Introducing DART Learning
Have you seen the wide range of free virtual classes, or excursions, available through DART Learning? Let me introduce you to this wonderful service. DART Learning is provided by the New South Wales Government, and enables school classrooms and homeschools to take live, interactive classes during the day with various education providers. Some classes are tailored especially for homeschool families!
So far, we have participated in the portrait drawing class with the National Portrait Gallery, and a class about Captain James Cook through the Australian National Maritime Museum. Both were fantastic.
What Can You Expect?
All videos were disabled, other than the presenter’s, which I appreciated. Children did still have the opportunity to answer questions from the presenter through the chat function in Zoom. The kids were really excited to try and type their answers before everybody else!
Great content is taught in these one hour sessions. During the portrait drawing, children examined how an artist had created a portrait of the famous cook, Maggie Beer. Then they looked at various other interesting portraits before creating their own. They were shown how to go about it step-by-step in a really easy, unique, and fun way. I joined in too and had a great time!
After the ‘Cook’s Endeavour’ class, the follow-up activities the National Maritime Museum sent by e-mail were really impressive. Especially seeing as the whole service is provided for free. You can see them here.
In the near future, we are looking forward to joining the ACMI stop-motion class, the Magical Story Maps class with the NSW state library, and the Poem Forest workshop. In November there is a Parliamentary Insider class especially for homeschoolers. Our eldest daughter is really excited about that one seeing as she has been learning about levels of government.
All of the classes I’ve listed here are free on DART Learning, and there are many other free ones as well. Some do require a fee of $5-$10. If that’s the case, you’ll be asked to pay at the time of booking.
How to Join Classes/Excursions?
All you need to do to join in these classes is register for a free DART Learning account, and start booking in classes. You can do so through the DART Learning website.
Each time you book an excursion you will receive an e-mail confirmation. The Zoom links are usually sent out closer to the class date if it is still a while away. When you sign up for a class, you will be asked if you are from a school or homeschool. You can check the homeschool box and pop in the number of students and teachers participating. You don’t need to provide any homeschool registration verification, or anything like that. Simply check the homeschool box.
Have fun exploring DART Learning! I hope you have as much fun learning on DART Learning as we have so far!
