We’re living in an unprecedented rate of change
with the world at a standstill.
What you knew to be true before you went to
bed on Monday is likely to have shifted by the time
you woke up on Tuesday—or was it Wednesday?
For those of us confined to our homes due to
shelter-in-place orders or self-imposed isolation,
the days seem to blend into one another. (If it
wasn’t for Outlook reminding me of conference
calls and Zoom meetings, I’m not sure I’d
automatically remember which day it was either.
One of those round-robin social media posts asked
what movie best describes how you’re feeling right
now. My response? Groundhog Day.)
Education as we know it has been upended.
School closures that were initially thought to
be short term have been extended indefinitely.
Some school systems have already taken the
action to close through the rest of the school
year. As of mid-April, UNESCO was reporting that
more than 1.5 billion learners—that’s 91.3% of all
enrolled students across 191 countries—have been
impacted. Some universities are preparing for the
possibility of campuses remaining closed long
term and are expecting at minimum a 15% drop in
registration for fall 2020.
Long term, there is no way to predict how this
global pandemic will impact the way we teach and
the way students learn.
Short term, there’s urgency to address some
very specific challenges around equity and
access. These areas of weakness “exposed” by the
coronavirus aren’t novel to educators. In our 2020
What’s Hot in Literacy Report, released in January,
we shared that both ranked in the top five most
critical issues in literacy education. We also found
that the top professional development need of
survey respondents was on using digital resources
to support literacy instruction.
ILA’s Road Ahead
FROM THE
EXECUTIVE
DIRECTOR
What is new is the urgency we’re seeing to
shore up those weaknesses. And the big question
on everyone’s mind is how.
At ILA, we’re focusing on what we can do to
meet your needs—not only the ones you have
today but also the ones you’ll have in the future
during the post-COVID-19 recovery phase. Here
are some of the steps we’ve taken so far:
We launched the ILA 2019 Replay. For the
months of April and May, we are offering
open access to six of the top sessions
livestreamed from last year’s conference.
We held the first ILA Edcamp Online.
Registration for the inaugural event, held on
April 7, sold out within hours of going live.
Look for more of these live, participant-driven
events in the future.
We accelerated the timeline on our digital
events program. This includes interactive
webinars with literacy leaders such as
Timothy Shanahan (May 3) and Donalyn
Miller (May 31). Each are free for members
and available to nonmembers for $45.
Sensing a trend?
Streaming recorded sessions and delivering live
webinars are standard practices for a professional
organization. Adding online peer-to-peer learning
and virtual networking opportunities help round
out the mix.
And in the coming months, you’ll see more
and more organizations either launching or
augmenting collections like these. The value of
high-quality content that’s accessible with a device
and a reliable Wi-Fi connection has never been
greater.
But for us, the work doesn’t end there. In fact,
it’s only just beginning.
Each challenge we’ve encountered has given
rise to a new way of thinking about what we do
and how we do it.
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literacyworldwide.org | May/June 2020 | LITERACY TODAY