Internet use in home-education : Enablers and barriers

Home educated students are Australia’s fastest growing educational demographic. This growth may be due to the ubiquitous availability of resources made possible by the internet. This chapter considers several enablers and barriers to internet use in home education, using search engines as a case study. Search engine use is associated with several benefits and is the most prolific online activity conducted in home education. The chapter reports on a study into whether or not the search engine use of home educated students’ (so-called digital natives) is stronger than that of their parent-educators (so-called digital immigrants). The study involved a survey of 60 parent-educators and observations, tests and interviews with five families. Irrespective of age, all searchers were found to use search engines in superficial ways. Findings can assist the growing number of Australians educating at home to maximise enablers while minimising any barriers to effective search engine use. Future research directions and the practicalities of existing literature for home-educators and students are also discussed.