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This post is sponsored by iD Tech. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Here in the United States, our lives have been completely upended in the last 30-ish days. We went from ‘business as usual’ to basically living, working, and schooling with just our immediate family.
This has created an unprecedented amount of struggle and stress for so many of my friends and family members. We are all learning how to live in our new-normal, and we’re basically doing this one day at a time.
Creating normal in times of crisis.
During this time, it’s really important to create some sort of normalcy for our children. Their lives have been upended just as much as ours, if not more. And we need to be ready to make some changes to keep them healthy, happy, learning, and thriving.
Homeschooling versus Crisis-Schooling
Most parents across the country have been thwarted into the new role of ‘teacher.’ For some, this may come easy. For others, like myself, this remains difficult.
Time and time again I’ve heard friends refer to this time in our lives as “crisis” schooling, not homeschooling. And it’s true. Educators, administrators, and parents across the country are now adapting to a totally new way of learning and teaching.
We’re doing our best, given the conditions. But our children are used to so much routine in their lives. They are used to seeing their friends. Our children are used to laughing and playing with people who aren’t their siblings. They’re used to being social creatures!
Enhancing their education and social experiences
My previous intentions for this upcoming Summer included sending Ari to several camps, including one at Case Western Reserve University for coding. But things have changed so quickly. I needed something to stimulate Ari’s learning now.
Virtual Tech Camps from iD Tech allow him to learn from home, right now.
iD Tech offers online courses to sharpen and develop tech skills from the comfort of our stay-home order! These specialty designed courses, aimed at children ranging in age from 7-19, are structured, week-long sessions, and are offered in various time zones. The small classes (max 5 students) are taught by adult instructors from top universities like Stanford, Caltech, and NYU!
Courses, which include everything from Python, Java, Minecraft, Roblox, AI, Unreal Engine, Adobe, and 3D modeling, are offered in both small group camp and online private lessons. iD Tech is here to help families that are suffering from being ‘cooped up’ by offering Online Private Lessons in which the student can invite a sibling or friend to join them for free! How cool is that?!
Our experience with iD Tech Virtual Classes has been amazing
I quickly signed Ari up for the Minecraft World Designer course. Like most kids his age, he has been a tad bit obsessed with videogames like Minecraft for a long time. However, this course is created to teach him actual coding to make his own worlds!
His three fellow classmates and instructor meet every morning on a virtual ZOOM video chat to learn level design and problem-solving. This has been helpful in so many ways. Not only is he learning about something he’s passionate about, but he’s interacting with kids his age. The first morning after class he kept referring to them as his friends. I cannot tell you how awesome it is to have this connection during such a trying time.
The week-long course stretches out in spans of 2-hours of classwork and two-hours of self-paced learning (without the ZOOM call and instructor). Not only is he building skills which will benefit him in the long term, but he’s engaging in something constructive — and that’s something he can feel proud of at the end of the day.
Sign up today and receive a discount of $125 off of your registration!
Need a boredom-buster or more routine in your kids life? Registration is open for all of iD Tech’s Virtual Tech Classes right now — which means you can start as early as Monday! Sign up here and use code RACHEL125 to save.
I was already homeschooling and working from home, so the day-to-day here doesn’t look a lot different. But one of the things that made this work for us was all of the social outlets we had. I still have tons of work to do, but I am terribly missing hanging out with friends and our other activities. I hope that we are all able to weather this storm well and get back to life soon.
I love how many different educational tools and outlets have been making themselves more accessible during social distancing!
I am looking for some teaching for my boys. This is a course that I need to check out
Online courses are trends today because of the quarantine. And guess what, it’s really a great time to improve our skills.
I guess it’s time for parents to really try and consider homeschooling nowadays. It’s important to keep the kids engaged and productive, and they make use of this time for something beneficial.
Sounds like a great way to learn during these quarantine days. Thanks for sharing..!
Overnight we are forced to learn the use of technology as a learning platform.
Very helpful tips! Thanks for sharing these!
Wow! This is definitely a great help with our kids as we all know kids love to play video games. There’s no way to have fun than to know how it is be made thru it’s source code. Loved it!
This is such a great resource to have! We are lucky to be able to connect and learn virtually in times like these!
I love how companies are working with families during this time! And trying to make their resources available for children so we have some help as new “teachers”…this program sounds amazing and I’m going to share with my sister for my niece she’s interested in some of this subjects!!
I had never heard of this resource before. Thanks for sharing this!
I have a girlfriend whose 17 year old is sooo bored. Just sent her this post. Great idea for kids stuck at home!
What a great idea! We could all use some more tools right now for educating at home!
Thanks for sharing this is such a great resource.
During the lockdown continuing the education of kids is one of the major problem everywhere, this iD Tech offers online courses program is very much supportive for all.
This is very informative and awesome. There are lots of educational materials here to choose from.
Children shouldn’t see this period as a vacation, and parents should make sure that they keep a similar school schedule for them. Studying online is a great idea that will give parents time to breath as well.
This seems like a wonderful resource for kids during this time! I have never heard of this program before but I will check it out.
I have worked in the past as an educational assistant, so luckily I do have some “teaching” experience. But these virtual camps do sound very interesting and helpful.
These virtual camps are so interesting and a great way to make use of the time spent indoors!
Great information, never heard of this ID Tech program before. I will check it out.
Very cool, thanks so much for the heads up!
Never heard of id tech virtual camp. Thanks for the referral.
Love this idea! I will have to add it to my kids virtual activities list!
This is very helpful. Thank you for sharing this. I will add this to my list for kids.
Oh, that’s a lovely idea! I’m loving it!!
Kids and teens definitely have to have educational activities that may be done online or offline. They need guidance on what to do and what to study.