[music playing]

Speaker 1: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. Apps for Mobile Devices in the Adult Ed Class. OTAN Technology and Distance Learning Symposium, 2020.

Francisco Pinedo: So again, my name is Francisco Pinedo. I'm the lead instructor for Soledad Adult School and also the OTAN Subject Matter Expert Trainer. So today's session is going to be on implementing apps for your mobile devices in and out of the classroom. Now, you have a handout that is going around. In that handout, I have listed all the apps and websites that I will be covering.

And then on the back side, you have the correlation to the civic objectives, that you could use it too if you're doing one of these civic objectives. Most of mine relate to job readiness skills, job preparation skills. So you'll see that next to the apps name, it's going to say what co-ops they could relate to that you could use it. It's not to do that civics task, but is that you could use it as a complement, as I call it.

OTAN-- a little bit about me, I've been an ESL instructor at Soledad Adult School since 2004 up until-- well, presently I still am. Also, I'm the lead instructor as of last year. And a lot of people say, well, what is the lead instructor? Technically, director, too.

Audience: Yes.

Francisco Pinedo: It's just with--

Audience: Title.

Francisco Pinedo: --another title. [chuckles] I've also been a Subject Matter Expert since 2010 for OTAN and also have been a Calpro trainer since 2017. So thanks to Sudi. [chuckles]

About OTAN-- again, our vision is to lead California's Adult Ed instructors into the implementation of technology in your classroom. And that's the goal that we have in OTAN, is for you to use all these devices that some of your students have already, mobile phones, tablets, in the classroom. And again, most of these apps work for any type of tablet. It doesn't have to be a high expensive one, or even a cell phone.

Some of my students use their phones that they get for free if they qualify, you know, outside of the grocery store, and things like that. I mean, or some of the tablets. We have a lot of nonprofit organizations in our area that do drives, where you could purchase a Chromebook or even a iPad at a very low cost. So you don't need the expensive technology to do this.

Why technology? Because our Adult Ed students are very tech savvy. So we're getting a lot of those 20 to mid 30s-- they're very tech savvy. And they're the ones also helping our seasoned students come up to date with their technology. Also, the cost of technology is a lot cheaper than not even a decade ago, just a few years ago. Technology prices have gone down. And jobs related to technology are expected to increase by 23% by this year. So this is information from the California Workforce Development Board, their Strategic Plan from 2016 to 2020, where it says that most of the jobs are going to be using technology by this year.

And I asked my students. A lot of them are seasonal farm workers, and they're like, yeah, we use the tablet now to program what time the sprinklers are going to go off in the fields. Instead of going at 2:00 in the morning to turn on the pump and at 6:00 AM to turn off the pump and go to another field, now they control it with a tablet. But they need to know exactly what field they're going to be irrigating. Because if they select the wrong field, and the seedlings are this big and it gets a lot of water, that's a whole crop damage right there. So they're using this technology in jobs like that.

So how to use technology in your classroom-- so you use tablets, mobile devices. Bring your own device. That's how I started doing mine. I would have the students bring in their own mobile device. We would connect to the school's student Wi-Fi, or sometimes I would have a hotspot. Then they would pair-share, because not everybody had a phone back in 2013, '14.

Now, usually in a class of 20, I might have one that might not have a smartphone. I still pair them up with someone at our offsite location. Also, we encourage students who take a computer literacy classes either at our site or somewhere else. So we have a lot of community organizations that go out and do trainings for people. The city of Soledad also has done that, the city of Gonzalez-- so if we're full, we recommend them to go somewhere else to get these digital literacy skills.

So some of the free apps that I use and we use as educators and also as students the students could use at home. They use at school. And we're also starting to use it for blended instruction because we only have classes Monday through Thursday. So Friday is when we tell the students, OK, we want you to go at least an hour, hour and a half on whatever app they're using.

