Online resources: a student’s best friends
Throughout elementary and high school, I was a forgetful person. I would forget everything from what homework I had to do, to where I left my lunch bag. My parents often said that I would lose my head if it wasn’t screwed on. As a tutor, I’ve had many students who are just as forgetful as I was. It can be stressful for students, their parents, and their tutors when they forget the textbook they need to finish their homework, or the book they need to write a report on for English. However, I’ve found that in most of these cases there is no need to panic or rush back to school to get the forgotten item. What many parents and students underestimate is the immense collection of resources available online. One of my students last week left her math textbook at school, which would have made it difficult to do her homework. When she showed up to tutoring, all we had to do was a simple Google search to find a full copy of the textbook online. This also works for novels. Google Books is an amazing database of full and partial novels, many of which can be accessed for free. If a novel isn’t on Google Books, the Vancouver Public Library also has great collection of eBooks that can be borrowed for free. Also, many schools have paid for subscriptions to online databases that can be accessed through the library’s Webcat site (http://webcat.vsb.bc.ca/). These databases are full of wonderful and reliable sources that can help a lot with research projects. I recommend checking with your school’s librarian to get the access information. The internet is amazing, and is for so much more than cat videos and Facebook. Learning how to use it as a tool for learning is valuable for students as well as their parents.
-Nicole
Little House Tutoring 