Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

Are you excited about using the Internet in your homeschool? Or are you still wondering what a message board is? Zan Tyler clarifies the world of online resources today on Home School Heartbeat.

Mike Smith:
One of the areas out on the Internet are chat rooms and message boards, and maybe you could tell us what they are and are they useful to homeschoolers?


Zan Tyler:
A chat room is a live discussion—it's like instant messaging to a big group. A message board—you post a response to a question and then somebody may go three hours later and post another response and so it's not the fluid conversation. The advantage is that parents, especially on different curricula-type websites, will go and ask questions: "How did you handle this problem? What book were you using for literature? How did you handle it when your son disobeyed?" And so these parents are supporting one another on a level that they could not experience anywhere else but the Web. The danger is that I've found that with the anonymity of the Web, people tend to leave their Christianity at the door, and I have found some Christian chat rooms to be anything but edifying and encouraging. They become a way to criticize and level other homeschoolers. And so I think as long as people maintain their own Christian standards of integrity when they're in chat rooms, just like they would in a normal conversation, that they can be a great help.


Mike:
That's a very good answer. And until next time, I'm Mike Smith.