Episodes

373: Game-based Learning with Boddle In this episode, Meryl interviews sixth-grader Penny Laine Buschle about her experience using Boddle Learning, a free game-based learning platform for students in Kindergarten through sixth grade. Rather than reviewing the platform only from an adult perspective, Meryl invited Penny Laine to spend time actually playing and learning inside Boddle so listeners could hear directly from a student using it. Topics covered in this episode include: How Boddle wo...

371: Turning Summer Walks Into Learning Experiences In this episode, Meryl shares how educational summer walks can become meaningful learning experiences for homeschoolers using simple apps and technology tools. 1. Identify Birds with Merlin Bird ID Meryl discusses using Merlin Bird ID from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to identify birds while walking. The app can identify birds both by appearance and by sound. Topics discussed: Identifying birds from photos Recording and identifying bird...

370: Teaching Tech Skills Through Family Travel Have you ever thought about turning family travel into a tech skills classroom? In this episode, Meryl shares practical ways to assign your teens real planning tasks before and during a trip — tasks that build digital literacy alongside life skills. Ideas covered in this episode: 1. Pitch the Vacation Have each child research a destination and pitch it to the family using a slideshow (Canva, Google Slides). Slides should be visual, not text-heavy...