And then that way, on Monday, we talk about, what lesson did you do? Has anybody else in the class doing the same lesson? They would kind of talk and be like, oh, I like this. I needed help with that. So they kind of help each other, and the teacher facilitates that as well.

The first app that I use for student communication is Remind. So first, I'm going to go through the PowerPoint, and then I'm going to show you the actual app so you can see how they work. So with Remind is a great way to send information with students. It's a good way to connect with them.

Because sometimes I get students who are absent the whole week. And our policy is after a certain amount of hours, they get dropped. And I don't want to drop them, and then they come back and have to go on a waiting list. So sometimes, I just send a simple text message. Hey, how are you? We've missed you in class. Hope everything's going OK. Oh, I've been sick, and this. But I'll come back Monday. And then they come back Monday, and everybody knows they're happy.

Sending announcements instead of having to do copies for flyers, for meetings-- this upcoming week is parent conference in our district. Instead of printing out and making copies of flyers, remember, these are the questions to ask our teacher, we just send it automatically through Remind. It also fosters student communication. I send sometimes for the two classes I teach a "good morning" message, reminder, see you at 6 o'clock today. And I'm able to see the responses and see how they're communicating with me.

I tell my students, don't use emojis. Don't use "LOL," don't use abbreviations. Use a complete sentence. And I am starting to see how they're improving when they're writing something. So instead of just a, "yes," "no," or happy face, now they're able to elaborate a little bit more.

USA Learns-- again, the app is free now as of, I believe, the fall of 2019. There are, if I'm mistaken, four or five levels. I need to double-check on that. And this is again, is the app. And there's also the website, so I'm going to be covering both. So the app is really nice because the students could download them on their mobile device and use them in class, outside of class, any time. It's also available-- a typo on here-- [chuckles] it's also available on the computer at usalearns.org. And it incorporates video, audio, and speaking.

So this one is nice because it's, again, it's free for the students. And the app is just the certain percent of the actual website. So I always encourage my students-- will use the website once so you could compare both of them.

For our low-beginning literacy students, we use this free app called Phonics Genius. With Phonics Genius, it's like flashcards of word families that they use. They listen to the-- I call it the native voice or, you know, the English speaker. And then they could also record and compare their voice to the native speaker. So this one is nice because it starts introducing them with the short sounds, the long sounds, and then word families. So a lot of the times, at the beginning level, this is the type of help the students need. And then we encourage them, get the free app and practice it at home. And you know, you start hearing their pronunciation improve after a while.

A story I like to share is a student that we have who speaks only Pashto, but she is not literate in her native language. So for her using this, she's picking up a lot of the English pronunciation very well. And we're very surprised how her pronunciation has improved in about a four-month time period. And she uses Phonics Genius and also some other apps that we use in the classroom.

Of course, US Citizenship Podcast, the app-- teacher Jennifer. We use this one in our Citizenship Prep program. But we also do it when we talk about things like Constitution Day, and we also talk about-- well, in June, we talk about Independence Day and things like that, because we don't have classes in July. But right here, it's very nice because it's updated like on a daily basis. I always say, I don't know how teacher Jennifer does it. She updates every day. Does she sleep? Does she know what sleep is?

And the reason why my students like it is because they could hear a lot of the mock interviews.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Francisco Pinedo: And because like it was said yesterday at your session, a lot of times-- I think it was your session-- some of the students think that the USCIS person is going to speak like the teacher does.

Jennifer: Yeah.

Francisco Pinedo: But when they hear different accents, they're like, oh, wait a minute, I don't have to speak perfect English. And they're able to hear that. On the actual website, there's actual videos. And the students really, really like those. There's also civics and history lessons. Again, it is free.

This app is only available on iOS tablets, iPads. It used to be available on Android devices. I guess with the new version, it's not. So this is the new version of a whiteboard. So when I started teaching elementary, each student-- I was doing a second grade-- they had their little whiteboard. And I would put a math problem on the board, and OK, they would write on the marker. And then they would raise it up and show it to me. So I'll be like, show me. So this is the new techie way of doing that.

