We're starting to adjust to a strange new rhythm and news grows even more troubling. It's clear that the well-being of our students is at the forefront of our thoughts and there have been notes this week reminding us to judge the workloads that we're asking students to take on.
I mentioned too last week that teaching this way is exhausting and was lucky to get some relief this week from brilliant colleagues who contributed to our online sessions. In the next few weeks, we will welcome guests who will almost certainly talk from memory, with the assured confidence that only comes from being experts in their field, happy to share from experience and knowledge. I've been overwhelmed by the generosity of colleagues across the world, helping out where they can.
Please feel free to use this newsletter to share ideas and point people to resources. I will attempt to publish each Friday morning, so please get your emails to me by Thursday afternoon. Please take care of yourselves, look after each other and be kind.
Canva.com (which I must mention every week) has created a set of templates that you can use and include in materials. This site really is the most useful and simple way to create posters, slides, social media images and so much more. It is impossible to design something badly. Click the image to read more.
People, Places, and Things
A few articles that I'd saved for later from the UK Guardian, including an excellent review of Albert Costa's - The Bilingual Brain and an op-ed piece about losing the humanities at all levels of education. I also enjoyed this interesting article about the asylum seeker campaigning for others to learn welsh.
These next two links from the brilliant kottke.org, first off The choreography of the street, how we're using our bodies in this time of social distancing.
The Chinese tradition of Ching Ming (清明), or Tomb Sweeping Festival, is scheduled this year on Saturday, April 4th. It’s a time in early spring when families travel to the cemetery to revere the departed and bring offerings to supply them for the coming year. Families in the Chinese diaspora practice this ritual in a multitude of ways.
I managed to complete this Mindfulness Escape Room this week after a few colleagues spotted it and I felt quite good at the end, it's a puzzle, but hopefully one that will give a moment of peace and respite.
On remote learning and working.
We've said it before in this newsletter but it bears repeating, what you're doing now isn't online learning, it is remote teaching during an emergency.
As teaching moves online, one of the hope is that more academics start to work in a more open way, there's already great evidence of this, in the sharing of resources and speakers. This ALT article offers a view on Becoming an open Educator and explores frameworks to support us.
If your students need some advice about how to manage their study time during the pandemic.
I really liked this post on how to encourage small group interaction in online spaces, it is especially useful to those of us using Canvas.
This Creatives Toolkit is the last of the Covid-19 lists of links that I'm going to mention, for educators to scroll down to the Digital Syllabi section.
On Screen
Netflix is screening six award-winning Saudi Arabian short films under a series called "Six Windows in the Desert".
Reuters reports on a Paris street dressed for a Wartime drama that has been abandoned during the outbreak. [link]