Veronica, Susan had a slight glitch--
OK.
We're getting her back on now.
OK, no problem.
Everyone, please just hold tight while we get Susan back on the line, but thank you for joining us today. We really do appreciate your time, and hope that you find today's webinar to be useful as you are learning how to teach with technology.
While we wait for Susan, does any of the participants have any questions about teaching with technology that Susan may be able to address with you when she's back on the line? If so you can type those questions into the chat pod, and we will be happy to provide you with any guidance or assistance. if there are any new developments that you would like to learn more about, please let us know we'll be happy to address those as well.
OK, and while we wait also for Susan to come back on, I'll take this opportunity to let the participants know about our upcoming webinars. So beginning next Wednesday, we have another technology based webinar. It will be Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning, also known as RACHEL presented by OTAN staff person Penny Pearson. That'll be on Wednesday, March 21st. In addition, we have for our community college AEBG members we have MIS Update, which will be on March 22nd. So I'll be sure to put in a link for all of these webinars into the chat pod, so please be sure to go to AEBG tab registration page and register for those webinars. I believe we have Susan back on the line. Susan, are you ready?
Yes.
Oh yes.
Thank you so much.
OK, you're welcome.
OK, I'm Susan Coulter I am an OTAN trainer. And I am part of a team that writes web based class activities and teaching with technology entries. I'm also a teacher on special assignment for Baldwin Park Adult and Community Education, more affectionately known as BPACE, which is located in the Los Angeles area. Let's go on.
Today's objectives-- well, first we're going to talk a little bit about OTAN and its vision. I want to show you how to find the latest edition of web based class activities, and how you can receive OTAN's monthly teacher digest. Also, I want to show you how to search the teaching with technology database and familiarize you with the different parts of an entry. And then finally, we're going to explore several entries so-- that you can use in your classroom tomorrow.
OTAN is one of the three major leadership projects in California serving adult education. Does anyone know what OTAN stands for? Anyone? Mmm, no re-- oh, multiple. Alesia, Holly and Veronica. That may be cheating. Yes, Holly, that would be cheating. OK, all right.
Well, OTAN stands for Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. It's a long name. OTAN's vision, their goal, is to help you bring technology into your classroom, and thereby empower your learners to meet their goals. The adult education focus is on outcomes, transitions, and helping our adult learners reach their goals. We want our learners to have 21st century skills necessary to succeed in the workplace, community and academically.
Oops. Here we go. I love this graphic, there are many sides to OTAN, and this graphic so beautifully illustrates the different OTAN projects. The main components are electronic collaboration and information, instructional technology, and distance learning. And teaching with technology is one of the hidden gems. And that's what we're going to talk about.
The focus of this webinar is on teaching with technology, and we may wonder what is teaching with technology? It is a tool. It is an online database set up to help adult education teachers, like yourselves, locate and learn about websites and other technology related to their lesson topic. You are the subject matter experts. Teaching with technology gives you ways to enhance your lesson, and excite your students by the use of technology.
I want to start with web based class activities. These are two different things, and I want to explain the difference between the two. Web based activities many times become teaching with technology entries. Web based class activities are published monthly, and they give you a more in-depth look at a topic. For example, we had an article on formative assessments that compared and contrasted several different websites. Web based class activities usually have step-by-step instructions with numerous graphics. On the other hand, teaching with technology focuses on one resource and one lesson topic. However, it may note that there's additional resources. We have a team that goes through the entries every year to check for broken links. The team is also responsible for creating new entries throughout the year.
So first let's take a look at web based class activities. The current web based class activity can be found in the Teacher's Digest, which is located at the bottom of OTAN's home page. And you would select current issue. And this is a copy of the Teacher's Digest. Every month a new activity is featured, which you can have delivered to your email each month. This month's activity is on Trello in Education. There are also sections on News to the left, and Professional Development down below. However, one of my favorites is Web Sightings.
Here you will find new teaching resources. This month Google Interland and BookWidgets are featured.
[cell phone ringing]
Excuse me just a moment. OK, I'm sorry.
Anyway the-- anyway here, you will find that some new teaching resources this month Google Interland and BookWidgets are featured. Let's go on.
And this is the article on Trello in Education. It highlights five different ways you can use Trello in your classroom.
