Learning is about connections  and community as much as anything.  In late March as we were all making the “pivot”, a couple of faculty floated an idea: Could we use the OLL resources to help students connect and share experiences? Could we help them document this crazy time?  We did it. We created a public website called LiveTogether-LearnTogether.  It’s a site that’s open and viewable by the public. It’s designed to make it easy for any LCC student, faculty, or staff member – the community that makes up the OpenLCC scholarly commons – to post a story or an image that tells some aspect of their pandemic experience.  It was a rush, but so far we’ve got over 120 stories and images collected.  Some will make you smile. Some will make you laugh. Some will make you think. And some may even make you cry.

Learning results from making connections. But before we learn, we have to be part of a safe community. Many critics of online learning think community can only come from the in-person, “on-campus experience”. I beg to differ. Community is possible remote.

Location: Lansing, MI, USA
More Information: Live Together – Learn Together – the backstory

Contact Name: Jim Luke, Lansing Community College (@econproph)
Image Alt Text: quote from Fred Rogers: "if it's mentionable, it's manageable"
License for Image: All Rights Reserved (copyrighted)