Speaker: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Omar Andrade: Well, I thought it was going to be a good idea for you to actually see how I pulled my presentation. I am using one of those tech tools I'm providing and we were talking about it later on. But this is the platform called Canva. Some of you are going to be working with this specific piece with Toynbee later on. But I just wanted to show you what it looks like. Everything has its really-- there's all kinds of cool things in it. And I'm just going to pull my latest designs and just show you how to access that because people need to know. I love presentations and I know that having the right presentation.

So obviously here I go home, and then my recent designs are all down here. You can see them below. And then this is tech edge, this is the one I'm using. And I'm going to share it via presentation. So if you see that, that has that option. So this is not a PowerPoint, this is available on Canvas. So we're going to use Canva to do the presentation today. So that's how you access it. Can everybody see it OK? Yeah, awesome, yes. There you go. And before we get too deep into it, we're just going to start with a little video. So let's move on to that. I'm going to mute myself.

All right. So we're going to start with a quick introduction. So welcome again everybody. It's good to see you all my name is Omar Andrade. I am the dean for the Corona-Norco Adult School, and it's been amazing. The great work that we have compiled here for you it really is the work of the whole staff in the school. So I want to make sure that when you guys look at all those tools that we're going to be providing and a lot of the things I'm going to be sharing, this is by no means stuff that I had done, but this is really putting together a lot of the work that many of our teams and different people that work for us have been so gracious and taking it on.

So this has been a great year for challenges as a school administrator. It has been a great year for growth. And so technology has pushed us to flex those muscles, and it is a pleasure for me to share this presentation with a great friend, somebody I work with side by side from teaching to administrating a school. So I introduce you guys to Thoibi Rublaitus. If you guys don't know her, she is our principal. Great tech person also, it is great to see you all here.

Thoibi Rublaitus: Thank you Omar for that introduction. Yes, I also wanted to just give a shout out to OTAN because about five, six years ago Brinker who's right here was my mentor in TMAC. And when we learned things from OTAN and through TMAC we also know that we in turn share it forward. So that's why when TDLS came up, we thought we want to certainly share what we have learned because there's always more people who are willing to learn more what we do. So we are also part of-- Corona-Norco is also part of the Riverside about students consortium. And Omar let you go ahead and I'm going to step out just a second because a school board member is calling me right now.

Omar Andrade: No problem Thoibi, that's the benefit of being at work and doing a conference. And this is the stuff I'm talking about. More than ever technology has become part of our educational avenue and what we do as a organization. So this is a great thing to have when you have a presentation. And you'll be able to do it, we can definitely reach a broader audience. This is what I love a lot of the components that we're going to share with you. Again, just keep the comments coming. If you have a question, put in the chat.

There will be a time where we have discussion and just know that this is kind of open. We're going to have some great tools for you, but I also would love to hear from all of you on some of the things that you might be doing already with some of these tools because this is what I learned even from when the time I enjoyed my first TDLS.

It's about sharing, it's about coming together, it's about the network. So I do recommend if you guys have a chance put the email on the chat because I want to copy and paste those emails. I want to have everything that I'm going to show you. If you need additional videos that we have created, little things, knicks and knacks that I have. Obviously 90 minutes seems like a long time, but there's so much to share that I would love to send you those specific tools or maybe a PDF that works for us or anything. Just put in the chat, that way we have your email. I don't want to miss anybody. And so let's get started.

What have we learned with COVID, with a crisis when you have half of your staff available, people are working from home, teachers are teaching from home. So the dynamic just change. So everything once everything changed, we discover with any organization, we always have this issue, communication has always been something that we continue to strive for it to work with. Even when we were here all of us together, communication has been such a challenge at times because you're talking about the front office staff, teachers, coordinators, administration, clerks. So all of us have to work together and stay connected.

So it's been definitely enhanced during COVID. So some of the things we're going to talk about or we're going to address it's really online tools. What kinds of things are available? And some of these you already know. So don't mind in sharing your own experience because that's how we reach this presentation. Social media adds Toynbee has taken on that concept where I will create a little ad or I will create a little video, something short, even a PDF and then she'll put it out on social media platforms. And how do we keep that online presence? That has been also super important right now because people don't have access to our office. But staying current, put in the latest links, any information, whether it's from winter break or coming back in spring, how do you keep that online presence which has been more important than ever?

