Using your Virtual Assistant for Home Learning
Teachers who have been lucky enough to teach in a classroom with a teaching assistant, know that they are an absolute blessing and an asset to the learning environment.
Not many of us who currently have our children at home are lucky enough to have a teaching assistant, let alone enough time to teach our children, but many of us have a smart speaker or virtual assistant in our home, or on our phones, which could help in ways you may not have thought of.
We have a Google Home Mini but these ideas should work with any smart speaker or virtual assistant. Here are some of the ways we have used our smart speaker to make learning at home engaging and practical.
1. Set timers and use the stop watch
“Hey Google, set a timer for 10 mins”, is heard regularly in our home. We set a timer to motivate the children to complete a task in a certain time frame (and sometimes to remind us all that I have something in the oven or on the stove top). Setting a timer for break times is also really useful so you don't have to keep looking at the clock.
Using a the stop watch feature can also be really motivating. My daughters both like to time how fast they can complete some maths tasks. Obviously if they need a little help this might just add unnecessary pressure but if it is just recall of known facts, beating the clock can be lots fun.
2. Play musical statues
It was a great day when some Mum friends and I discovered that the Google Home Mini can play musical statues. We sat back and watched the children having a great time.
My daughter had ‘musical statutes’ as a learning task for music this week which was a great idea from her teacher and lots of fun. It could also be used for PE, a quick brain break or recess/lunch play if there is no option to get outside.
3. Use them as a dictionary or thesaurus
Of course this doesn't replace the skill of using a dictionary which does need to practiced but let's be honest, those 'junior' dictionaries are quite limited with their scope of words. How great to quickly be able to ask your virtual assistant for the meaning of a word. I’m sure many older students have already thought of this.
Using your virtual assistant or smart speaker as a thesaurus is also a fun way to encourage children to improve their writing. They will quickly learn the difference between a synonym and antonym as they ask for ideas.
4. Play a game as a quick brain break.
Ask your virtual assistant for a riddle or joke. They are almost always lame but it is a bit of fun. There was a time there when my party trick was asking Siri “What is zero divided by zero?”. The answer always gave me the giggles.
Many smart speakers can also play trivia or run a song quiz. Just ask them what games they have and go from there.
5. Use the calculator to check maths work. Or better still have children mark their own work. You will probably need to model this for younger children as we have found that Google Home could only give us the answer if we used certain language. That issue is a lesson in itself for the children. What maths language does your virtual assistant understand?
6. Play educational songs
Play timetables songs, they are a bit dry but still a great resource. Jack Hartman has great songs about everything educational for your 4-7 year old children while Lah Lah’s Big live band and The Vegetable plot can be enjoyed by the whole family.
7. Ask your virtual assistant for a recipe or a science experiment.
Need a recipe idea for lunch? You can even ask your virtual assistant for a recipe to use up particular ingredients. I love that Google Home will read out the recipe step by step, no need for getting sticky fingers on your phone or having the tablet turn to sleep mode, and at the same time the children are learning about the structure of a procedure, it’s literacy coming to life.
Another great idea is to ask your virtual assistant for a science experiment. There are so many to hear about so be ready to clear some time to try one of those.
Please note this is not a sponsored post and I'm not suggesting you need to buy a smart speaker to get through learning at home. Of course there are plenty of alternatives both traditional and new-age to all of the above. I’m also very mindful that many children around the world will be struggling to even access their learning tasks let alone use a piece of technology to make learning more engaging.
But I thought it was fun and useful to focus on one resource that most of us have on our phones, if not in our homes, and explore how it can be used for home learning.
Have fun!