So it's an app. It turns your mobile device into a whiteboard. So for this one, we use it with the iPad. Students can use it for math problems and show their answer. So instead of having the student come up to the board, in our district, we have Apple. So we have the TV with the Apple-- Apple TV. So they're able to airplay and show us and give us step by step how to do that. And they're actually writing it out, and you could see it on the TV screens.

We also use it for sentence math problems, things like that. You could choose different backgrounds for graphing as well, so for our HiSET instructors, and doing coordinates. And also writing-- we have a lot of Arabic-speaking students who are used to writing from right to left. And with this one, we teach them how to write from left to right. So instead of wasting, and wasting, and wasting, and wasting paper, they could just go on here and start practicing with it.

Here to Career-- this is the one that we use a lot for our high school equivalency and our high school diploma students. So now, this app is great. Sometimes, it is a little bit glitchy. So what I found out is just to delete the app and then reinstall it again. So what it does, it provides information on local community colleges. So this one here provides information on courses they offer and degrees.

It offers career pathways, a career quiz, and they've also added an interest quiz, where you kind of answer those questions. And it tells you, based on your responses, these are the jobs that are a good match for you. And then you click on it, and these are the resources. So it's very, very good for career exploration, but we do have a lot of our high school diploma students actually go on here and see-- we only have one local community college, so they're able to see what is offered there, and what degrees they could get, and what would be the average pay with that degree. So this one's really good, and we'll look at it as well.

Job readiness simulation games-- Here to Career. And it's on your handout as well. I believe, all of the apps that I have on the site-- it says the free apps-- that one should be--

Audience: Yeah, here.

Francisco Pinedo: OK.

Audience: It's right here. Yeah.

Francisco Pinedo: So the name's right there. So again, it's really good. A lot of the students really use it. And the students click on it. Sometimes, it takes them to the actual website of the school for their financial aid, the contact person. So it has everything right there. So the student doesn't have to go out and search additionally. It could just do from a click.

Job Simulations-- again, these mainly are-- we use it for some of the co-ops that we do for job readiness. Though learners-- they're very interesting this year. Well, my group is, or our group is, because they really are not into games. So when we did the co-op, and we're like, OK, we're going to play this game, they were a little bit hesitant. So I ended up doing it as a whole class. And then once they saw how it was done, they were playing with it.

But we do use this one, again, with our high school diploma students, so we want them to prepare to get a job. And it's just a job simulation. One of them is JobPro, Get Hired; JobPro, Get Dressed; JobPro Get Prepared. So with Get Hired, it's a mock interview. And a lot of things go on. Like, the person's cell phone rings. And you're not making eye contact, so you have to quickly fix those errors. And you're getting points.

Get Dressed is-- it tells you, you have a job interview in an amusement park. How are you going to dress up? You have a job interview at a hotel as a receptionist. How are you going to dress? And based on how you dress, it scores you. And then it'll tell you the possibilities of getting hired or not, and then why or what are some of the problems with it.

This one here is more of a productivity, Genius Scan. Sometimes, you run out of handouts if you still use handouts. Or you need to scan something, and you don't have a scanner. This one turns your tablet or even your smartphone into a scanner. And you could scan the picture, and email it to yourself, to your students. Put it on your Google Drive, or email it directly to the students. Or I send it on Remind. So sometimes if there is a handout or something that they really want a copy of, I just click it, scan it, and send it to them.

So and that's why I kind of chose one that will work with both. Because in our class, it's about a 50-50. So I don't want to have the students feel that, oh, I need to go buy-- you know, spend this money. So this app works great. Now, I'm pretty sure there is a Google or Android alternative or something similar because now I'm starting to see a lot of the features from iOS being incorporated into--

Audience: Android's built into your camera now--

Francisco Pinedo: Oh, it is?

Audience: --into your camera.