Connectivity, definitely something we're going to talk about because if people don't have access to your classrooms, to your learning opportunities, to all kinds of great things that you're doing at the school, we're going to have to figure out a way to bring all that information and take it to their homes. So connectivity is going to be an issue having access to that. Automated forms. If you missed it, look out for Colin's presentation, it was before this one. I know I've been working with that kid and he is amazing. He's one of the younger staff members that joined the team in the last two years, and the stuff that he's doing with us is just amazing. So we are so lucky, and if you didn't get a chance to go to his presentation, there's so much to it and just know that we are also looking into better ways or different ways to create that piece.

And the digital meetings. Obviously here we are right all the way in a conference from different places in California or out of the state. And we're all connected through Zoom. A year and a half ago we didn't know what it was. Now you have to find out we need a comfortable chair, a good working environment, all kinds of things for digital meetings. So as a teacher, as an administrator has become a new communication tool. Something that we never really used. We didn't have virtual meetings, now we can. So I don't know if Thoibi is back, but I'm going to go to the next slide. I see that some people put in there the chat. OK, Thoibi is back, awesome. Thoibi.

Thoibi Rublaitus: And I have Mary here with me. Oh, great. So our superintendent Dr. Bowen Rostro and Mary, our board member we're going to visit the campus today and I said, hey, just come and join us. I'm going to take my background off so Mary can be more visible. There we go.

Mary: Good morning.

Thoibi Rublaitus: So I wanted to share with everybody that what we are really looking for. And working towards is to give our students a good student experience. So basically what can we do so that our students who are away from us, who are so used to coming to our campus and doing everything on the campus be able to do from a distance? And so everything that we're doing here with a lens of how student experiences can be easier and how we can keep them longer and get them to get the same things that they have always got on campus even if it's virtually.

So that's the lens that we are going to look at today is through the lens of student experience.

Omar Andrade: Perfect. So yes, like Thoibi was saying, the student, that's the framework. That's how we're going to frame this presentation. How do we serve our students? So with that being said, we have to manage expectations. Some of the things that we have to become aware and we're going to be addressing here is the internet and devices has been more important than ever that's something that. It's like top tier something that you have to address. As a school, what kind of online service is the offer? And I'm talking about the counseling, that has to be virtual. A lot of students are not able to come in. So what does that look like on this type of setting?

Website accessibility. The website and I'm going and you're going to hear me saying this time and time again has become more important than ever because this is the door. This is the keys to the castle. This is where people come to and you're going to see that in the presentation to access information, to contact the school, to sign up for classes, all kinds of cool things. Everything's going to start there. With the forms that we created and some of those automations, we have learnt than data has become so important. When a student signs up for any class, we're able to look at those forms and follow them along and see who's interested in what type of class, whether it's morning or night. And then if I need to talk to them via Zoom or have a counseling session, who was interested in those. Super important adaptability and flexibility.

That has been the norm. Right now because things are still fluid, things are always changing, you have to know that your current presentation and your current Zoom orientation might be obsolete tomorrow because everything keeps changing. So you have to have that awareness and you have to know that it doesn't matter how perfect things seemed yesterday, you have to be aware that that's going to be OK because it's going to change, and it's going to be updated, and it's just going to get better. So the student experience is the key thing that we want to make sure we have in mind. That's where we're going to go with this mindset as we talk about the other things in the slides. So let's go to the next one. All right.

Thoibi Rublaitus: OK, Yeah. So what I was going to say is that to get to all this it took us years. Is not like something that happens overnight. We have been very fortunate at Corona-Norco that we've had very good support from our district as well as our leadership. The leadership before us is what I mean to say like. Jodi's been there for a long time, and yes that leadership had really talked about digital literacy and the foundational skills about six, seven years ago. I was sent to TMAC from that whole perspective of capacity building. So about 10 years ago or even about six, seven years ago, our school started this whole thing about digital literacy and online safety for students. Then fortunately, we were also able to use those same resources and add more resources using the integrated education and technology i.e. LC objectives.

