As we are almost finished our second month of school a lot of assignments are starting to be due and some of us had our first midterm today. One of the most important tools for completing these assignments has been Mattermost. It has provided a nice platform to be talking about multiple group assignments in multiple different groups. There have also been some pages created for well-being and safe COVID activities so we aren’t just faces on a screen. Every group assignment has been done on Google Docs and Google Slides, allowing everyone in the group to collaboratively work together. We also used Zoom to practice our presentations and talk about our projects which was really helpful to collaboratively talk and share from the comfort of our own homes. I use Trello board to keep track of all of my courses and all of the assignments and homework I have due which really helped this past week when I had my midterm.

While in the middle of all the assignments and studying for my midterm I started to get major headaches and eye strain. I realized that I was spending too much time starring at my screen and I needed to take more breaks. According to this article I found you should take a break every 20 minutes by looking at an object 20 feet away for 20 seconds. They also say you should reduce glare, keep your distance (at least 25cm), and make sure your screen isn’t brighter than your surroundings. These are all things that I was not paying too much attention to and after adjust and adhering to these recommendations I have found my headaches have mostly gone away and my eyes are no longer as strained. Eye and head health are very important!

photo from unsplash by Adrien Olichon