It's a Brand New World: Virtual School Librarianship and Leadership Support

by Jennifer Sturge, October 2020

If I had asked you in August of 2019 where you would be in the fall of 2020, what would your answer have been? I'm pretty confident that you would not have said the following:

• I've been practicing physical distancing since March.
• I've been practicing as a librarian in a virtual environment since schools shut down in March.
• I've been supporting librarians, teachers, students, and parents as they navigate a virtual environment because it's unsafe to gather in large groups.
• I've been wearing a mask when I go out—and I even have some that color coordinate with my outfits.

The reality is that our lives, our library supervision practices, and our teaching and learning have changed over the past months. As supervisors of school librarians, we have to be prepared to lead in a virtual environment. Fortunately, we are incredibly adept at change. Our librarians can pivot from a kindergarten class to a group of fifth-graders in thirty seconds flat. School librarians can provide professional development to classroom educators in a team planning meeting, and five minutes later, give an information literacy lesson for ninth-grade students.

In my day job, I am the specialist for school libraries for Calvert County Public Schools. I proudly work and support 22 amazing school librarians daily. Additionally, I serve on our digital learning team and support teachers in four school buildings with digital platforms, learning, and teaching.

In my side hustle, I've been teaching online since 2007. It's that part-time position that I thought would make me a little extra money for college savings accounts or a fun vacation. When I started virtual teaching, I didn't realize that I would fall in love with the platforms, the students, and the format, making online teaching more than just a part-time job. It became a passion. I've taught college freshmen, graduate students, high school students, and small groups of middle school students.

As we continue on our journey this 2020-2021 school year, I want to share some ideas, thoughts, and what I have learned about what works and what you might need to consider, as you and your school-based librarians move bravely into what is for many a new world of virtual and hybrid learning.

Focus on Five

I'm going to focus on five aspects of creating and learning in a virtual environment that will benefit both your staff and your students. These five building blocks of online learning are the pieces that should be put into place from the beginning of the virtual experience. As a district-level employee working with school librarians, providing professional development that includes these aspects will be a boon to your school librarians and all of the faculty with whom they collaborate. If you are a building-based school librarian, providing classroom educators with these five building blocks will start them on their way to success.

From my online teaching experience, these are the basic building blocks for success in an online environment:

1. Accessibility
2. Course Structure
3. Netiquette and discussion boards
4. Using video
5. Using outside resources

Ready to get started?

Accessibility

In an online environment, the first and most vital piece of the puzzle that we should focus on is accessibility. What is accessibility? The University of California, Davis, has an awesome definition of accessibility, "In the context of online courses, accessibility means making it possible for all students, regardless of physical or developmental impairment, to use all course materials and tools" (U.C. Davis, n.d.). One in five people has a disability. The most common disabilities that affect an online learning environment are visual, hearing, cognitive, emotional, social, and motor. Therefore, it's important that the virtual learning environment is accessible to those who may need to use a screen reader, text-to-speech software, or closed-captioning; enlarge text on screen; or use an iPad or a touch screen computer rather than a traditional mouse. As we think about ensuring that our resources stay accessible to all, be extra mindful that while the LMS itself may be accessible, anything added needs to be accessible as well.

There are several websites you can use to assist you in identifying whether the content you create is accessible. The one that I have used for quite a while is WebAim (https://webaim.org/). This site has tutorials and tools that allow you to check accessibility for your site, including color contrast and checking for the alternative text for images. You can also add a plug-in or extension to your Chrome browser called WAVE (https://wave.webaim.org/) to easily check for common accessibility issues without ever leaving your browser window.

Take accessibility very seriously. Every student and staff member (and the parents, family, and other primary supports for those students!) should be able to access your materials and lessons without issue.

Course Structure

Structuring your course is so important! Adding links, pictures, videos, or files anywhere and everywhere will confuse students and everyone else. Your district might have expectations in place for online classroom structure. Or it may not! If they do, follow it—even if you don't like it—because students will be accustomed to it. If your district doesn't have these expectations, as you consider course structure, use folders!

In my courses, I always have a folder that is labeled START HERE. It is hard for anyone to miss. Inside of my starting folder, I have the following documents (feel free to add or delete elements as it works for you! These are my own personal ideas that I've learned over the years.):

• How to get help—This could be the email address of the tech helpline, your email address, and/or a link to a help website. Inevitably, educators and students will need assistance, and knowing where to find that assistance is crucial.
• The syllabus—This should be clear, to the point, and outlined with assignments and due dates. It may include a checklist, making it easy for families to follow along.
• An introduction video—Create a video of yourself (yes, I am camera shy, but I still do it). A video helps students and families see you as a real person and not just a name behind the keyboard.
• Important links, passwords, etc.—This folder is a great place to put all the key components of the virtual classroom.