So every one of our students every school year goes through the ILC objective of digital literacy and online safety. So that gives every student some idea of the use of digital and knowing what's out there. But when COVID hit, we had no choice. Everybody had to do this. So having students understand the importance of internet and devices and how they all work together to give them what they need in this new virtual schooling is something that we were fortunate to have.

Omar Andrade: Yes. So like Thoibi was saying, we had the devices, we had the tools, we had to bring the literacy component together. And I know a lot of you might be familiar with the hierarchy of needs like when we people talk about the need for shelter and food, and those kinds of things, as an educator you know those are the basics. But this is something we truly have found out this year more than ever that the internet is no longer a luxury. This is just a necessity. So because of that, keep that in mind and get the juices flowing as we continue with the presentation because this piece has become more relevant to all of the work that we're doing. And if unless we address this issue, you're not going to get very far.

So we were very lucky like Thoibi said that we had a digital component as far as the classes for parents, and we had the internet and the tools necessary for the students to come into this type of environment. So this is just kind of food for thought, something I want you guys to keep in the back of your mind important more than ever. So as we went online, there were a lot of things that we learned over the process, and I'm sure all of you have at your schools as well. You just handing out a device to the students was not enough. We have to make sure that they knew what they were doing with those devices and they have their classes how to access their classes.

So a few of our tech team members are also in the session and they have done some other sessions for OTAN in this TDLS as well as in the Cape sessions as well in the past. So what we learned is that as we are distributing devices, it's important that we give students the time they need to get comfortable with those devices. And then we also as you know needed to test students on campus and then a time came when we couldn't test students on campus. So then we had to get the remote testing working. The classes went virtual. By virtual classes also there again, the digital devices and getting handy with the devices that they have in hand was important.

Remote testing is another one. Our school just went ahead on piloting whatever courses wanted us to pilot with and having a heads up or getting to play with it a little bit more. A testing environment really helped our school get a little headway in the remote testing field, and then of course like Omar said, our counseling have all started being by Zoom. Even our counseling sessions that we used to be one on one in person have all converted into the counseling by video chat.

So all of these online resources that we're going to talk about started in the one stop website. So your website it's going to have to be the one tool that is super important that is going to be the opening, the gateway to everything else. So my recommendation is your website needs to have the links, the updates, everything that you're going to channel and all the different tools that we're going to share must, if it should be to your website because this is where most of our students have found that it was the easiest to sign up, to connect with teachers. So if your website is important and it was important before. I think it's going to be just more important more than ever.

And then the other piece is the navigation tools. A lot of the times, the buttons, and links, and ads or any additional media needs to be on point. And what I mean is sometimes links were not there. Sometimes links went dead or they were not live and we have to go back and check those forms. So having that in the back of your mind as far as like OK, we have the website setup, we have the links but make sure that all the tools are working. So what's next is Canva. As we show you, Canva is a great tool that you're going to have a chance to utilize. And I'm curious if any of you have used Canva, you can just give me a thumbs up. Anybody here is familiar with that website has created any type of ads or PDFs, anybody at all?

Yeah, so people bring in chat, awesome, perfect. And so thank you Karen, thank you for the thumbs up, appreciate it. So yes, Canva is something that we're going to use and that's going to be one of our break rooms. OK. So one of our breakout sessions Toby is going to work with you on that. So keep that in mind. If you don't have a Canva account, I don't know, but honestly it's a great tool. It's one of the best. If you get a chance to I know Marcy might be here in the audience. She has done amazing presentations on how to use Canva. I'm just throwing it out there, you must if you ever get a chance sign up for one of those sessions with her. But you have to have an account.

So don't buy anything you add because there's a free account, but definitely Canva is one thing that is on our list. So information important. You're going to have to make sure that that's going to be available on your website. The computer is going to be the first point of contact for classes, teachers, staff, all of that. The second piece, which Thoibi is going to talk a little bit about is the social media platforms, ads, those kinds of things that reach out to students. And then I'm going to put all those resources and I'm going to try to connect them with the information and the social platforms we're going to show you how all of these things can come together, how do you create an ad or a theme for maybe a PDF or something you're trying to market to one of your classes, and how do you put all those components together to reach out to your audience, in this case through your community and your students. All right. Thoibi.

