The Spreading (And Potentially Deadly) Coronavirus Epidemic....

[MrMark0673 | 197]

7 minutes ago, B.A. said:

I'm sure there is a grade level associated with what you are describing Mark.  I can't imagine they are giving iPads to kindergartners. 

My wife is a kindergarten teacher in Arlington.  Her kids are 1-1 iPads.

4 of the 7 elementary schools in her district are 1–1.  Massachusetts schools my man.

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

11 minutes ago, B.A. said:

I'm sure there is a grade level associated with what you are describing Mark.  I can't imagine they are giving iPads to kindergartners. 

There are wealthier districts that give kids iPads that early.

Even my relatively-low-income district gives kids Chromebooks by 3rd or 4th grade.

[jonebone | 1,307]

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with overloading kids on screen time as a form of education.  My kindergarter does have a Dreambox / Reading Eggs account she can use and we let her do an hour or two of that a day.  I also buy these big workbooks off Amazon, typically 100-150 pages and lasts them a week or two.  One for the 3 year old and one for the 5 year old.  Helps occupy them while we do other work too.

[B.A. | 1,139]

24 minutes ago, arch_8ngel said:

There are wealthier districts that give kids iPads that early.

Even my relatively-low-income district gives kids Chromebooks by 3rd or 4th grade.

Yeah, they get them in my district in 4th grade.  

[arch_8ngel | 1,597]

34 minutes ago, jonebone said:

I'm not sure I necessarily agree with overloading kids on screen time as a form of education.  My kindergarter does have a Dreambox / Reading Eggs account she can use and we let her do an hour or two of that a day.  I also buy these big workbooks off Amazon, typically 100-150 pages and lasts them a week or two.  One for the 3 year old and one for the 5 year old.  Helps occupy them while we do other work too.

Yeah, I don't think overloading them with screen time is good, either.

My kid's school district had packets that were distributed or available for home printing, and the teachers have been using Class Dojo to provide their own custom timeline for using the packets.

My daughter's teacher has supplemented that with some video recording where she talks the kids through the lessons, so that they get at least a little bit of normalcy from seeing that she's still around.  (also they have a bearded dragon as a class pet that they get to see at the teacher's house)

 

Definitely no perfect way to navigate this for kids that age when the parents are also working, even when that work is remote/at-home.

 

[MrMark0673 | 197]

I’m not suggesting any of this is ideal, but I’m pretty keen on keeping my job, so I’ll do as my superintendent mandates.

[Magus | 169]

3 hours ago, B.A. said:

Online courses don't work very well for my kindergartener and 1st grader. From my understanding what "distance learning" means is they will email the lesson plans to me and I'm supposed to essentially homeschool them. That's on top of working full time with my kids being home all day. 

Yeah i can imagine having young children will be tough man. But like Mr.Mark said it highly depends on your location and grade. I am not saying this is a blanket approach for every single school closing. Just that for Kansas i was reading they intend on doing at home learning with teachers operating virtual lessons from school after they are sanitized. The schools will be used as a hub for operating the home lessons and only a certain amount of teachers that are cleared can enter to do the virtual lessons.

I imagine each district will be handling things their own way, since each district will be differently equipped to handle this. It's honestly a nightmare for both parents and teachers and obviously none of this is ideal. 

Maybe this will show people just how important schools are and that they provide more services than just strictly educating.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Magus
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[Mega Tank | 967]

4 minutes ago, Magus said:

Yeah i can imagine having young children will be tough man. But like Mr.Mark said it highly depends on your location and grade. I am not saying this is a blanket approach for every single school closing. Just that for Kansas i was reading they intend on doing at home learning with teachers operating virtual lessons from school after they are sanitized. The schools will be used as a hub for operating the home lessons and only a certain amount of teachers that are cleared can enter to do the virtual lessons.

I imagine each district will be handling things their own way, since each district will be differently equipped to handle this. It's honestly a nightmare for both parents and teachers and obviously none of this is ideal. 

Maybe this will show people just how important schools are and that they provide more services than just strictly educating.

Varies on where you work.

Edited March 18, 2020 by Mega Tank

[Gloves | 11,795]

Fortunately for me my whole life is online and I always work from home anyway, so not a whole lot has changed aside from some stuff not being in stock at stores. 

