16. The Essential Homeschooling Suite

Written By Manisha Snoyer (co-founder of Modulo)

Quick summary: If you’re combining technology and in-person learning, the way you set up your online environment can make a big difference. Here are some of our favorite software and online resources to support modular learning: Local Facebook Groups (for friends), Modular Learning Community (for global connections and support, the Modulo Curriculum Planner (for choosing curriculum), Khan Academy Kids or Khan Academy for mastery-based adaptive learning technology, Beast Academy for math, Indeed for finding teachers and Meta Portal for state-of-the-art online-tutoring. Read on to discover our full suite of tools. 

The best homeschooling software and tools to have

Social

Join your local Facebook unschooling group to meet secular homeschoolers near you. 


Large, global, online communities can help you get support and advice and connect with modular learners near you. 

Academic


Use our free curriculum planner to find a secular, mastery-based curriculum customized to your child’s learning style. 


Khan Academy is the leading free online learning platform used by more than 48 million people in 190 countries. If you’re having difficulty choosing a curriculum, Khan Academy is a great way to get started.


Beast Academy is one of the most outstanding online, adaptive, mastery-based math programs we’ve found. If your child is in grades PreK-8th, we strongly recommend taking advantage of this innovative resource. Younger kids may want to take advantage of Homer, and older teens can use AoPS. Math Tango is another one of our favorites - it’s a great app to reinforce addition, multiplication fractions and other basics.


 For $9.99 a month, kids have ad-free access to some of the best teachers in the world. 


Like youtube, Audible is a fantastic resource for building listening comprehension skills and giving auditory learners access to a world of information. 


Running homeschool


For finding and recruiting homeschool teachers, we’ve found LinkedIn and Indeed to be the platforms that give us access to the widest variety of quality contacts. LinkedIn works better for target recruitment, whereas Indeed job posts are most effective for broadcasting to a large base of potential candidates.


We use Whatsapp or Slack to bring homeschool teachers and caregivers into a central communication channel to communication around education and childhood development: 


Google Drive is our favorite tool for building homeschool portfolios. Create a folder and upload photos of work as you go. Google docs is also an excellent tool for working on writing together. Parents and kids can open a doc and write a story together, taking turns starting a sentence or paragraph. 


Canva added a lot of fun and helpful homeschool templates during the pandemic. Canva makes it easy to create a nice-looking schedule, homeschool report, or build a portfolio. 


Online Learning


Setting up the right environment for online learning is a critical factor in healthy screen time. We’ve tried every platform, and zoom has the best audio and visual elements. We also like their whiteboard, and kids love getting creative with the fun filters and backgrounds. 

 

To really optimize the online experience, we recommend Meta Portal Plus. It was a game changer for us during the pandemic when we had to create engaging classes for preschoolers online. Rather than sitting staring at a screen, Kids can whisper, shout or jump around their room during online courses. The camera follows them, and the mike can pick up on their voices even when they whisper (it amplifies what they’re saying so the teacher can hear). The only downside is that users can’t screen share on zoom, so if you’re tutoring with adaptive learning apps, we recommend signing in to zoom on a Portal and an Ipad. Make sure when connecting the Ipad you choose “don’t connect to audio” on zoom. Mute won’t work. Since we wrote this the Meta Portal has been discontinued by Meta, but families can still find them on Amazon or eBay.


 One con to the Meta Portal is that kids can’t screen share on zoom, so we recommend getting an iPad and signing that into zoom as well (just don’t connect to audio). Alternatively, a standard laptop can work well for online classes, but we don’t recommend using only an iPad because teachers can’t make eye contact with teachers. Only the Ipad Pro shares the child’s image when they screen share. On other devices, it disappears. 


Accountability


We love MobyMax for its accessible norm-referenced assessments. It’s a great way to check and see if kids are on grade level with peers. To track progress and measure learning outcomes, MobyMax is the easiest online assessment tool to access and use. MobyMax provides more than just tests. It’s even adaptive and offers adaptive lessons to help kids close learning gaps. 


Thank you so much for taking this deep dive with us to explore everything that homeschooling and modular learning can be. If we leave you with anything, we want those of you who want to take this path to know that it can be easy and fun. Our next section will give you a quick checklist to help you get started easily and ensure this experience is successful for you and your kids.

Manisha Snoyer (co-founder of Modulo)

For the last 20 years, I’ve taught over 2000 children in 3 countries (of all socio-economic backgrounds). I pioneered an English language program in a conflict region in the Middle East. I’ve worked as a bilingual public school teacher at some of the highest and lowest performing public schools and in all five boroughs of NYC. I’ve tutored 18 subjects in three languages to some of the wealthiest families in NYC, San Francisco and Paris to make up for shortcomings in private schools they were paying up to $60,000 a year to attend.

Since 2015, I’ve helped hundreds of parents start microschools (way before this was a household buzzword). I founded CottageClass, the first marketplace for microschools and learning pods that was part of the Techstars 2018 class. In 2019, I created a virtual learning program to help families through the pandemic, a free online math tutoring program (masteryhour.org), and schoolclosures.org, a hotline developed in collaboration with Twilio and 80 other partners including Khan Academy, Revolution Foods and the Crisis Text Line, that served 100,000 families impacted by school closures.

I’ve climbed trees with children in forest schools in San Francisco, and tested new digital apps with kids in seven countries.

I’ve also coached dozens of families at different stages in their homeschooling journey. Most recently, I founded Modulo with homeschooling dad, best-selling author and tech entrepreneur Eric Ries, to help families curate their children’s education, social and childcare experiences drawing from a diverse array of in-person and online resources.


During the last three years, I’ve devoted much of my time to reviewing and testing secular homeschooling curriculum and other resource. I’ve spent the last three years talking to thousands of secular homeschooling families, and poring over tens of thousands of secular curriculum reviews and testing physical curriculum and digital apps for with hundreds of students to find the highest quality, most engaging, personalized learning materials for every type of learner.

I’ve spoken about homeschooling and modular learning at multiple venues including SXSW EDU, NY Tech Meetup, and on the LiberatedEd podcast.

In 2022, Modulo was one of 8 organizations who were awarded the Bridge Grant from the Vela Education Fund to expand access to homeschooling and modular learning to under-resourced communities.

My experience in education and homeschooling has led me to believe that there is no perfect education for every child, but families have an extraordinary amount of wisdom they can apply to building the perfect education for their individual child.

My goal with Modulo is to make it possible for any family to easily build a customized education that their child will love, and that will empower the whole family to thrive, taking into account, social, emotional and academic needs.

I love to answer questions from parents and receive feedback on how we can improve Modulo, so feel free to reach out anytime! I personally answer all the questions and comments readers leave on my blogs.

In my free time, I like hiking, traveling the world, tasting ceremonial grade matcha, enjoying dark chocolate.

I graduated Summa Cum Laude from Brandeis University with highest honors, with a double degree in French Literature and American Studies and minors in Environmental Studies and Peace & Conflict Studies.

And I love to learn!

https://www.linkedin.com/in/manisha-snoyer-5042298/
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