This is collecting stories of the efforts educators (individual teachers and staff), communities, and institutions are making to support learners through the COVID-19 global pandemic.

What we seek is something short and inspiring that shows how educators are helping learners in this time, along with an image to represent it, and perhaps a link to find more information. Extraordinary does not mean huge or epic, as now everything is beyond ordinary. Small, personal stories are welcome.

To guide you here are a few randomly selected stories already in the full collection.

We are sure you have or know of one worth sharing, it just takes a few minutes.  Share a story now.

The site is organized to house different collections within the overall pool of stories. Our first is for the Community College Consortium of OER (CCCOER)— see the CCCOER welcome page as well as their full set of collected stories.

The collections currently on this site include:

General Stories

CCCOER Logo
CCCOER Extraordinary Stories

OER4Covid Extraordinary Stories
OE LATAM Extraordinary Stories

We are able to set up more special landing pages and categories for groups and organizations that might want to create their own collection of stories within this larger pool (if interested just let us know via a comment below).

This site is powered by a “SPLOT” meaning no logins or personal identifying information is required. But more than that, it is open to anyone that has a story to share.

More Stories

This site was inspired directly by the UNIMED Online Resilience site (also using the same SPLOT theme). See also:

  • COVID-19 Education Response #LearningNeverStops (UNESCO) “Schools and universities have closed in massive numbers around the world because of COVID-19. We are calling on students, teachers and parents from the UNESCO Associated Schools Network, and beyond, to tell us their stories about how they are coping and continuing to learn.”
  • Corona.Collectie (VISSCH + STAM) seeks from a museum perspective “objects, stories and customs that distinguish themselves creatively or artistically, that have symbolic value or are historically important.”
  • How countries are using edtech (including online learning, radio, television, texting) to support access to remote learning during the COVID-19 pandemic (The World Bank) “The World Bank is actively working with ministries of education in dozens of countries in support of their efforts to utilize educational technologies of all sorts to provide remote learning opportunities for students while schools are closed as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and is in active dialogue with dozens more.”
  • Grinnellians in the Time of Coronavirus (Grinnell College) “Our current challenges are coupled with mandates to self-isolate and maintain social distancing, but Grinnellians know we are stronger together. We wanted to create a virtual safe space for our community to share their experiences and reflections.”
  • A Journal of the Plague Year: An Archive of Covid19 (Omeka.net) “Join us in documenting our uncertain moment. We are acting not just as historians, but as chroniclers, recorders, memoirists, as image collectors. We invite you to share your experience and impressions of how CoVid19 has affected our lives, from the mundane to the extraordinary, including the ways things haven’t changed at all.”

Image Credit: Pixabay Image by Bessi