I have a bidet so you can bet this butt is always sparkling clean, so TP outages don't bug me. No kids, just a wife and a rabbit. I might stock up on some more litter for the bun. 

I work in advertising as a web developer, so my job is pretty safe overall (fingers crossed). It rally comes down to how our clients react and whether they're prepared for something like this. I expect spending to go down on that front so despite relative job security I've made a point to tell my wife that we need to start saving more money and being a bit more frugal to weather the storm (I say just after buying a snes game this morning). 

[Magus | 169]

31 minutes ago, Mega Tank said:

Varies county to county, state by state.

Yes that's why i said before that it "depends on your location". And after that "each district would be handling things their own way". I am not suggesting the whole of Kansas is doing this or every school in the country.

I am sorry if i wasn't clear in my post. 

Edited March 18, 2020 by Magus
Spelling

[Estil | 1,265]

So in another cancelation, the Kentucky Derby has been pushed back to August, only the third time it won't happen on its usual day.  So I guess it might not be a good year for the [run for the] roses  

 

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,014]

Man, I'm so glad I chose my focus to be in online education. I just completed a grad course in becoming an online teacher and began moving a lot of my materials onto our districts online class space. Luckily,  I only have 1 subject this year and I'm Geometry, we're basically done with the content expect for trig and volume / surface area.

The hardest part will be getting the kids to do the work, whether it's online or in packets. 

[demanufacturedmario | 13]

I hope all you guys are doing well and staying safe.  I know I haven't been on here much, but I've been working at hospitals and other health care areas servicing power injectors.  I am on a call discussing the COVID-19 with medical experts and what we need to do to be safe.  While most people are working from home, that's not feasible for me in field service as our top priority are our customers and keeping them up and running.

[Kguillemette | 1,545]

Having to snap turn around and homeschool 3 kids after working 9 hours in a sandwich shop largely by myself with a rushed curriculum from 2 separate schools is overwhelming.

 

I've been taking lots of deep breaths lately and praising Jesus for still having a job right now. 

[Link | 2,715]

Buckle up, folks. We are now looking at 18 months of this. Minimum.

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2020/03/us-govt-expects-18-month-pandemic-with-widespread-supply-shortages/

[Quest4Nes | 376]

9 hours ago, RegularGuyGamer said:

Man, I'm so glad I chose my focus to be in online education. I just completed a grad course in becoming an online teacher and began moving a lot of my materials onto our districts online class space. Luckily,  I only have 1 subject this year and I'm Geometry, we're basically done with the content expect for trig and volume / surface area.

The hardest part will be getting the kids to do the work, whether it's online or in packets. 

we have already done trig. next up for us was Quadrillaterals, Surface Area and Volume, and try to squeeze in probability. trig was first up in january for me. Finished Circles and Area of Sectors and was ready to move on, and boom school shut down. This district was not online savy. I have a google classroom to put work onto, but this last minute stuff is tough to adjust. I doubt the kids will be learning much of anything new the rest of the year. Its just too much. I already have the lower level kids, and getting them to do work at school is hard enough.

[Richardhead | 2,813]

https://coloradosun.com/2020/03/18/colorado-social-distancing-measures/
 

This article scares me. Sounds to me  like a shelter in place is coming statewide soon.

[Link | 2,715]

Everybody has it. If we do not act like that, it will come true.

Please don’t be scared. Do be cautious. Follow protocol.

Avoid contact and stay at home as much as possible. Avoid touching your face before thoroughly washing your hands, particularly if you have been in contact with any public surfaces before washing. If you happen to do so, wash your face as well. 

I’m having a really tough time (with unrelated issue) lately. I want to see my friends. But it’s not the right thing to do right now. And might not be for a long time. Like I said, buckle up. Mrs Link, who studied sociology, says things are not going to be the same on the other side of this. I’m not sure about that, but it’s very possible and not improbable. Especially if more people act without concern.

[fcgamer | 4,730]

For those of you here who are worried about losing your job, or at least having to go indefinitely without work due to being in forced quarantine and what not: my good mate and I just started a business, and could possibly use some people to work for us, online. So if you need work, please feel free to message me about it and then I can provide you with more details. I think I've had been around here and NA long enough for people to know that this isn't a scam. 

