How we did Online Schooling while traveling the world –
The number 1 question we get asked, is how does online learning work while traveling? So, we are here to help with all things Distance Education! We’ve compiled a bunch of questions you’ve asked on our Social Media @sky_surfers_ and set things straight 🙂
You can also read our Blog Post on how we set ourselves up to be able to travel fulltime with our kids for a year in 2024.
How we were able to travel fulltime for 1 year with our kids.
Question 1. What is the difference between Distance Education and Home Schooling?
Homeschooling: Is where the Education takes place where the parents are typically the primary teachers. The curriculum is often customised to fit the child’s needs and interests and can be completely made up by the parents.
Distance Education: Is Education that is taught by a qualified teacher from a school or institution to a student remotely, and follows the same curriculum as Main Stream Schools. Students and teachers are in different locations and therefor all classes are face to face online.
In short, homeschooling is parent-led and more flexible, while distance education usually involves formal, online classes through an online school.
Question 2. What program to use for Distance Education/Online learning?
We used Charters Towers School Of Distance Education, Queensland, Australia. You do not need to be living in Queensland to enrol at this school.
Question 3. How does Distance Education/Online Schooling actually work?
The boys got assigned a ‘classroom’ each with about 5-10 other students in the same classroom and the a teacher for the year. They would log on everyday and do their live online lessons, face to face with their teacher. There is also a chat bar and camera feature available so they can interact with their classmates if they wish. However, this is only turned on if the teacher allows 🙂 Each week they would be assigned their work sheets or assessments to complete (these can be physically sent out in the mail in the form of a work book or downloaded online) and then they receive their work return date. If the kids can do live lessons, great, if not they are able to access the recordings and watch them and catch up in their own time. As long as the work sheets were submitted on time, they would pass. The teacher would then grade their work and leave any comments required.
Question 4. What Challenges did we face?
Honestly, very minimal! We got into a routine and the boys just knew they had to do their school work first before we could go out sightseeing for the day. If they were struggling with any of their school work, we’d be there to help and they could also email their teachers who were very actively present. The biggest challenge for us was being in a foreign country and having to find a print shop to print out their work books each term! Although we always managed to find one 🙂
Question 5. What do you need to set up Online Schooling & How much does it cost?
First & foremost you always need good internet/wifi to submit any work needed and attend the live classes or re watch the recorded sessions. Plus a good set of head phones. The school also needs to send you physical copies of the work books or you can download them and print them yourself. All the other resources can be found through the online program, like story books, articles to read etc..
Now costs, I’m not sure about other online schooling programs but ours was free! Charters Towers School Of Distance Education is through a public school system and because we were working while traveling it came at no expense to us, although this may vary for other families.
Question 6. What subjects are covered?
This Online schooling program follows the same Australian curriculum as mainstream schools so Maths, English, Science and Hass plus then a few times a semester they’d have some Drama & PE lessons which were quite fun and bring a nice change. Their school day would usually go for approx 3 hours of uninterrupted work, so we felt it covered the important and necessary parts and offered us a very manageable and flexible way of schooling while we were traveling.
Would we recommend this way of schooling while traveling?
Absolutely!! Our children are older and were doing grade 4, 6 and year 8 at the time so it was important they kept up with the normal Australian schooling curriculum. We felt this was important over the ‘home schooling’ method or the new ‘un schooling’ craze that a lot of the digital nomads are now doing because we didn’t want them falling behind or not quite coping or understanding what is being taught when they eventually returned to a normal classroom at a main stream school.
What are the benefits of World Schooling and Distance Education/Online learning?
So many benefits!! The main one being, if they didn’t understand the work, we were there to help them! There were no distractions from other children in the classroom, the learning was very one on one with their assigned teacher and we knew exactly what they were learning each day and if they were able to understand it.
& Now for the fun part! (YES, our kids found learning FUN and so much more exciting and interesting than learning in the 4 walls of a classroom at the same desk they’ve been sitting at for months on end). Nothing will ever compare to the hands on learning of World Schooling. Our days would usually involve the boys online schooling starting at 8am then completing around 11.30am. We’d have lunch and then head out for the day. They’d spend the morning learning the fundamentals from their online teachers and then the afternoons wandering behind a tour guide learning all about the Pyramids Of Giza in Egypt or The Colosseum in Rome or then reading the labels in Museums about King Tutankhamun and the Vietnam War. They were like sponges, so inquisitive and genuinely interested. The best part was, they’d ask questions the & Now for the fun part! (YES, our kids found learning FUN and so much more exciting and interesting than learning in the 4 walls of a classroom at the same desk they’ve been sitting at for months on end).
Nothing will ever compare to the hands on learning of World Schooling. Our days would usually involve the boys online schooling starting at 8am then completing around 11.30am. We’d have lunch and then head out for the day. They’d spend the morning learning the fundamentals from their online teachers and then the afternoons wandering behind a tour guide learning all about the Pyramids Of Giza in Egypt or The Colosseum in Rome or then reading the labels in Museums about King Tutankhamun and the Vietnam War. They were like sponges, so inquisitive and genuinely interested. The best part was, they’d ask questions then talk about it for weeks afterwards.
View our Sky Surfers Family Travel Egypt YouTube episode here and see how this was such a great way for the kids to learn the history of The Pyramids Of Giza.
If you have any further questions for us regarding this topic please get in touch via our email skysurfersfamilytravel@gmail.com or the form at the bottom of our website and we will be happy to help.
