Tag: Internet

Phone it in Friday X: Coronavirus Conundrum, Part III: Working from Home

The Portly Politico9 Comments

Well, another week of distance learning is in the books (nearly), and it seems folks are settling into an uncertain new normal as The Virus—what I’ve taken to calling the coronavirus (or COVID-19, to your cool kids)—continues to spread its invisible tentacles.

I personally have enjoyed the transition to distance learning, though I wish it were under rosier circumstances, obviously.  It’s been stimulating to solve the puzzle of moving instruction online, and while I think I’m actually working harder and longer most days, I am far more refreshed.  Being able to wake up at 7:30 AM and shuffling to the computer with some coffee is much more pleasant than my typically frantic morning routine, with both starts earlier and is more hectic.  It’s also nice knowing that, once 3:30 or 4 PM hit, I am done, if I wish to be.

Naturally, I realize many Americans don’t have this luxury—they’re either in essential jobs that require them to risk constant interactions with other people, or they’re in non-essential work that can’t simply move to the Internet, so they find themselves out of work.  My heart goes out to both groups.  The real heroes of this situation are the garbage men, nurses, doctors, utility workers, cooks, plumbers, and the rest that soldier on.

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Tarantulas and the Hygge

The Portly Politico15 Comments

One of the joys of blogging is discovering the weird side of the Internet—the fun weird side, not the dark, inappropriate weird side.  Today’s post is a trip down one of those byways of oddity.

My blogger buddy photog posted a striking stack photography image a couple of weeks ago with the enigmatic title “Name That Tooth.”  He invited readers to identify a truly remarkable fang.

After studying the image for a few moments, I ventured a guess, which turned out to be correct:  it was the lethal, chitinous fang of the mighty tarantula.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Distance Learning Reflections, Week One Review

The Portly Politico8 Comments

Today’s post is a SubscribeStar Saturday exclusive.  To read the full post, subscribe to my SubscribeStar page for $1 a month or more.  For a full rundown of everything your subscription gets, click here.

The first week of distance learning is in the books.  I wrote a bit earlier in the week about the transition to it, as well as some first day reflections.

While it’s beneficial for many students, especially younger ones, to have direct, hands-on instruction, it seems that students are adjusting fairly well to the transition.  From an instruction perspective, it streamlines content delivery, and helps put it in a form that most of us consume anyway—via video.

With one week in the books, I thought it would be worthwhile to share some reflections about this hasty, sudden experiment in distance learning.

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Reflections on Distance Learning, Day One

The Portly Politico4 Comments

The first day of distance learning is officially in the books.  I promise that this topic will not be the only one I write about for the next two weeks, but I am going to give updates periodically.

Being the first day, it was certainly the busiest.  Yesterday students came to school in the morning to collect whatever materials they may need for the next two week, and teachers spent the day buzzing away at recorded lectures, digital lesson plans, etc., so we’d be ready to hit the ground running at eight o’clock this morning.

A great deal of teaching is staying one or two days ahead of the students, especially when you’re first starting out.  I had a bit of that sensation—the first-year teacher drowning under a Herculean load of preps—yesterday and today, but where I’ve been lecturing on US History and Government for so long, I can riff almost effortlessly with just a few cues from my well-worn lecture slides.

Prepping for Music, ironically, has been the most difficult.  We’re using Google Meet to livestream and record lessons, which makes it pretty easy to record audio while also sharing slides with students.  With my two Music classes, though, I had to get a little creative.

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