The SolarWinds Guide to Work From Home: Additional (external) Resources

If you’ve been keeping up with this series (and we hope you have), you’ve heard our opinions, tips, and tricks for working from home. Now, we’ve pooled together external resources from the WFH community, our teacher and school administrator friends, and other friends who help them (and us). These range from other WFH guides to online learning resources (free) for your kiddos. With all the inspirational stories we’ve seen and heard regarding the immense work our schools are doing and have done to put something together for the kids to maintain distance learning at this time, we know you likely have already gotten things from your kids’ schools that may include assignments, suggestions, and online library info. These are merely options to augment what you may have already received. Some of them involve learning through games, so are quite engaging for the kids, and some are virtual field trips you can explore together. As you might imagine, there are a lot of resources popping up as other companies and individuals come up to speed on the WFH process. A few that caught our eye include:

• Work From Home Guides, Essays, and Perspectives
  • “Adjusting to the Virtual Office Life” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/adjusting-virtual-office-life-andrew-lagrone/
  • “Five Tips on Working from Home from a 20-Year Working from Home Veteran” https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/five-tips-working-from-home-20-year-veteran-nick-holden/
  • “Work in the Time of Corona” by Alice Goldfuss https://blog.alicegoldfuss.com/work-in-the-time-of-corona/
  • A Student’s Guide to Working From Home https://www.notion.so/A-Student-s-Guide-to-Working-From-Home-872768bb233b4dcfa0856213b84ce42d
  • Survive and thrive with your young children (Ages 4–10) at home https://medium.com/@zeynep.isik02/survive-and-thrive-with-your-young-children-ages-4-10-at-home-fea2df7c97f7
  • The family lockdown guide: how to emotionally prepare for coronavirus quarantine https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/13/the-family-lockdown-guide-how-to-emotionally-prepare-for-coronavirus-quarantine
• Technical Resources
  • “Tips for Effective Remote Work” using Microsoft Teams https://products.office.com/en-us/microsoft-teams/work-remotely
• General Sanity-Helpers
  • (Free) Ambient noise to make you not feel alone (coffee shop, office, etc.): https://coffitivity.com/
• Free eBooks
  • Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal https://www.smbc-comics.com/covid/
• Free learning resources for keeping your kids’ minds engaged:
  • Kid's coding lessons from Udemy: https://www.udemy.com/topic/coding-for-kids/free/
  • Prodigy (Math): https://play.prodigygame.com/
  • Khan Academy (Many subjects for kids and adults): https://www.khanacademy.org/
  • Squiggle Park (Reading): https://www.squigglepark.com//
  • Storyline Online (Reading): https://www.storylineonline.net/
  • Mystery Doug (Science): https://mysterydoug.com/
  • Kids National Geographic: https://kids.nationalgeographic.com/
  • Typing Club: https://www.typingclub.com/
  • History for Kids: https://www.historyforkids.net/
  • Scholastic: https://classroommagazines.scholastic.com/support/learnathome.html
  • ABC Mouse (for kids under 8): https://www.abcmouse.com/ Use code SCHOOL7771 for free access.
  • Reach out to your teacher friends and kid’s teachers to get access to these Educational Resources. School access is required: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/3/d/1t3r618pd8MAi6V87dG2D66PtiKoHdHusBpjPKXgm36w/htmlview#gid=0
  • Discord has also opened their Go Live participation to 50 people to support virtual classes. https://discordapp.com/
  • Virtual Field Trips
    • San Diego Zoo: https://kids.sandiegozoo.org/
    • Yellowstone National Park: https://www.nps.gov/yell/learn/photosmultimedia/virtualtours.htm
    • Mars: https://accessmars.withgoogle.com/
    • Monterey Bay Aquarium: https://www.montereybayaquarium.org/animals/live-cams
    • Georgia Aquarium: https://www.georgiaaquarium.org/webcam/beluga-whale-webcam/
    • Virtual Farm Tour: http://www.farmfood360.ca
    • US Space and Rocket Museum: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qe5RqyMNhc
    • Discovery Education Virtual Field Trips: https://www.discoveryeducation.com/
    • The Louvre: https://www.louvre.fr/en/visites-en-ligne
    • The Great Wall of China: https://www.thechinaguide.com/destination/great-wall-of-china
    • Boston Children’s Museum: https://www.bostonchildrensmuseum.org/museum-virtual-tour
  • Ergonomic Self-Assessment Resources
    • National Institute of Health’s “Computer Workstation Ergonomics: Self-Assessment Checklist” https://www.ors.od.nih.gov/sr/dohs/Documents/Computer%20Workstation%20Ergonomics%20Self%20Assessment%20Checklist.pdf
    • The University of Texas at Austin’s “Ergonomics Self-Evaluation: Computer Workstation” http://sites.utexas.edu/ergonomics/files/2016/03/Ergonomic-Self-Evaluation-1.pdf`

This is by no means an exhaustive list, . We hope these provided some guidance or assistance, as needed. Feel free to share with family, friends, colleagues, and your communities. We are all in this together! Look forward to one final post in this series.