Thoibi Rublaitus: So yes. I'm sorry about going back and forth, but thank you for taking on. Yes. Everything we do or we are sharing here like Omar said earlier has nothing to do with just one part. There are many different pieces that put together come together as a school. So the tech team we have an awesome tech team and the team members are all people who are just so interested in technology, and they just love doing what they do and they learn on their own, Google any trouble that they have. They find the answer by watching YouTube, and then put them into practice.

The fortunate thing that we have is that because we have a team that has been so passionate about technology and learned from DLAC, they were all members of the Digital Leadership Academy. When COVID hit and we had to go virtual, they took on the leadership in the school and helping all the teachers learn the different devices, different platform. So each tech team member, there are four of them, each one had different specialties they are good at. So they chose to leave that section and the teachers wanted to learn whichever could go to any one of these. The other thing is the leaders themselves took five teachers under their wings so six teachers under their wings.

Same thing with our support staff all that we're putting together we have to run through the support staff, making sure they also know that. The another thing what we have really made sure as the staff also gets the training of what these new things are. For example, when we started Google Classrooms for all the ESL classes, all the staff members also we had the front office staff PLCs where they were learning it through the Google Classroom. So at least to get an experience of what the students are learning or how they are managing or getting on to the Google class platform. And similarly just last month, all of our staff went through the equity conference through equity for all students success for all students through equity that was at CALPRO where were all students in Moodle.

So learning those different platforms even just by participating. And then some of our teachers and staff got together to say they would like to be part of the testing team. And so yes, some of the tech team members as well as some other teachers form the test cases test remote testing teams. So it's a band making together the music.

Omar Andrade: Awesome. So as we were sharing with you, this when, the work of two different people, different teams all come together and all in hopes of improving the student experience. It has been challenging, of course it's been difficult at times, but I know you guys have heard enough about us and we've been chatting away for a while now almost 30 minutes. And so what I wanted to open up some time to share some of the practices, share some of the things that you have done at your school to enhance the experience. So we're going to open up the mics. I would love to see in the chat Branka if you can help us reach some of those. What are some of the things that you have done to your school that you know have been key to that enhancement to keep the students connected. What kinds of things you have done or you've seen done well at different schools that have continued to provide that opportunity for students to stay connected to the school? All right, so I'm just going to mute myself for a second and--

Branka: So Stacy says that their counselor developed a Google Classroom, a virtual counseling office. Beatrice, I'm sorry if I'm not saying your name correctly. They have weekly chats with students on how their week has been and if they have had any problems relating to class.

Bijal: I have a segment in my Google classroom where it's called motivation, and I upload images of motivating messages from my students. And sometimes I add figurative language there, and then that becomes the topic for discussion for the whole week. And they are trying to decode what is reading between the lines called. So I think that's a good one that I like to use.

Thoibi Rublaitus: Thank you for sharing that Bijal. That sounds really interesting and motivating. And then maybe I don't know to add to what you said, I heard about another school that did a different topic for Monday. Monday is for motivation, Tuesday is for something starting with T I forgot, and so on. And each day of the week Tuesday week--

Bijal: Yes. I guess by doing so my students find it really interesting and I even put things from social media, just images I delete the extra things. And so some short things like what are idioms and five examples of them with the image and the meaning. So I guess they-- and then they respond in the message that teacher I love this, this is so great. So I think I really like that. Thank you.

Thoibi Rublaitus: Where do you teach Bijal?

Bijal: I teach at Santa Clara Adult.

Thoibi Rublaitus: Nice, thank you. So I see Kevin also sharing something in the chat. Kevin you're welcome to join me and talk about it a little if you would like.

Kevin Belcher: I apologize you might hear my bird in the background here. But the professional development that we've had at Corona-Norco as an educator has just been so wonderful. And because the opportunities to learn with our teacher, with our other teachers of how do we now switch on a dime to becoming distance educators, and how do we teach our students to become distance learning. Students as well that experience was invaluable and in addition and probably most importantly, having the device distribution systems was I think that being able to give out why MiFi hotspots as well as laptops, I think that that was a game changer for our students and for equity purposes especially.

Thoibi Rublaitus: Thank you for sharing Kevin.