Francisco Pinedo: Oh, OK, good. So in Android it's-- OK. Some of the web sites that we use at-- at home-- at school-- that the students could use at school, they can use at home, and we use it for blended learning, is, again, usalearns.org. So this one-- we use it mainly for our intermediate-advanced students because some of the-- and I mean, I could use it with the beginning students. But for that one, we do use a paid subscription app that is only for our beginning students. This one for our intermediate students we use USA Learns. They're interactive lessons. And now we're also incorporated into our citizenship class because it has video. It has audio. It's very, very well developed.

And again, the Citizenship Prep is not available as an app. It's only the actual website. With USA Learns, you could set up a teacher account, add your students, and monitor your students. And that's how we know-- so Monday morning, Miss Falstor the teacher-- she'll be like, oh, half of the class was on Friday. The other half-- what happened?

Audience: Yeah.

Francisco Pinedo: And then, of course, you hear every excuse in the book.

Audience: [laughter]

Francisco Pinedo: But then the teachers are like, this is part of your class assignment. It's at least an hour, hour and a half over the weekend. Go on this site with yourself, with your family. In some, it's the whole mom and the children doing it together, dad and the children doing it together as a family. So we always encourage that as well, and we do check.

Typing.com-- typing is such an important skill for our students to know. Because many times, something as simple as applying for a job-- or we had just recently a student who opened up for their social security-- they retired. So they need to have the typing skills needed to do these tasks. So on the computer-- again, this one is a website on the computer. You would use typing out. Of course, you could have the keyboard for the tablet. But I still feel for this, you still need to use a computer.

And also, it teaches typing skills to students. It's interactive lessons and activities. Again, you sign up as a teacher, free account, and add your students. And you could keep track of their typing. Our goal at the beginning of the year in August is for the student-- that by June, they're typing at least 40 words per minute. Because in Soledad, our largest employer, besides the county of Monterrey, is the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, Salinas Valley State Prison. And they're always hiring office technicians. Their minimum requirement of typing is 40 words per minute.

The city of Soledad is also 40 words per minute. Soledad Unified School District is also 40 words per minute. So by then, at the end of the year, they have something. And we print out a certificate once they reach that benchmark and say, here's something that you could use when you're applying for a job, that you have these typing skills needed. And again, it's free.

This one, again, is only for Spanish. And I always get [chuckles] follow-up emails that will be like, we went to the site, but it's only in Spanish, not in English. This is only a Spanish site for a high school equivalency preparation. [speaking spanish]

And on this one here, the students could select the subjects. They could select the test that they're using, HiSET, Pearson VUE, GED, or TASC. Again, here in California, it's only the first two. But in other states also are TASC. So the student will go on there. And if they're learning, for example, mathematic and fractions, they would go Math. And it's broken down by sections. And it has-- I always call it the-- it's kind of like Khan Academy--

Audience: But in Spanish.

Francisco Pinedo: --but in Spanish. And then sometimes, because it is in Spanish, you hear the Spanish from other countries, not only from Mexico, but from South America or from Spain. So sometimes, the students were like, wait a minute, why does this sound different? Why are they saying these words? Like, oh, it's because it's-- they collect all that information from Spanish. It might not be Spanish from Mexico. It might be Spanish from Spain, so they hear all these different accents. But again, it covers all of the subjects that are in these high school equivalency exams.

We were running into a little bit of trouble at our district with Khan Academy because they updated the firewalls and everything. So that was one of the reasons why we went to this one. And then in Khan Academy, there had to be a lot of navigation. You click here. Then you go here. Then you go here. Then you click here to get here, to get here, to get here, to get here.

With this one, it's very easy. I want math. It has all the things. They still have to click, but it's easier. And my Spanish HiSET instructor-- she's here. And actually, I like to brag about her because she's getting the state award for CCA this year--

Audience: Wow--

Francisco Pinedo: Because--

Audience: --she is?

