Have you finally reached the apex of your boredom due to the community quarantine? Well, guess what? We have, at least, 15 more days to spoil ourselves in doing, well, nothing.
After rummaging the Internet for engaging online resources that we can kill our time with, I ran across a list suggested by PLDT Home and then some, made especially for those working – or studying – at home.
Yes, we don’t need to be in one place to hold meetings, and it’s not just because we can’t but because we can. These days, some companies use software and apps, like Google Hangouts, Zoom, Facetime, GoToMeeting, Slack, ReadyTalk, and Facebook Messenger, which now has options to do video, virtual presentation, and file-sharing for virtual meetings.
Speaking of file-sharing, aside from Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, WeTransfer, and Dropbox, there’s also AirDroid, Superbeam, Pushbullet, Portal, Xender, BitTorrent Shoot and Infinit, which can conveniently and safely transfer files from your phone to your desktop or laptop.
If you want to learn a new skill or two, YouTube is the best place to start, with hundreds of videos available on tutorials for anything you want to learn about. For kids on home-schooling, Amazon-owned Audible is now offering free-to-listen catalogue of children’s stories, and a lot more for pre-schoolers, elementary, tweens, and teens, available in six different languages.
Parents can also take their kids on a journey around the world from the comfort of their home with apps like Google Street View and Google Earth. Want to take them to museums? The National Museum of the Philippines offers a 360-degree virtual tour on their website.
To help you in organizing files, schedule and time more effectively, you can also make use of various free apps for notetaking (Keep My Notes, EverNote), and calendar, timers, and to-do lists (Google Tasks, To Do Reminder) that you can conveniently sync data among your gadgets.
While at home, you might as well keep yourselves abreast with the latest news on Covid-19, with sites, such as Department of Health (doh.gov.ph), World Health Organization (who.int), Covid-19 Tracker (ncovtracker.doh.gov.ph), National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council (ndrrmc.gov.ph), Philippine Information Agency (pia.gov.ph), the local government’s Facebook page (facebook.com/davaocitygov/), and news outlets, like Mindanao Times (mindanaotimes.com.ph.)
The leader in providing WiFi Prepaid and volume-based plans, PLDT Home suggests that “we can do more than just watching videos” by using apps and software that make things work with efficiency and use our Wi-Fi wisely.
Utilizing these apps and websites will surely help us stay more focused at work and lead a productive and balanced lifestyle for our family at home. Ah, the beauty of the Internet!