Omar Andrade: Anybody else, I know there's some other folks out there, come on. What have you done to stay connected with your students as we find more than ever the challenges of keeping that human component of our classes. What kinds of things have you done, challenges?

Will Neddeer: This is Will from Test Adult School. I think it's been the educating of ourselves so much amongst our staff. We've tried to do all kinds of different things by putting out a Google survey or Google form to survey our students, then bring that conversation back into the classroom. So that way the teachers have an engagement point to say this is what your classmates are saying about each other because it's that sense of connection. But we've also found just the use of breakout rooms at times just to let students be able to talk to each other for a few moments just to get that sense of social back in is also another good component. Our teachers have received a lot of feedback from that.

And then our teachers also feeling that support hearing Kevin talk about the experience with professional development we took what was modeled by OTAN office hours and we started integrating especially for the beginning of the semester as things shifted for us. We had a weekly office hour that staff just got to come in and get to share or ask questions, which I think was also inviting and allowed that sense of collaboration that then reflects back into the classroom as well.

Omar Andrade: Great, no definitely allowing those conversations to happen because we're all struggling. There's a level of comfort that we all like us educators and opening the opportunity to share that. But what you mentioned as far as serving and having forums like that, super important because we need to hear what's happening out there. How do we continue to help the students, and how things have changed so much. It gives everybody the opportunity to give somebody else in the chat

Thoibi Rublaitus: You have mentioned the importance of giving students the time to speak freely. And that's exactly why even on this session we purposefully added this 10 minutes of hey, let's just talk and get people to talk about what they are doing instead of just being a presentation. And we appreciated OTAN made this a 90 minute one. Usually when you have a 90 minute presentation you wonder what are we going to do with all that time? But I think in this mode of learning and sharing that we're doing, it becomes quite critical and not just rush through everything, but go slow and get the discussion flowing a little bit.

Omar Andrade: And definitely I know that Marci was mentioning in the chat. She was saying about the students, let me just go back into the chat. Across the board all the teachers had mentioned the importance of giving students the time to speak. Definitely what Toby was saying, allowing students to take ownership of the classrooms. The learning has been-- we used to hold learning. We were the teachers, the holding of the knowledge. We are the ones that contain this great wealth of knowledge. Now it's share, now students have come up with different. They help each other, they allow for us to learn from their own experiences and things that might be pretty simple. And I explain that it's a no brainer. Then you realize that you have to fine tune it and give it additional support for those things. I love it. Let's see what else, ESL this is Mr Rodriguez. ESL department, some links, registrations, registration help, yes.

And they're getting support. Yes, it has increased attention. As a matter of fact and I'm not going to bore you with data because it really is not my thing. But one of the things we found out recently is those hybrid classes, one of those classes where the teacher has modules and very specific and clearly delineated opportunities for students to stay connected have retained the more students. Those teachers that feel successful in an online environment have students that feel successful on an online environment. And we've seen that from people that feel just better prepare more and engage and we've seen across the programs. So it's so it's so true, so so true. I know Thoibi was excited to see those numbers when we were looking at how the students are going to retain and who gets to retain them but that connection piece and giving students a voice definitely. Anything else we're running close to a minute. But thank you for those key ideas, that was awesome to hear from you.

And don't be afraid to take them to the next level. Continue to push the envelope, continue to address those issues. How do we bring equity, how do we bring access to all with the limitations that we have? So I'm just going to move forward if we don't have anything else to the chat. We'll save a few seconds here. So after all of that, after putting the frame and developing what are we going to address, and how do we-- we mentioned a couple of tools. This is the chance you get to bring it all together. I'm going to share some of the tools that I'm familiar with and then Thoibi is going to bring in some really cool ones that she has done specifically. So I'm going to break it down a little bit just so you guys know some of these. Anybody familiar with Padlet, just show me thumps up. Yes Padlet. Nothing I use myself. I think I created one or two. But some teachers here and some people have done yes, Kevin is cheering. Yes Kevin definitely the Padlet came. If you want to connect with them, everything Padlet he is definitely an advocate for Padlet.

