There are pros and cons to replacing your regular homeschool curriculum with an online textbook. Some families find it suits their situation to a T, others find that traditional texts work better. Some of the same advantages and disadvantages one observes with online college courses apply to homeschooling with online textbooks.
There are some definite upfront advantages to the online textbook. For one thing, they’re usually cheaper than hard copies, sometimes even free. For another, sometimes you can discover real gems of hard to find out-of-print books that have been made available online, giving you and your children a chance to enhance the homeschool curriculum with material you couldn’t get any other way.
Some of the more obvious disadvantages to an online textbook include the relative difficulty of reading from a screen as opposed to a printed page. A lit computer screen is not as friendly to the eyes as a printed page, and long hours in front of it can cause eyestrain as many of us can attest. Those with vision difficulties may not be able to work this way at all and may need to print off the pages (which can become cost prohibitive…).
If you are replacing an entire homeschool curriculum subject with online curriculum, the advantages and disadvantages of enrolling in a class are very similar to the ones involved with online college courses. The advantages for a homeschooler include being able to interact with a teacher other than mom, and being required to meet deadlines. Students also benefit from class discussions conducted via discussion boards or conference calls. It’s a great way for an otherwise shy child to have a chance to get their feet wet making substantive contributions to a conversation. Turnaround time is usually quicker on getting assignments graded, and feedback from teachers can be more frequent than a traditional classroom setting, as they log on to discussion boards and respond to e-mails.
The disadvantages include the fact that quizzes and tests tend to be graded by computer, rather than by a human being, thus the questions tend to be less in-depth than is possible in regular homeschool curriculum or even a regular classroom. Online classes tend to be short on hands on material such as experiments, field trips, and audiovisuals. Classes rely instead on simulations, videos, and descriptions. This is a great disadvantage because it deprives students of the vital experiential component of learning.
This is especially a concern with younger students. Many parents would question the wisdom of having a child spend most of his time staring at a computer screen. For younger students, especially, it would probably make sense to do no more than one subject per year with an online textbook or as an online class, and spend the rest of the time in more active learning pursuits.
For high school students, parents might be interested in more online textbook courses in the homeschool curriculum. It can provide opportunities normally only available by driving to an offsite location for a class, such as more advanced study with an expert teacher, interaction with peers, firm deadlines, and even college credit. At the same time, the courses preserve many of the benefits of homeschool curriculums. The student is spared the time and the cost of driving to another site. The student is free to schedule his time in a more flexible manner as long as he meets deadlines. And the potential hazards of negative peer pressure so common in a high school are buffered by the lack of face to face interaction.