Francisco Pinedo: --the students are using this in addition to her classroom instruction. And come this past January, she's all like, hey, I have a problem. I'm like, oh, god, what happened? [chuckles] It's the first day of school. I don't have students. And I looked at her, and I'm like, why?

She's all like, they all passed there HiSET.

Audience: Oh, my god!

Francisco Pinedo: So that was a good problem to have. Now again, we've built up-- we're at-- we're bursting at the seams again with her. But that's one of the reasons why she's getting a state award next month. Because using this, using other material that she develops, and just in the classroom instruction, she's able to have her students pass.

I always like to thank our technology department at Soledad Unified School District. They are awesome. Without them, I couldn't implement all my crazy ideas that I come up sometimes at 2:00 in the morning.

Audience: [laughter]

Francisco Pinedo: I literally do. And they're always there to support us. They're always there. So I always like to thank them. Because without them, none of this we could do for us and then teach to our students. And yesterday in one of the sessions, they were talking about that. Well, how do you build that connection? Offer what you know, the skills that you know with technology. Say, hey, hey, I know how to do this, this, and this for a district PD. I am a resource available, and you don't have to pay me thousands of dollars like they do for other people who come in and teach them how to use basic things that we might know how to do.

So with that, you got them. You got them. And whatever crazy idea you might have-- the most recent one is the district now blocks YouTube. So they actually created a network, Soledad Adult School SUSD with a log in that allows our students to watch YouTube video. Because a lot of us [spanish], videos are also YouTube. So [spanish], we're now with that. We're able to do it.

On the handout, you do have my contact information. If you want to email me, please feel free to do so. So I'm going to run by the app. So on this one, Remind here, I have it set up by classes. So usually, for our computer class-- the computer class-- so every Monday, I would send-- and then I also send information. Like recently, I was in Greece, as Jennifer said she wanted to see pictures. So--

Audience: Ah!

Francisco Pinedo: --I would send them pictures of me in Greece. And then on Monday-- I don't know if you could really see it. But it says, good morning, see you in class at 6:00 tonight, something like that. I always have a full class because I take that two, three seconds of my time to reach out to them. And then sometimes, let's see, they respond. OK, have a good day.

And then sometimes, they put-- if they're going to be absent-- so for example, this is a student who was coming to class, and now she can't. But she's still using the apps and everything. She's always checking in with us. She said, good morning, teacher. How are you? How is work? I hope you are all fine. How is teacher Vanessa? Is everybody OK? Bye. Have a nice evening.

Audience: [laughter]

Francisco Pinedo: So I actually follow up with a phone call with that one. Because I'm like, I had a text message for something that's sweet, it can't be. The ShowMe app-- and again, I'm not going in order. I'm just kind of-- so it's not in order as in your app. The ShowMe app-- one of the things that I always-- and I like it because you could add a picture.

OK, great. So pretend there's a picture of the door here. And then I could easily put door. So we're imagining I took a picture of that. And then over here, if I got that little corner, I would put the school map. So having the picture here-- you see this beautiful picture right here because I see it. I hope you all see it, too.

Audience: [laughter]

Francisco Pinedo: So you could easily identify. And then with our low-beginning students, they use a iPad. There's a garden outside our classroom. They take pictures, and then they label the color of the plant or what-- they actually know the name of the plant. So that's one of them, and then you could easily erase.

Choose a background-- again, this is what I'm talking about. You could choose this type of paper. There was one year where I had to show the students how to write notes, so I would use this one a lot. And then, of course, this thing has a stylus. But you could still use your finger.

Let's see here. And then you're also-- when you're teaching about math and coordinates-- graph paper. So again, it could be used for a lot of different things. This is an activity that we did. It's why-- if your goal is to speak English, give us ideas of what you could do at home or in the classroom to reach that goal. And they're like, listen to English audio. So as they're saying, I'm writing it with my finger or with the-- if your device has a stylus.