And I know you're wondering how can you get these articles delivered monthly to your email box. Let me show you. You're going to select Preferences at the top of OTAN's home page. If you have an account, you just move to enter your email address. If not, select Register Here. At the very bottom of your account preferences page, you will see OTAN Publications and OTAN Notifications. You can select the publications you would like to receive, and how you want to receive the quarterly newsletter. Under OTAN notifications, I strongly encourage you to check Professional Development. If there is a workshop scheduled at an agency near you, and it's public and open to others you'll be notified. How cool is that?
Let's talk about teaching with technology. As I mentioned before, teaching with technology is a hidden gem. You'll find it under the Teaching Tools and Resources tab. Look down near the bottom, you'll also find web based class activities located there. Let's see, there we go.
To access the database, you need to first select the program area. And we're going to take a look, so I'm going to switch to the actual website, but does anyone have any questions? No questions? Oh my goodness.
All right, so I'm going to go to OTAN's website and share with you, so I'll stop sharing this. Before we go I'd like to do a little poll so I can find out program areas. So let me see if I can move this. Doesn't want to move. OK, if you could just type in the chat pod what program area you're involved with-- oh there it goes. Thank you. It's always nice to know what the interests are Oops. It disappeared again. Just type in the chat pod what program area you're interested in.
ABE, ESL and GED. Oh, we're going to cover all of those, that's great. And Veronica, CTE. I have to admit CTE is not one of the programs listed, but with contextualized learning-- and there's things that go across all program areas, even the web based activities-- class activities-- they are separated by CTE. Is there anyone else? OK, then we will just go on. I teach computer information computer technology. Oh perfect.
All right I am going to stop sharing and OK, you should be seeing OTAN's website. And I want to make sure I bring up the chat pod so I can see what's going on. This is OTAN's website, and I want to point out down at the very bottom, the Teacher's Digest. So if I click here on the current issue, it takes me for a little side trip, but here is the latest Teacher's Digest. And you can actually go back and look at the ones-- the previous ones.
And let's go back to-- let's go back one more. And then up at the top, you've got teaching tools and resources. I want to point out web based class activities. This goes immediately to the current Trello in Education that we talked about. And as you see, there are numerous screenshots, weekly classroom newsletter, student research board, can use Trello as a-- for planning, a planning board. And then here's some step-by-step instructions on how to set up your own class, getting started.
So there's a lot here on Trello the basics, beginner tips for using Trello, and help available, how to find help. And then here's one that it's ready to use. So you could take this, I'm going to click on this, just so you can see it. But here is a Trello board that is set up, ready to go. And going down how to enroll students, project introduction, an example, here's the board, we just looked at, project introduction, project to use on Monday. So here it is. But at the very bottom, you can browse the last 10 activities.
So last-- the month before was Video Messaging with Loom, EDPuzzle, Using Symbaloo in the Classroom, Flipgrid, Finding and Evaluating Online Information. So a lot of great articles, and a lot of detail, a lot of detail in these articles.
All right I'm going to go back, and let's take a look at teaching with technology. And I need to select a resource, but what I want to show you is each one is different. I'm in the ABE program, and I'm going to look down-- you can put an additional filter of selecting by the level low, intermediate, high or all levels. I can look at a math subject, what do I want to-- what type of activity do I want, and I can even look at standards. So a lot of options there.
But also, you can put in a keyword. So you could put in, I need something on banking, and see what comes up, OK? So that's for the ABE, so let's go back.
ESL is different. With ESL you can decide what level, what subject, and then again, you have the standards, community, consumer, there's even health and employment. So you decide what you're looking for, and once again, you can always put in a search word, a keyword. And I'm going to drop down a little bit and go to high school diploma, because it's totally different. In this case, it's by subject. So elective, English, or we could do math and social studies. I mean, you put in what you're looking for. Down here, once again, you can put in a keyword and search for a particular topic.
All right let's go back and now let's take-- start taking a look at this. I'm going to put in high school equivalency preparation. And here we have mathematics, reasoning, and some topics, same with social studies, but once again, I can put in a keyword. But I'm going to search, and I'm not going to put in a keyword because I don't want to keep going back and forth. So I'm just going to search. Does anyone have any questions while this is going? It's not going. There we go. No questions? OK.
This is high school equivalency preparation. Here is 4Tests, 4 practice tests for the GED. So let's take a look at it. Up the top on the title, 4Tests is the name of the website. Then there is a description of what's available.
So this the 2014 GED practice tests, the program, and then under example website or and/or technical equipment required, this is the website that is associated with the particular activity, and what equipment you would need, and we have a description. A free online practice test site for the 2014 GED test with the four sections of the GED provided by Barron's. So this is giving you an overall description of what the activity has. There is a preparation, what you need to consider before you do this particular activity, and then is step-by-step how to.
