Continue Your Kids' Education If Swine Flu Hits

If your child gets swine flu or goes to a school that's forced to close because of an outbreak, the CDC tells us students will be contagious for ten days. What do you do about all that missed school?

For one thing these kids are not going to be roaring sick the whole time. They're still going to be able to learn if parents and teachers do some planning now.

There are many things that can be done both on the parent side and on the school and teacher side.

The most important thing is to do some planning now. Think ahead.

We're used to thinking of going into a building for our learning, let's think about it differently says an education expert at Fordham University in Manhattan.

Parents should right now find out what their school website is, go to the website. Figure out if the teachers have a class website already. Are the teachers going to be posting material for the classes; will assignments be available; will homework be available?

If students are staying out would it be possible for the parents to have the work sent home or will it be posted online?

Parents can also find out if there will be a way to pick up their books, so they can be used at home. How can we access, can we submit, can we drop off homework? Or should we just save it, and bring it all in at the end?

This gives people something to start with.

We know through research, students who have computers at home, outperform those who don't. In this case it might be a good opportunity for parents to get their child an inexpensive netbook, for under $200. Then they would have the assurance of being able to connect to school.

Could there be a loaner set up for laptops.. or could they borrow a laptop, and have it at home so they can stay connected?

Start the conversation.

Professor of Education at Fordham University, Dr. Kathleen King has posed all these ideas. She urges parents and teachers and administrators to capture that time.

Professor King thinks this is a great opportunity for us to be able to use our websites to stay connected.

Distance learning is never going to replace good teachers but it would enable the learning to continue.

Also, Microsoft has revealed a new resource for teachers and schools. They have made available a free online learning environment where teachers and schools can post their materials, pull down their lessons, submit their lessons to the teacher and be able to dialogue and get some assistance.

Go to www.microsoft.com/education/h1n1 for more on electronic learning and let your school administrator know that it's available.