Online teaching resources and improved search!

The 2020 school year has been a difficult one for most teachers. School closures have thrown yearly schedules into disarray, and even when school is in session, social distancing rules mean that teachers have to adapt their classroom activities to fit the guidelines. (you can find activities that take the guidelines into account on the Social Distancing tag)

One of the many tough things about the pandemic is that it's made it very hard to plan in the medium or long term. If there's enough of an increase in cases in an area or across the country, it may be necessary to close the schools again. Across the globe, many schools have had to suddenly transition to online classes instead of classroom teaching. It's already happened at many universities in Japan, and it may happen on a wider scale depending on how the pandemic goes.

I made a tag for online activities and a link at the top for online teaching resources. Right now I just have a few links. Please leave a comment on this post if you know any other good sites, programs, or collections of useful online activities! I taught two online classes in the spring and summer, and while it took some time to get used to the new format, the classes ended up being pretty fun. If your video chat software allows you to share your screen, you can use PowerPoint to great effect (like using one of legendary PowerPoint guru UonumaRobert's activities).

I've also made some improvements to the site's built-in search that you can access from the search bar at the top of every page. It should display a little nicer now, and I'm using some improvements on the database's search software to make the matches a little better. It should be able to handle misspelled words and alternate spellings like color/colour. I'm realizing that search is one of those technical topics that's a lot bigger than it seems at first glance. In any case, I hope it's a little more useful now!

Finally, I made a Facebook page for anyone who wants to keep up with the site on their Facebook feed. I'll keep things on topic, so don't fret!

I think it's been a tough year so far for just about everyone. I'm a bit embarrassed by all of the things I set out to accomplish but haven't yet. Please try to stay healthy and safe, and good luck with your classes!