And at the end is a link to the actual website not the particular activity not the particular test. But this is the website in general. More Ways-- there's also HiSET and TASC, so it's giving you more ways if you're only using the HiSET and some other things. And then the keywords how you can access this particular activity. And that's the basic layout on an activity.
So let's go down. I'm going to pull out a few. I'll give it a go. This is a really great site. It came about, I think it was the ABE Initiative, the community colleges created a series of videos. But here is an example document, so we have a fractions quiz with answers. I know that it is on pre-algebra math, and a description, and preparation, how to, this website has quite a bit. So let's take a look.
And over here, you can see all the different courses. Pre-algebra I think has opened up. So if I were to go to pre-algebra let's go to fractions there we go. These are all the fraction videos that are available. There are class notes in English and Spanish, there's a video worksheet, and different formats TeacherTube, I like YouTube. The best-- let's try I'm going to try reducing. So let's take a look.
And I know you can't hear this, but that's Dr. Perez, and then he has a little partner called that Charlie. It's somewhat entertaining, Charlie is never on task but anyway you get the general idea. All right, let me stop that. And let's go back here. But there's a lot of resources here. And maybe this particular one was on just pre-algebra, but if you look up at the top-- I hate to scroll like that-- there's even intermediate algebra, calculus, so you can-- pretty advanced, it can be.
Let's go back and see what else we can find here. I know I have ABE ESL, here's Blendspace. And once again, we have-- here's the website and this one's on comma rules. So students are sent to Blendspace to watch two short videos on comma rules, and take a couple of short quizzes on what they learned. And here are your links, get your own account, watch tutorial videos, create a worksheet, and commas for further-- and there's plenty of resources here.
Oh, Rags to Riches, I love Rags to Riches. My students used to love it. Rags to Riches is a Who Wants to be a Millionaire type of game. But you just click on these different-- so the student comes here, and this activity, and you can create your own. You don't have to use this one this is just one that someone created. So that is Blendspace.
All right, so where are we going next? Let's go back, and a little bit further, Flipgrid. Oh I love Flipgrid. Now this one's a little bit different. And what I want to point out is it's also a mobile app. So your students can download onto their cell phone an app, a Flipgrid app, and this is where they would go to purchase it. Well, it doesn't cost, it's a free app. And let's see, what does it say? It says the students post a video response indicating their name and their goal for the class. When students are familiar with Flipgrid you can go on to more complex assignments. ESL students might work in small groups to record a dialog from their textbook. High school students might read a text or view a video and then give their conclusion or opinion.
So let's take a look. You can embed these videos, integrates well with Google Classroom, Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle they just need a device. And I found that with my cell phone I could go round and several students could use the same cell phone, so they can your students can share.
So let's go to Flipgrid. This is Flipgrid. When the students come here they have to enter a code, your code. I'm going to go on as an educator, hopefully I guess I get in, there we go. You get one grid and this case I was doing it for an article. And you can decide to make them active or inactive, create new topics. The free version you only get one grid, but you can have as many topics as you would like.
And let me show you what the student sees. And when they are finished, you can take a look at this, we did this at a-- no, this was at DLAC, Digital Leadership Academy. And we had some fun, this was back in October. And these are videos I don't want to show anyone, and you won't to hear it, but it is short video where they give their responses. So you could use this in any class. It's very engaging and fun.
So let's go back to here, and is there anything else? Oh, there was an article, I don't know if it-- no, it doesn't appear to be linked. But there was a web based article on Flipgrid just a couple months ago. It wasn't long. And that is Flipgrid.
Grammar Bytes, this would work. It's called chompchomp.com Grammar Bytes. But here it's listing all the different types of exercises fragments, irregular verbs, although this particular one is on fragments. There are some other related resources, so there's another activity on commas. So there's a couple here. Does anyone have any questions as I'm going through this? Anything that you would like to see? No? OK.
But I do want to show you this one because it's kind of fun. You won't be able to hear it, but it's several interactive exercises, there's a handout. So let's go here, and I think we're supposed to identify the fragments. How about right here, I think that's the fragment. And they get some type of response. I think it's really kind of cool. You can't hear the sound, but there's some sound that makes it really exciting.
