Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Works for Me Wednesday: Emailing Schoolwork

As you may recall, Brianna got a laptop just after Christmas this past year.  She has become far more addicted to her computer time than I've ever been (yep, Brianna, you read that right -- you're worse than me!).  She's taken to doing as much of her work as she can on the computer, which is fine with me -- lots of great typing practice.


She started sending me some of her work via email a while back and it's been great!  For one thing, it saves a lot of paper with her not having to print something out (typing practice, for example) so that I can check it or see that it's been done.  My favorite thing, though, is being able to check her writing assignments.  See, Brianna writes well when she wants to, but when it's not something she wants to do...well, let's just say that we butt heads because, if you haven't noticed, I like to write, so my expectation are high.

Taking the face-to-face critique -- usually seen as me picking apart her paper, though I really try not to do that -- out of the equation seems remove a lot of the...er...drama associated with discussing her papers, as well.  I can mark them up in Microsoft Word and offer feedback in my email reply.  Then, she can make any changes, again without wasting paper, and send me the final copy.

It may be simplistic, but I've been surprised at how well it's worked for us.  Visit Kristin, at We Are THAT Family, for more Works for Me Wednesday tips.

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Posted by Kris at 12:01 AM
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7 comments:

  1. That's a great idea - especially in today's day-and-age when so many colleges are offering online classes!
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  2. That is so funny! My 13yo emails me her writing assignments, but only because we've never hooked our printer up on her laptop. I didn't think about it saving paper. :)
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  3. That's great. I just recently gave my 8yo his own email address. I love that he's been emailing me, his grandma, and our EF with our charter school. It's good for him to be writing...I'm glad to see how this can evolve as he improves with his typing.
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  4. I think that is a great idea!
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  5. Kris,

    I LOVE this idea. Thank you for sharing. We have a home network and my son wouldn't even have to e-mail, I could just correct it. Big duh here!

    www.homeschoolblogger.com/kristenph
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  6. have you discovered the "comment" feature on word 07? i was made aware of it when i did a free-lance editing job last summer, and i just recently got the great idea to use it for making notes on spaz's papers. it creates a sidebar for you and allows you to highlight specific text and then make notes on it in the sidebar. it is a GREAT way to make comments w/o actually marking up the text of the paper.

    if you haven't used it and don't know how to access it, let me know and i'll post instructions.

    but emailing from the kids' computer to mine... i hadn't thought of that, or even of transferring via our wireless network. we just use a flashdrive.
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  7. @ 40winkzzz -- That just made me do a little happy dance!! Okay, I didn't actually dance, but I clapped out loud.

    I did NOT know about that feature in Word. I played around with it and showed Brianna. Even she thought it was cool. We'll see if she still feels that way the next time I use it on one of her papers. ;-)
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