexible.
Place of doing coursework
Homeschool courses are usually meant to be done from the home itself. It is because the parents’ involvement is required for the coursework. The curriculum might include certain family-engaging activities that can be led out only at your home.
Online private school courses can be done from anywhere, anytime. Since there is no need to depend on the parents or anyone else, students can resume or simply do their coursework with the guidance of their online teachers from anywhere possible. All they require is a suitable computer or laptop and an internet connection to get started from any place.
Faculty
The unique concept of homeschooling is one where parents are the ultimate teachers. This concept is encouraged by the homeschooling parents since they feel they know their child the best! However, in certain cases, parents might be inefficient to solve the queries of their children. In that case, parents can hire private tutors to do the required job. This way they can make sure that their children are properly educated.
Online private schools come with a proper team of qualified teachers. These teachers are usually accessible 24X7 to help the child at any point in the day. Such robust faculty support makes sure that the child does not end up with any pending work!
Convenience
Overall, online private schools are more convenient for the modern parents as well as students. Most parents today are working. They might lack in giving enough time to their children in case of homeschooling. After all, building the curriculum from point zero and organizing all the educational resources and guides is anything but easy! It puts a lot of stress on parents since they are not professionals themselves.
Online private schools have in-built curriculums and present a highly professional online faculty to assist the child in every possible step. This cuts down the stress on parents. How much the parents want to contribute to their child’s education solely depends on them.
Degree
There is no such diploma that is provided by the traditional homeschool at the end of the course. Even if a report or certificate is provided, it is not State-approved. So, it may not be accepted by the colleges or the employers.
Regionally accredited online private schools provide genuine diploma to the students on the successful completion of the course. These diplomas are State-approved and are accepted by all the colleges and employers.