So again, and then the students could do this one as well in a group if they don't want to each have. Again, you could create an account. For my students, I don't. I just have them go on the default one. This one is, let's see here, the Genius Scan.

Again, so we all kind of know how to do it. So for example, I needed a copy of what-- you know, I got a new student in class. I only had 15 books. Well, I need to give them a book. I'm not going to order more, but I just you know made a copy because I'm using it for educational purposes. I'm not selling it to them. And then I could also annotate on it. So that's another benefit if it was an actual handout.

Whoops. Do that. OK. Phonics Genius-- so for example this one here. So then you would hear like anchor, and then the student would repeat. So it's emphasizing--

[video playback]

- Alligator, ambulance, axe, alphabet.

[end playback]

Francisco Pinedo: So they're hearing that A sound. And. Then they could record. For example--

[video playback]

- Attic.

Francisco Pinedo: Attic. Attic.

[video playback]

- Attic.

Audience: Hmm.

- And.

[end playback]

Francisco Pinedo: So they could hear it. Now, with this one, I would recommend if they have headphones on because then it gets a little loud. This one here-- let's see-- the Get Hired-- so for example, if you're starting to slouch, it says, sit up straight. This is how you would do that. Swipe to make eye contact, and then it's telling you. So there is a cell phone, so you want it off. You want to ignore. So it's giving you the commands.

So for example, what is your favorite color? And then you would choose the correct answer. And then it will assign you points. So again, you do have to be a little bit quick as somehow I tell my students. But again, this one I incorporate when we're doing the Job Readiness preparation for the civics test in our ESL class.

Another one that-- because students don't realize the importance of getting dressed, even for coming to class.

Audience: [chuckling]

Francisco Pinedo: So sometimes, when we have a presenter or-- we've had workforce development board come to our class. I didn't even tell the students. But that day, they all come up dressed very nice.

Audience: [chuckling]

Francisco Pinedo: OK? And you could see their attitude in class is very different. It's much more focused. It's, I'm here to do something. So now we're implementing a Dress to Work day. And that day, I just see that type of productivity just skyrocket because they take it more serious than if they're coming in casual clothing. And a lot of our students say, oh, I feel so good like dressing up. And I feel so important. I'm like, well, first of all, you are important. And second of all, it helps them build their self-esteem as well.

And then also for a citizen. That's in interview. And I always tell them, it doesn't have to be for a job. It could be like for your citizenship. It could be a interview-- for example, our consortium did a consortium survey, and they were interviewing students. And even for something like that, they would get all dressed up. And some of them were nervous, and we would tell them like what to expect in an interview.

So for example, on this one, if I'm going to work at a hotel-- again, it limits you sometimes to options because I'm using the free version. So I'm going to apply as a housekeeper, so then I could select the gender. And then I could select the type of hairdo. You can't really see it that well.

Audience: We can make it up. [laughter]

Francisco Pinedo: So yeah, pretty much. And then type of shirt that you would wear--

Audience: [laughter]

Francisco Pinedo: --type of pants-- then the shoes. So I always go to the extreme for something--

Audience: [laughter]

Francisco Pinedo: [laughs] Then earrings and a necklace. So then we would be like, OK, if they're applying for a hotel receptionist or any receptionist, is this the appropriate how to be dressed for that interview? Some of them might say, yes. But the majority would say, no.

And then we would say, why? What could we change? How could we change? Oh well, teacher, [spanish] So I'm like, well, what's your definition of elegant? Because for him, this might be his definition of dressing up elegant. So then that starts a whole other conversation.

And again, this is what I want with my students, is to be able to give me ideas and give the class ideas of, how should you dress for an interview? Or how should you dress for-- [chuckles] so this week is parent conference, so we just did this about two weeks, three weeks ago. And one of the students said, so for the teacher conference, do we have to dress up, too? Because that's an interview. I'm like, I mean, you don't have to but-- [chuckles]

Audience: It's a good practice.

