Mrs. Borden's Adventures in Blogging

Veteran Teacher 👉 New Adventures

After 15 years in my current position as an elementary librarian (17 years in my profession overall), I find myself entering unknown territory. Never, in my wildest dreams, would I have thought I would be preparing to teach in the midst of a pandemic. Of course, we did our best after that fateful Friday the 13th (a day that will remain emblazoned in my mind and career) when schools closed with little warning. Schools had already been dismissed, teachers had left for the weekend, only to find out that we would close for two weeks. TWO WEEKS?!?!?! How could this be?? Am I on some sort of game show? Am I being punked? Where's Ashton Kutcher?

I admit it...I was BUMMED. I missed my students. I missed my library. I missed my colleagues. I wanted my life back. Eight of my my Wonder League Robotics teams had qualified for finals. How could we possibly continue competing? Kids weren't getting at least two square meals a day. Kids weren't getting books into their hands. I was worried. Very worried. 

Then we got the news that Governor Wolf pulled the plug on school for the remainder of the year. I was partially relieved, because I don't want to get COVID. I was partially terrified because of the enormous gap in learning that would occur. Then the word came about providing distance learning. In the span of two weeks, my district pulled together, determined to provide the best instruction we could deliver to our students under the circumstances. We were pretty awesome, if I do say so myself. We quickly got Chromebooks into the hands of students who did not have access to devices, provided tech support for families, received professional development on tools that will help us help our students (Google Classroom for Beginners, Zoom, Loom, Screencastify, Formative, Edmentum, etc),  even found ways to get internet access to students who did not have any.  We hustled to make it work. We did it because it was the right thing to do. The kids needed us and we delivered.

I witnessed my colleagues take big risks with technology and SUCCEED! Teachers who were hesitant to utilize technology in their classrooms were making amazing videos, having virtual lunches with their students and teaching in such creative ways that was awe inspiring. And who could forget the new buzzwords of the year...synchronous and asynchronous. Boy, we sling those words around like it's nothing now. 😎

Although my new role as a "virtual librarian" took some getting used to, I found that I was able to expand myself both professionally and creatively. For example, I was able to read the entire Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to my grades 2-3 students. I would never have that much time to accomplish such a task under normal circumstances. Check out these great FB post from parents! Be still me heart <3

This student couldn't wait for me to record
the rest of the book so ended up reading ALL
of the books in the Harry Potter series. 
Mrs. Borden for the win!!!!

If you're wondering what my instruction delivery looked like, it was probably something very similar to what a lot of elementary teachers were doing. I used Google Slides to create a simple and user-friendly lesson template. I always included an instructional video that allowed me to check in with students and clearly communicate my expectations for them. The video also included any technology tutorials they would need to complete the lesson.  Everything I would do in the brick and mortar classroom, I made sure to include in my video presentation.  It looks a little something like this:

Over the course of our virtual learning/teaching adventure, my template never changed. I wanted to streamline my instructional delivery for my parents and students. They had enough on their plates to deal with. The last thing they needed was the librarian changing things up every week. The rest of the Arts Team used the same template in order to keep things easy for our school families.  

Thanks for reading my first EVER blog post. I look forward to sharing more ideas and inspiration as this COVID adventure continues. I am looking at this as an opportunity for librarians to be the shining light and the point of success our families will need during this crazy time.