[jonebone | 1,307]

So I follow another COVID thread on another much larger forum (Honda-Tech) over 5300 posts in it already.  Here's some real front line feedback.

One guy in the thread (Northern VA) had his wife just test positive for it.  They had to sign paperwork saying they would quarantine until all symptoms are resolved and then an additional 72 hours.  They were told to go absolutely no where, get stuff delivered and left on door step. His wife has asthma so he's a bit concerned but she's doing okay now other than laying around with a fever.

One guy in thread works in a Chicago hospital as an NP and is beyond stressed out.  He says front line people have no protective equipment, most of the ICU has fevers and pneumonia, but it takes about 3 days for a test to come back.  So they have no idea who has it or not and just are treating the symptoms as best they can.  He fears it is only a matter of time before staff start coming down with it.

Other news, seems to be a somewhat credible link about a Japenese drug that is "clearly effective" in treating COVID.

https://nypost.com/2020/03/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-officials-say/

 

Edited March 19, 2020 by jonebone

[RegularGuyGamer | 2,014]

8 hours ago, Quest4Nes said:

we have already done trig. next up for us was Quadrillaterals, Surface Area and Volume, and try to squeeze in probability. trig was first up in january for me. Finished Circles and Area of Sectors and was ready to move on, and boom school shut down. This district was not online savy. I have a google classroom to put work onto, but this last minute stuff is tough to adjust. I doubt the kids will be learning much of anything new the rest of the year. Its just too much. I already have the lower level kids, and getting them to do work at school is hard enough.

I literally finished up the quadrilateral unit on Thursday, one day ahead of the school closure. My district uses Schoology and all of our highschool students Chromebooks so I know we will be expected to get some material online for them. However, not everyone has WiFi and dealing with IEP and 504 requirements are going to be interesting when you consider the online space. None of those IEPs have been modified for distance learning and some of the parents are happy to put lawyers on the district at anytime, now would be as good as ever. 

[Teh_Lurv | 254]

Playboy Magazine is another victim of logistics disruptions caused by the Coronavirus. The print magazine is shutting down for the rest of 2020:

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2020/03/playboy-magazine-is-closing-down-probably-for-good.html

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

On 3/18/2020 at 6:01 AM, Tabonga said:

I think the madness will end only when a lot of these poltroons run out of money they don't have - the supposedly scarce goods will keep being produced in a normal (if not accelerated) fashion and once the two balance out things will perforce stabilize.  I wonder how much stuff will be wasted since much of it has a fairly short shelf life.  

That seems to have already happened here.

Grocery stores are busy, but are able to stock just about everything daily, even TP.   You just need to be there soon after they open for things like TP and wipes.

I stopped by the higher priced store near my house yesterday evening since they limit any water to two (and we need 5-6 gallons of spring water for our fish tanks) and nearly anything you wanted was in stock.   They even had TP, but it was the John Wayne variety.   Rough and tough and doesn't take shit off of nobody

 

[Tabonga | 2,324]

1 hour ago, captmorgandrinker said:

That seems to have already happened here.

Grocery stores are busy, but are able to stock just about everything daily, even TP.   You just need to be there soon after they open for things like TP and wipes.

I stopped by the higher priced store near my house yesterday evening since they limit any water to two (and we need 5-6 gallons of spring water for our faish tanks) and nearly anything you wanted was in stock.   They even had TP, but it was the John Wayne variety.   Rough and tough and doesn't take shit off of nobody

 

We went out today and some basics are still gone around here - pasta, spaghetti sauce, dairy products and flour  (among other things).  A lot of fruits and veggies were not available and things such as hot dogs are mostly gone. 

[captmorgandrinker | 1,649]

25 minutes ago, Tabonga said:

We went out today and some basics are still gone around here - pasta, spaghetti sauce, dairy products and flour  (among other things).  A lot of fruits and veggies were not available and things such as hot dogs are mostly gone. 

Give it about a week and that should be relatively available again.   I think we were a little bit ahead on the panic factor since our state was one of the first to bag school for 3 weeks statewide.   That seemed to be what sent everybody into overdrive for buying.