So let's go back. And that was Grammar Bytes. Let's see, iCivics, this is helping students--
Do you have lessons related to the use of tablets, navigating on a mobile device? Let me put it this way, you can-- many of these are on-- you can use it on a tablet all you need is a browser. Flipgrid you can pull up on a phone, a tablet and it doesn't I mean they're pretty synonymous at that point some are apps. As far as lessons related I don't know there's one and there's a 30 page book on the internet that's well done. But for ESL I think it's a little bit too high. I think it's in basic skills. Let me think about that for a moment and see if I can't come up with something. We could actually do a search on that.
This is iCivics and iCivics one of the big things with that, you get a teacher's guide, you've got the actual website, but they have some games for students, Win the White House. And let me see if I can pull that up real fast. Maybe close a few things while I'm at it. And I'm going to say no at this time. Anyway it is a game. They have to go campaign and research, they have to get-- raise funds for their campaign, and they have to decide on issues. So it's a little involved. It takes 30 minutes to play, but the site in general has a lot of resources for you. And let's go back.
Jeopardy is a template and you can download it. This one's on positive and negative numbers, integers. But you can download the template, and you can change it to any subject you want. It's always exciting for students.
And Kahoot, this is Kahoot. I'm sure some of you have heard of Kahoot. Very lively game. Let's go here. This is a particular Kahoot, but you can always go to find Kahoots and put in we want a Kahoot on how about computers? I don't know.
So here's one. What is a megabyte? Which of the following is not a fundamental characteristic of a computer? The CPU is comparable to what part, what body part? So there are some interesting ones here, and you can always make a copy, and you can change it. So you have something to start off with, to begin with. So these are on computers. And you can have your Kahoots and you can share them. So it Kahoot is a lot of fun, a lot of fun.
All right let's go back, and here, our intro quiz, public Kahoots, and how they join it. And getting started with Kahoot, more ways fractions, decimals, and percents. So lot of information. And let's go back.
Loom. Loom is something new, came out in I think last summer. Came out, and it's kind of evolving. You can create very quickly and very easily create a video message. There is a step-by-step guide, how to go about doing it. Here's some more ways to use Loom. Send a personalized video message to students welcoming them to your course, or telling them about upcoming events. Send a message to students who are not in class. Let students know that you missed them, what they missed in class and what they need to know for the next class.
This one we found was very interesting, correct student essays and personally explain suggestions for improvement. We found that if we used Google Docs and did Review and under that would be Suggestions, so we could talk to the student with their essay up on the screen, and talk through the different changes and why we would suggest this change. So it's really interesting, makes it more personal. ESL teachers can photograph, scan, or reproduce short dialogue from class, and then demonstrate the correct pronunciation by reading it in a Loom video while showing the text.
And you can just create a short Screencast to demonstrate how to sign up for an account, such as Gmail. And it's nothing-- it is a Chrome extension, all right? So Chromebook you just need a Chrome extension. This is it up here if you can see it up on my screen. Looks like a little knot. And we can go to let's go to Loom.
And I think I was showing that to someone, I mean, it was just kind of random, but here is one that was created. You can't hear it, I know, but-- and that was done in my office, not very good sound. But the way you make a video is just to click, and it's-- you can do-- you can see my picture down in the corner. I'm looking to the side. But you can do just the screen, you can make your picture. You can have a very large picture up there. There's lots of things you can do with Loom.
The other thing that's so impressive about Loom is the fact that you can open Gmail. If you have-- if you download the extension and you go to your Gmail to create a new one, that Loom recording is in your email and you can record a message to your students. And it will actually place a video player in your email so the student, if they have a Gmail account, will see you talking as opposed to reading.
So let's go back. So that is Loom. And I think I want to go-- let's go back. I'm going to go to the-- does anyone have any more questions? I want to go and do a search for computer. Oops. No, but she teaches-- let's go to ABE. ABE, ESL I think that's right and GED. OK, well that would have worked. And I'm just going to go down to keyword, computer. Let's see. Making the Most of Being Online, My Future, Personal Exploration. Those are the only 2 that were marked, but I do know that ABE-- It must not be marked that way. Let's go back. I'm going to take it out and just search.
Yes I love Loom. Students, they like hearing from their teacher, and they're more likely to respond to email, et cetera, if it's personalized.
Here's 20 things I Learned About Browsers and the Web. OK, this is for intermediate, high and advanced students. So let's take a look. This is an online book, 36 pages, to teach about the various aspects of browsers, the internet, cloud computer-- puting, cookies, privacy it's pretty thorough. So let's take a look at it. And it is a book. It's a foreword, what is the internet, little animation, cloud computing, web apps, HTML, JavaScript, CSS and more. So it gets pretty involved, but you can-- Oh, thank you, Marjorie. Yes, there was an article on that, I mean, we can go take a look at it.
