Each year, our students look forward to author visits. Author visits take a lot of planning and coordination, but the results are lasting and worthwhile. When we have an author visit, that author’s books are checked out for the rest of the year.
Author visits encourage reading for pleasure, motivate
reluctant readers, improve writing skills, and support classroom learning. Visiting authors also share their creative
process with students, which often inspires our young learners to make their
own books.
At the beginning of this year, the prospect of hosting an
author seemed impossible due to covid restrictions. We were unable to host authors in person or
hold assemblies. An additional concern
was including students who are learning at home. So, Microsoft Teams came to the rescue! Teams is the perfect platform for virtual
author visits.
FoxTale Book Shoppe, a local bookstore, connected us to the authors
and handled book sales. Our first virtual
visit was with author Ridley Pearson and illustrator Ile Gonzalez, who teamed
up to create the DC Comics Super Sons series. Then we hosted author Sherri Rinker, who writes popular picture books
for children, including Goodnight Goodnight Construction Site.
After setting up the dates and times, I immediately put in
a request to have my amazing Instructional Technology Specialist,
Kristen Brooks, help with the calls. We
set up a practice call, and she also helped on the day of the virtual visits. Kristen is a Teams expert and thought about
many things that could go wrong and how we could prevent problems.
We connected with the authors about 15 to 30 minutes before the
actual calls. Kristen showed the authors
how to share their presentations and answered any questions they had. When the calls started, I introduced the
authors while Kristen let classes and students in and made sure everyone was on
mute. During the presentations, Kristen
admitted latecomers and I muted them. It
was very helpful to have two people working together on this with the large number
of attendees.
These authors were fun and engaging. Our students loved participating in an event
that made it feel like a normal school year. And our remote learners were also able to participate without leaving
home. Ridley joined us from Idaho, Ile
from Mexico, and Sherri from Chicago. Teams allowed us the benefit of making this connection without the expense
of travel.
We are already working on plans for our next author
visit. Through Teams, we can connect
with anyone, anywhere in the world!
