In week five I have been mainly concerned with listing useful lesson links in the post below. The emotional side of things is best described as a roller coaster ride. The weather outside is really nice, if a little dry. The birds are chirping, the sun is shining and the only really disturbing thing these days are motor bikes.

Most people I speak to agree on two things concerning what they miss most and what they find best about our new way of life these days. What people miss most, of course, are other people, especially those they feel close to like relatives and best friends. After seeing colleagues only online for five weeks now, if seeing them at all, as the video function is the first to go if the connection is bad, people long to meet again in person.

My fourth week of having to stay at home. If this continues much longer, I will have to come up with different headlines for my posts – it’s becoming a little repetitive.

Yesterday afternoon I was sitting in a friends’ garden (without my friends, we are still social distancing), realizing that I was beginning to lose my sense of time; how many weeks have passed now again? I wasn’t sure. However, I did remember that we are in the Easter week. Unless you consider next week to be the Easter week. Actually, it’s just a prolonged weekend and I am babbling.

The weather is wonderful and this week feels a little like a real vacation, despite the situation.

I had just a few meetings and phone calls. And the corona related pictures and videos are gradually being replaced by Easter greetings. However, yesterday I was sent a video that was new to me. (Turned out, when I passed it on, several already knew of it, but enjoyed watching it again anyhow.)

There are many webpages dealing with this topic. Especially now, as working from home has so suddenly become a new situation for so many people, the topic has gained some urgency.

For teachers, a considerable part of our job is done at home – preparing classes, reading, researching etc. – so having a home office and working at home is not totally new for us. But now it has gained a different quality in its exclusivity. I have never spent so many hours sitting at my desk in front of my computer. In the beginning, I didn’t even realize how many hours straight I had been spending at my desk trying to figure things out – see below 😉

It’s the end of week three. I am beginning to get the hang of this online teaching thing. Ideas are popping up and there are great webpages, ESL/EFL and others to be used. Onestopenglish lessons, for instance, are downloadable as PDF files and can be shared. Another page is BreakingNews.com where you can also download and save lessons as PDF files for sharing in your online lesson/meeting.

The sharing is not as complicated as I thought in the beginning – once you understand a few things about the respective programme you are using. (So far I have only been using Cisco Webex.)

There are a few little but essential things you just have to know and follow for everything to work smoothly.