ARCHIVES*RECORDS 2020

In March of 2020, the National Archives and Records Administration made the unprecedented decision to close their facilities. The Presidential Libraries were prepared to welcome spring school tours that were not going to happen. As the seriousness of the worldwide pandemic set in, archivists and education specialists across the agency searched for a way to connect with students. After several meetings, the decision was made to rapidly build an online schedule that classes, teachers, and students could join._x000D_
The National Archives has a long-standing partnership with Internet2 and the Presidential Primary Source Project. Every year a series of presidential libraries, sites, and other museums present a series of programs on different presidential topics. This series is done completely online with classrooms and homeschool students across the country. Over nearly a decade, the Presidential Primary Source Project has developed a loyal following of schools._x000D_
Because of the strong distance learning partnership between NARA and PPSP, it made sense to continue teaching after the conclusion of the normal series. From March until June NARA presented several sessions reaching thousands of students. Some educators did not have experience teaching in the online platform and some did. We will share tips for presenting in this medium and how you can tell the session is effective. We will also discuss methods for regaining audience attention and making the session more interactive._x000D_
Independently, NARA has also moved adult programming to online platforms. Some of the programs are discussions or guest speakers, some of them are lifelong learning groups seeking talks from archivists and exploring collections. We will discuss how to host these kinds of sessions with members of the general public._x000D_
Lastly, managing an online program has a lot of moving parts. We will discuss how to manage registrations, digital platforms, and advertising.