I live alone and I’m in a vulnerable group age-wise for the coronavirus. So I’ve been observing all the lockdown precautions, but still having a walk each day. What has made this experience much more tolerable though has been access to modern communications, especially the Internet. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Monday, I used FaceTime to deliver an online session on Victorian history for my nine year old granddaughter in Milton Keynes. This week we covered developments in transportation and industrialisation and used a couple of short films on YouTube. On Tuesday, I had an online lunch with a young friend using Skype. On Wednesday, I repeated my session on Victorian history for the nine year old son of a good friend of mine in south London.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Thursday, I should have been at a hospital for a routine consultation on a health issue, but instead the consultant phoned me at home. The same day, I used Zoom for the first time to attend a lecture on the American presidential election provided by the City Literary Institute which has now put 80% of its courses online. Over 40 students were part of the session.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On Friday, I had a Skype call with my Chinese ‘family’ in Oxford. They have family in Wuhan – the original location of the virus – which I’ve visited twice. On Saturday, I had an online chat with my granddaughter and we each used puppets or cuddly toys to give a little performance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Also on Saturday, I joined an online launch of a new book by a very good friend. Thanks to the wonders of Zoom, there were participants from 14 locations around the world in seven time zones. There was a short slide presentation, a film clip, and a short video as well as discussion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
On a day to day basis, I’m part of a WhatsApp group of some residents in my block of flats. Throughout the week, I’ve been checking into Facebook several times a day and it’s been a comfort to see pictures and messages from many of the 300 friends with whom I’m connected. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I live alone and I’m in a vulnerable group age-wise for the coronavirus. So I’ve been observing all the lockdown precautions, but still having a walk each day. What has made this experience much more tolerable though has been access to modern communications, especially the Internet. On Monday, I used FaceTime to deliver an online […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25703","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts","category-science-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25703","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=25703"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25703\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25712,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25703\/revisions\/25712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25703"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25703"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25703"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}