In the continuing story of the Project Albatross Biology Distance Learning project, today is the day that teachers start delivering their live lessons, as per the schedules on the site.

Of course, the main purpose of the project is to actually get it to students, so we were fortunate to blunder into a fortuitous connection with the Homework Help subreddit. They’ll handle the forum side of things both on the sub and through their Discord server.

If you are old like me, Discord is a thing you kind of know about, but don’t really understand. Because you’re old. In this way, you have it binned with things like TikTok. But I’ve been pretty impressed with the possibilities of the platform for chat-based help and interaction. Of course, it’s origins as a support structure for gamers means that it has some strong conventions that you have to be willing to engage with to learn how to use (it’s not hard, I promise. It just seems strange to old people).

With that in mind, I’ve also set up a Discord server just for biology teachers. If you want in (and you’re a biology teacher), just drop me a note and I’ll send you an invite. Consider it a friendly, safe space, in which to learn this new thing during your distance learning, learning journey.

And also, if you want to support Project Albatross, share it with anyone who might want to help or learn using it! Always room for more.