Let's go back to OTAN's website, teaching tools. Oh, close your eyes let me get down to the very, very bottom, because it's the last 10-- here's Loom this was the month before. So here's-- and you see how puts a picture? You can decide to have that picture there or not. And here are all the different uses for it. Here's how to set up a Loom account. Remember I told you they have step-by-step instruction, yes. Just a little more in depth.
And you can see now the difference between the two. Teaching with technology is just one lesson topic as opposed to this, where it gives you more in depth how to do it step-by-step, I love the graphics. And you can create numerous videos, and how to create it. Let's see, I should have something. Oh yeah, you have different settings for the image. Let's see, screen image, sharing your video, you can share it different ways. There is Twitter, Facebook, Gmail, or you can embed it get the HTML code.
Let me see if I can find-- here it is, creating a Loom video in Gmail. And here, it can play directly in your Gmail so I think it's wonderful. So, let's go back. And I would check out some of these others. There was one more, since you are GED, one article we did was on Mometric but in conjunction with that, we did it on resources for high school equivalency prep students, so that they could study over the summer. So there is an article like that. And let's go down here to teaching with technology. And I'm sure it's under this one. And I'm going to do a-- I think it's "mo- mo- met- tric" And, let's see. Nope. I know it's Mometric It's in here. Well let's just search and find it. I wonder if it's in here, let's find it. But there was an article that talked about different websites that you could use for studying. No, this doesn't have it. But it is called Mometrix and it was a web based activity and it was published.
Is there anything else that someone wants me to take a look at? It's so quiet. We've got just a few minutes left. No?
Well, then let's go back in. And I do want you to explore, and don't stay necessarily within the same program area, because there's some great activities across in other programs. And sometimes we go in and we'll say, oooh, that'll work for my program. Hmm, I like your activity. And we kind of steal it and bring it over to ours. We just make a copy of it, but-- there's a lot of activities here and, we're really proud of it and excited. So no more? I think everyone's gone out and started searching on their own. No? OK.
We could do-- we did algebra to go. And let's see Curriki. Curriki is more for advanced. This one happens to be on writing expository essays. There is a five paragraph essay PowerPoint worksheet, interactive essay map, here's a expository video, essay writing video, prompts, a lot of resources. And preparing students for the high school equivalency HiSET the extended responses. So there's a lot here.
How much time do we have? We have about four minutes. I'm going to go back, let's see. Any more questions before I leave this site? Nothing? Such a quiet group. No? OK.
So let's stop sharing. Oops, I didn't do it right, but we'll get back. I want to share my patient? , No it has disappeared into never-never land. Let me share document. There we go. Sorry about that. All right, so we are back on the Teaching with Technology website, but I do hope that you will explore. You've got the content, you're the experts. Add some technology to really make-- to enhance your lesson, and don't be afraid to just open it totally up and see everything that's up there.
All right let's go on. I think there's just-- oops, there we go. And this is the OTAN website. And I want to thank you for joining this session, and I hope you can use this material. We work very hard on it, trying to make sure that the links are all there and so that you have a good experience. I'm going to turn it back over to you, Veronica.
All right, thank you so much Susan. And thank you for all of the wonderful information about teaching with technology. Next week, we will continue the technology based webinar series. We have the Remote Area Community Hotspot for Education and Learning, also known as RACHEL, so if any of the participants on today's webinar are having a hard time reaching adult learners because they are unable to come to your site and you would like to still reach them remotely, we'll teach you-- excuse me Penny Pearson will teach everyone how to reach those adult learners. So thank you again, Susan, so much and thank you everyone for participating this afternoon. Please be sure to register for next week's webinar. It's a RACHEL it's called RACHEL, and it's being able to reach remote learners.
If anyone has any additional questions for Susan, and please be sure to reach out for her-- reach out to her. If anyone has any questions for TAP, any technical assistance needs, or professional development needs, please be sure to contact us via the AEBG website, or you can send us an email at tap@aebg.org and we hope to see everyone again next week.
Once I close the meeting, the evaluation will appear on your screen. Please be sure to fill out this evaluation and provide Susan with some feedback on what you thought about today's evaluation. If there's anything else that you would like to learn regarding technology, she'll be sure to address that feedback. And if there are any additional technical assistance or professional development needs that you may have, AEBG TAP will be able to assist you. Again, thank you everyone.