Francisco Pinedo: It's a good practice. And then our side, the teachers know which students go to class. And so they purposely ask them more things and try to get more information. And then they actually do tell me. With USA Learns, the app-- OK, we heard that. And then here the topic is, it first starts with a video.

[video playback]

- What's the address at far home? 30--

Francisco Pinedo: And then the new words.

- Cafe--

Francisco Pinedo: And if I want to hear it again, I press on the speaker.

- Cafe. House.

Francisco Pinedo: And if I don't know the word, I could star it. That way, I review it later.

- Market.

[end playback]

Francisco Pinedo: And what I like about the app is on the actual site, you do have some ads. And that's how they get paid. I always get that group of students who clicks on the ad, and they're like, why am I seeing coupons? I'm like, oh, that's because you click somewhere else. Same thing here. I always tell them, try to avoid this area because it'll direct you to their Facebook, which is good. But then you always have to let them know, a lot of these apps that are free maintain free by having ads. So that's another skill you could teach them.

[video playback]

So once we go through the whole words--

- Park. School. Street--

[computerised sound]

--house.

[end playback]

Francisco Pinedo: And see, that's the one I had starred. And then here, it's going to show you the picture. And the student selects which one it is. So this one here, if I say, oh-- oh, [chuckles] that's actually the name of the grocery store in Soledad. So I would say, it's a--

[computerised sound]

Incorrect.

[computerised sound]

And then this one here would be a--

[video playback]

- Home.

Francisco Pinedo: OK.

[computerised sound]

[end playback]

So this is how USA Learns works, and then it continues. So the students could really do a lot with it on their mobile device. But again, I always encourage using the actual website.

One of them that I didn't talk about but I really like to use is Google Docs. Because as part of the civic task, the students how to do a resume. So for this one here, each of the students created a Gmail account because, of course, they always forget what it was to activate their phones. So we create one, and I kind of give them how they should create it and how their password should be, like initial, either your phone number or something that's easy to remember, and then an exclamation mark. And then here, they could actually do their own resume. So here on your name, you would just tap on it. And we could even do it on the iPad.

And again, students have done typing.com, so they're able to do this fairly quickly. So they could develop their own resume cover letter. Once they're done, they could email it to themselves, email it to me so I could print it out in class, and so forth. So again, I didn't really show this one in my presentation because I always seemed to run out of time.

The Here to Career app-- oh, it's this way now. So because I barely installed it on this iPad, it's going to ask me to take a quiz. But I could say, find a community college. Find a career. Explore hundreds of careers and degrees. Discover what you can do here. So if I want to find a community college, usually it's able to find it by location. But that sometimes doesn't seem to work.

So for example, let's say I live in San Francisco, and I'm at the City College of San Francisco. It's going to give me the information. There's 26,560 students enrolled. Apply to this college. It takes me to the website. So it's all right there.

Some of the schools do have an actual-- and then you could see all the degrees that are earned, accounting, administration of justice, aircraft electronics, avionics, alcohol and substance control, automotive coalition repair. And then it tells you, for the field you selected, what is the average salary in that field, and then what are careers related to that.

So in this activity where we're doing on career exploration, the student not only identified what career they wanted to choose, but also, what are other areas that fit into that career, and how much money they could make. And this is a real eye-opener for students because they start seeing different types of jobs. And then they always go to Teacher. And they're like, really, this is what a teacher earns? They're like, you mean a auto technician or an auto mechanic earns more than a teacher? I'm like, mm, yeah.

Audience: That's reality.

Francisco Pinedo: Yeah, yeah. Because all of their goal is to be a teacher. But they have to support a family. They have to do this. And then once they start seeing what degrees are available and how much they could possibly earn, that is a good eye-opener for a lot of them, that they always think that teachers earn way up here, when we know what the reality is.

