Remember back in March when many of us thought we'd be back to our normal routines before we knew it? Well we are a solid eight months into this global pandemic and many of us are still facing new challenges and changes.
As a mom and small business owner, I feel like I'm spinning the plates even more these days. My youngest is at home doing virtual learning for school, while my college sophomore is fortunate enough to be living on campus and attending a hybrid semester of classes. Besides supporting them and running my household, I work part-time with a local non-profit and also run a small home-based business. That's a LOT of stuff going on and I know I'm not alone in this!
Last week, I had the opportunity to sit down with some of my favorite local influencers and some wonderful folks from Xfinity to talk about how they are helping small businesses and families during this pandemic. While this post is sponsored by Xfinity, all opinions are my very own, so please read on to see how Xfinity may be able to help you and your family during this pandemic.
Your Home as a School Hub
While I am far from homeschooling my 8th grader, he is learning from home. Our school district started the school year on an all-virtual platform. In fact, many school districts in our area, are using virtual instruction, and many parents are finding themselves struggling.
We were fortunate to already have a robust internet set-up at our home. But many families don't have easy, home-access to the internet services necessary for at-home learning. Comcast really came through for local families and partnered with the city of Philadelphia and the School District of Philadelphia to launch PHLConnectED program. This program helps connect low-income K-12 public school student households.
If you're already well-connected, here are seven tips you can try to improve your WiFi at home:
- Put your gateway (internet modem and router) in a central, elevated location of your home.
- Consider WiFi extenders, such as xFi Pods, to help with "dead" spots.
- Power cycle your equipment every once in a while (unplug it and restart).
- Keep tabs on what's actually connected to your WiFi.
- Pause unused devices on your WiFi.
- Consider plugging in some devices, such as gaming devices, to free up WiFi.
- Check your connections and make sure everything is plugged in tight.
You can also get access to additional educational material by saying "Education" into your Xfinity Voice Remote. When you say that, a menu of options for preschool, Grades K-2, 3-5, 6-8 and 9-12 pops up. Each of these are packed with educational programming. The Grades 6-8 option offers a huge variety of science shows, and also a creative writing workshop, information on honing your media literacy skills and much more!
Having trouble getting your kids to stay off their games and other devices when they're supposed to be working on school? When using the Xfinity xFi app, you can easily enable the xFi Parental Controls feature. You can use the app to restrict WiFi access in your home using features such as "Bedtime Mode" (for those Middle School Night Owls) and "Pause" (during school hours).
Your Home as a Small Business
Many of us are running small businesses from home or doing our typical "office work", in an at-home setting. Both of these put additional strain on our internet resources at home, when you consider you could have two adults working and multiple children in school, all at the same time!!
Besides their internet and WiFi enhancements, the Comcast Corporation launched Comcast RISE, an initiative created to help strengthen and empower small businesses hit by COVID. We know that many businesses have been hard-hit by the pandemic, but small businesses often lack the resources to adapt change quickly and that's where Comcast is trying to step in to help.
Your Home as an Entertainment Hub
When the virtual learning and the work-from-home are all finished, we're finding ourselves with lots of time together as a family. One way we have enjoyed spending that time is family movie nights, streaming shows to watch together and exploring new entertainment options. Luckily, Xfinity has a little something for everyone.
Xfinity customers can enjoy more than 13,000 hours of premium programming from the new NBCUniversal streaming service, Peacock. This service offers families a world-class collection of the best live and on-demand programming from NBCUniversal and beyond.
Are you a Hulu fan? If you are, Hulu has joined the list of streaming options available on X1 and Flex.
Ready to get the holidays started? Try saying "Kids Holiday" into your Xfinity Voice Remote to see a wide variety of kid-appropriate holiday programming and entertainment. There's also a "Holiday Music" option and don't forget about "Santa Tracker" to follow the big guy on his big trip around the world.
We are certainly giving our Xfinity services a workout during this pandemic. While this is a sponsored post, I am also a proud Xfinity customer and have been for nearly 30 years.
You can always find your closest Xfinity store at www.xfinity.com. But there's a brand new Xfinity store in Northeast Philadelphia and if you're in New Jersey, be sure to check out the newest Xfinity store in Deptford!
catch you soon -
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