Great tool. They use it in high school diploma and the students get access to. It's one place where they can get access to all those things. I put the Corona-Norco Adult School logo, but that's just representing the website. OK. This is where all the students go to, and I'm going to keep pushing that envelope because one place where you can find everything it should be your website. That's the way it has been working for us, and we highly recommend it. YouTube channel. If you don't have a YouTube channel, we have a few videos there, but man has been great. A lot of students like to see those, so definitely consider having a YouTube channel.

I'm going to talk a little bit about Powtoon, but that's going to be in the break out. So I'm not going to spoil many of the surprises, but you're going to get a feel for it. You got a little bit of a video at the beginning. Obviously Canvas, something important. Thoibi is going to work with you on those. And then you have the Google Classroom, Zoom. Here we are. We assume are soon folks now, Microsoft Teams, great for many, many sharing information among staff, working together on multiple projects. And something new that we tried when we didn't have access to all of our staff as you can book me. I like the fact that the students were able to book an appointment with me to meet with me. And then that went directly into my Outlook calendar. So great things to have. So let's move on to the next group of tools.

Thoibi Rublaitus: So we have all been quite used to Google Suite and there's so much to do with Google Suites. And also at our district we have been very fortunate that you have an account, you log in to My CNUST Portal and you get both Office 365 and Suite. And Office 365 we all know we've been using it for so many Microsoft applications. One thing that we learned that was very, very helpful was through Microsoft Office 365, you have the OneDrive. And through the OneDrive whatever document you save in different folders, you can share with a whole team.

So as administrators and educators, there are so many things that like I said at our school, we don't do, one person doesn't do just one thing. We all wear so many hats. And whatever we are doing if we can share it with the whole team and every team, every person and a team can have access to it, it is so much easier, especially when half of us have to work from home sometimes and the other half from the campus. So we discovered this when we went remote in March, April, May. So it was right before graduation. And so during graduation, leading up to the graduation we had to plan a drive-through graduation. And so as we were doing that, we were only two people on campus, the others were working from home. But when we had everything into the OneDrive and shared through that OneDrive, it was so much easier for us to collaborate and work together.

So there are so many more tools in the Office 365 that we are learning. And just today this morning earlier the session right before this, one of our staff members Colin Cordiale presented an automate and that goes through the Office 365. So what we did with that is through the Office 365 is where we get the Microsoft Forms as well. So there's the forms over there. So after the graduation, then we had to start opening the schools and to register students. In the past they were all used to coming on campus and filling out a form, but now that option was not there anymore. So what happened is we put the sign up. Everybody or everything that we did went straight to the sign up form, and we used bitly link to put it on all of the social media channels that we have and everything went to the sign up form. But the sign up form was housed on our website.

Like Omar said earlier, the website was the key to everything else. So when students called or through all these social media ads that we put in, everything we put a little bit of bitly link that goes straight to the Microsoft Forms. And the forums it's amazing what this did for us. Is like you can track every student that wanted to sign up with us. We had their names, phone numbers, their address, their contact number, email. So that's how we were able to then sort out the forums and say this is for the ESL coordinator, this is for the ABE coordinator, this is for the CTE coordinator. And then the coordinators then could send out the Zoom links to the students. And the students were invited to do some orientations and that led on to them tested and placed in the classes.

And what we learned is that we could automate everything. So we didn't even have to send the invite to students directly. As they were filling out the form, when they submitted they got a link right away that said, hey, your Zoom link is right here join us on so and so day. And then through automate, you can also send them a reminder just before the date of the orientation. That has really helped us as administrators a lot. The other thing that I wanted to share with all of you is that in the past we had spent a lot of funds making postcards in sending it through the mail. It costed us quite a bit. But the return on the investment we were not very sure it was as much.

But when we started using Facebook ads, it's so much cheaper and you can really see how many hits you've had and how many really came to you. So we started putting some Facebook ads, and I think I must have spent only at $125 this year. And through that $125, the good thing about doing the Facebook ad is whatever you're putting, if you have an account where you're linking all of these, the Twitter, the Instagram, and Facebook, not the LinkedIn because LinkedIn is not so much for our type of students for our students so much, it's more for professional so I don't do that. But using these three with the Facebook ads, we've had about 1,600 students linked up to our forms, interested in our forms. c And you can really track how many students really came to you through the system.