I'm not kidding about folders: use them! Folders organize information in a way that is categorical or linear and easy to follow. I'm a huge fan of labeling your folders with dates so that students know when they should be working on a section. In my district, we use Schoology and have the ability to change folder colors. I love color-coding the folders—green for work you will turn in, yellow for optional resources, etc. Find a structure that works for you.

As a district-level coordinator, one suggestion that I make for librarians and educators who work with younger students is to embed outside resources as much as possible directly into the LMS. This prevents students from having to use multiple tabs to access their information, reduces toggling between screens, and makes navigation easier for younger learners.

Netiquette and Discussion Boards

As an experienced online facilitator, one of the most important things that an instructor can do at the beginning of the virtual learning experience is to ensure that the expectations for discussion boards and netiquette are abundantly clear.

Be sure that each and every school librarian has a plan for outlining expectations for netiquette by sharing the dos and don'ts of online learning and discussions. Videos are a great way to introduce the idea of netiquette and save you from reinventing the wheel. A quick YouTube search will bring up options for virtually any grade level. Sharing a graphic or infographic of your netiquette expectations is a great idea as well.

Students will need to be explicitly taught how to create responses in a discussion board. Don't assume they can do this without instruction! This will make your expectations clear from the beginning. It will also allow students to understand how and why you want them to respond to a prompt or course material. At the beginning of my online classes, I provide examples of an exemplary discussion and what not to do. I share how I answer a prompt, highlighting the pertinent information, sharing the details, and explaining why. Typically, I will create my examples as a discussion post and create a video to demonstrate my expectations. To give students a head start, I sometimes provide questions and sentence starters to help students to move the conversation along.

As you prepare to dig into virtual learning, be sure that you, your school librarians, and classroom educators are ready to teach netiquette and discussion board nuances so that students are ready for success.

Using Video

I am a huge fan of using video in the online classroom. From virtual introductions to sharing tutorials, video allows students to review, start, and stop instruction. Remember that every student may not feel comfortable appearing on video and that everyone may not have a room of their house they are ready to show off to the class. However, you and your librarians can appear on video to instruct.

As always, be sure you close caption any video that you use in the virtual classroom or choose videos that are closed captioned. I also highly suggest sharing a transcript of your video for those who prefer to read and not watch. Both Microsoft Stream and YouTube can provide automatic captions. Be sure you proofread your captions after they are finished rendering. I once put a video out that had the captions which read "urinate on boot." I had said, not very clearly, "You'll need your own book."

Using Outside Resources

As a leader in your district or building in school libraries, you have access to amazing databases and outside resources. Sharing these resources and how they can be embedded or utilized in your district LMS is a great way to get usage happening among your classroom educators and students. In our district, we have a link to our Gale resources embedded directly into our Schoology classrooms. We also encourage everyone to add outside resources we have already vetted directly into the LMS.

When thinking about using outside resources in your virtual environment, there are three key criteria. Be sure that the resource

1. protects student privacy,
2. is user friendly, and
3. is accessible.

Virtual is Effective—If You Start Well!

Virtual learning can be extremely effective if you are prepared, outfitted with a plan, and spend the time to build your courses well. Keeping the five ideas I've shared in mind, you can get on your journey to a great virtual environment easily and safely. Spending time building your course, using folders, and being very clear about expectations will set everyone up for success.

Of course, there are so many more factors when it comes to online and virtual learning that are important; I have focused on just a few of them. If you are interested in learning more about virtual instruction and best practices, there are online teaching classes widely available, including learning from Quality Matters (https://www.qualitymatters.org/), taking webinars from your district's LMS (often free), and joining professional learning networks for online learning, and using social media like Twitter. (Check out Christopher Pappas's guide for using Twitter at https://www.docebo.com/blog/the-ultimate-twitter-guide-for-elearning-professionals-16-golden-rules-to-follow/.)

As my favorite Peloton instructors like to say, "Together, we go far!" Together, we can go far in this virtual world of online learning.

Works Cited

University of California, Davis. Definition of Accessibility. https://canvas.ucdavis.edu/courses/34528/pages/accessibility-for-online-courses#:~:text=In%20the%20context%20of%20online,all%20course%20materials%20and%20tools. Accessed August 9, 2020.

Web Accessibility in Mind (WebAIM). https://webaim.org/. Accessed August 9, 2020.