I’ve been a few days since the last post. My job as a teacher at the end of a semester takes up a lot of time from writing. But that’s the way it should be. But I’m back and inspired.
Organizing data….. one of the most useful things a home schooler, or distance learner can do. There are ever more sophisticated techniques to collect information and organize it.
Perhaps you or your child is about to take up the study of weather. You might want to call your book Internet Weather. Immediately begin to design your course of study. I you are like many people you will need some direction to understand exactly what you want to cover or understand what needs to be covered.
Search for a syllabus for weather on Google or Bing. You will have several thousand come up. Now you decide how technical you want to go. I actually like to use a notebook to list topic headings. I find cutting and pasting to be something I don’t want to do all day.
Look for a syllabus or topic arrangement that splits the topics into a logical hierarchy. As you go through the links from your search look for topics that might have been left out of your first topic list.
The next thing to do is to start the internet textbook. Start a page in Word, Publisher, or a Webpage. Google Documents are wonderful as are other open office suites on the web. Place your major topic headings in place on the first page of your document.
After you have placed your major topic headings label them as chapters. Then begin to accumulate links that contain information relevant to the chapter. As you continue this process you will begin to understand even more what you need to include.
I have included an example of one on weather that I created as a reference. This particular one isn’t complete but you will be able to see the process and get the idea. This really isn’t hard. And doing this can save you a tremendous amount of money in the long run. You can choose to leave it on the document as a set of links or print it out.
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Hello, for all students (at least high-school and the undergraduates) and others with an interest or enrolled in economics, homeschoolers esp., I have started a blog which will comprise study literature in a more entertaining form than standard textbooks, see
CrisisMaven’s Economics Study Guide. It also contains a Reference List which aspires to eventually become the “one stop shop” for all economic data series, history, bibliographies etc.