Let's see. So we have about 10, 9 minutes, right? So any questions on any apps or any other apps or web sites that you know of that we would all benefit from? But even again, for low literacy skills, most of them-- you know, and of course, for one student in particular, it takes me having to be working with the student while the rest of them are working together. But I don't think to that level-- these free ones-- no. Some of the paid ones might.

Yes, I could. So Epic! is one that I would talk about a few years ago. So what Epic! is-- it's an app, so think of it as Netflix but for books. This one here I would use with my low literacy, even in a family literacy program. I wouldn't use this with my advanced students. Now, for history, it's great because you could find a lot of nice books about history.

For example, last week for teach-- not teacher, for Dr. Seuss Day, I went to go read at one of the local elementary schools. And because I had just been back from my trip, I decided to read a book about Greece. So it has books about different countries-- oops-- and things like that. So I was able actual to read this book to the student.

So with that one, if you're studying about history, the presidents, it would have books like this. Some of them-- it has books that you read to-- and then it has-- what I like about Epic! is they're starting to include not only the Accelerated Reader level, AR, you have students, but also the Lexile level. So you could email me, and I could send you a handout if you deal with COSTI's testing, what their COSTIS score is and how it relates to their Lexile level.

So with that, we have this one installed in our in our iPad. So the student-- if they want to read books at their Lexile level, they could actually search books at their Lexile level or at the public library as well to check out books like that. So with Epic, it's like Netflix but with books. So if you have children who starting to incorporate into our Family Lit program as well, it is free. You would have to create a teacher account.

But now students could only use it in the classroom. I don't know how it determines when you're outside the classroom. But sometimes, they want to use it at home, and it says, oh, you need to buy the $4.99-a-month subscription. But when I'm using it in the classroom or within our district server, it's free. I don't know how. I don't know how they--

Audience: They're looking at your IP address.

Francisco Pinedo: Probably. But yeah, Epic's really nice because you could set it up by class, and then the student could download the app. But again, I would recommend something like this. And then you get the actual feel of swiping a page.

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- We're so glad you watch--

Francisco Pinedo: Whoops.

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Francisco Pinedo: [chuckles] What this one does have-- recently, they added books in Spanish, Chinese, and French. So hopefully, as time goes by, they would add more languages. And maybe it could be a resource that would fit with your-- I know there are some libraries. I can't exactly remember where. But a lot of libraries-- and maybe you could speak to the other resources the libraries have.

I know somewhere-- and I want to see was down south-- they actually had this as one of their subscriptions that was available through the library. I think the reason is because they're moving more to less free and more subscription, like Netflix-- like Netflix. So I always say it's the book version of Netflix for kids.

But I know-- check with your public library. They also have a lot of-- like Learning Express, a lot of sites that you would pay for. They're free with your library. And some of them also have resources on apps. And some counties also have resources. I know up in Napa, in that area, their County Office of Ed has a lot of apps that they use for family literacy and beginning literacy.

Well, what I did is we were having a lot of trouble with our network last year. So I requested hotspots. And they were able to--

Audience: From school?

Francisco Pinedo: From school. So this one connects 15 devices. Again, it's not going to be the fastest thing in the world, but at least for basic web browsing or things like that. Another thing, because we do run into this issue quite often-- sometimes the students have the unlimited data account. And tell them if you hotspot, you could use it as your hotspot. Then I kind of show them how to use it. And they're like, OK, I could spot this group right here. And another one, yeah I could hotspot this group.

So a lot of times, all it takes is asking your students. And of course, you're not going to be on it the whole class time, maybe just for something--

Audience: For a few minutes.

Francisco Pinedo: Yeah. And if they have unlimited data or the unlimited data plans-- so please-- [chuckles]

Audience: [laughter]

Francisco Pinedo: Yeah. Please take the time to fill out the evaluation for this session. You do have my contact information. Please feel free to contact me at any time. Email me, and I'll get back to you if you have any suggestions or something that you need more help with.

Speaker 1: www.otan.us.