And the other thing about the student experience that we talked about through the forums, when they get a link directly to them saying, hey, you've signed up, thank you for signing up, here's your Zoom link, join us this day, it makes the student's life so much easier and they feel like OK, they got my registration, I'm ready for my Zoom sessions. This is just the beginning part of how our students come to us. Beyond that, there's a lot of other things we do that give students the experience of being served. So that's what I wanted to share. One more thing I wanted to add is when COVID hit and we were like, how do I reach all the teachers all the time, we're sending emails to teachers for every little thing, but all the teachers do not read their emails every day. That's because our teachers are all part time, our teachers just work two days a week. The other day they don't.

So when they go to their emails, they've got so many emails they have to pass through it to be able to read the most critical emails. So what we started doing is I got a subscription on Smores. It's a newsletter publication template. It's got everything in it. You can even link YouTubes and upload a PDF or pictures and everything on the Smores newsletter platform. And I've started doing two times a week newsletter for all staff. So they have everything in one place. They don't have to go to find their email. And now it's gone down to once a week, once a month, but that's another very good platform that we could use as administrators not only for teachers but we were also thinking of starting it up for our students as well.

And every teacher could also have one of those. Move on. Thank you Omar. move on, it's OK, good.

Omar Andrade: Perfect. So with that being said, obviously a lot of tools, a lot of things that you can use to enhance the student's experience. You can use these things. So you can have students meet, get the information, go to the website. And then what we're going to show you is two quick videos. So it's going to be a little bit of a break. One that I did through Canva and we put it in Facebook, and the other one is a PowerPoint. And that way, you're going to be able to create your own ad. So I'm just going to show you what this one is through Canva, I'm going to show you what that looks like. And let me know if the sound works. You guys can here? Yes.

Sorry, Hi. So that was Canva. , Oh wow look at us. Awesome welcome. So that was one of our ads that we put in. And this was created with Canva. So if you want to get create an ad, you're going to have your chance to do that. And the second piece here's a quick video that we created for students when we were launching the device distribution. And this is something that was through Powtoons, I'm going to be working with Powtoons. Thoibi is going to take the group that is going to be working in Canva. And so that's coming soon. We're getting close to that time where you get your hands on. So I'm just going to share sorry that video. Let's see here. Perfect.

All right. Yes, and that's from my YouTube channel. So here's the two gives. Out of all the tools we gave you, two websites the Canva.com. If you don't have an account, you can get a free account, amazing, and Powtoons. Those are the two tools we're going to talk about right now, and that's where we're going to focus. So we're going to work together in small groups. We're going to have to breakout rooms. Thoibi is going to take one, I'm going to take the other. And we're going to see how it works. We're going to see, we're going to dive into it. And if of course you like those videos, I'll send them to you. The best part about it is it change things for your school name. Trust me, a lot of these look amazing but they'll look amazing because they're already done for you. You just have to put your own personal information. , I'm not going to take credit trust me.

Both of these were already set up either on Canva or on Powtoons. I just put in our information and they look amazing. I did add the music though so I can take credit for that. So let's stop waiting. Let's get creative. I use a lot of stickers, people use stickers now. So this is a way we're going to get started. And so here's a hands on activity. We're going to have-- you're going to create an ad, that's the goal. We're going to use either a Canva or Powtoon. And each of us are going to take a small group. And if we have time, even if it's not complete, just breathe. It's OK if it's not complete. We're going to bring back some kind of product. I would love to have something to share for the last few minutes. OK. And I think for this activity, we have 20 minutes. So we're right on time because that will be about minute 80.

For us there's a video also on how to create a Powtoon account, and there's also a screenshot on how to create a sign up for Canva. But let me go back one. So let's do our activity. I do have a document for us to sign up. So let's just figure out who's going to go where, and then I'll take one group with Powtoons and Thoibi will take the other group, and Brankov you can help us set that up. Let's have fun. We're going to learn from this. This is going to be different. I haven't done that on a group setting like that. But I think it's going to work, and we're going to come up with something cool to share when we come back. So what did we learn today? There's many challenges to try to do this when you're not on site. But I just want you guys to go for it and try it. You'll be surprised. I will share my videos, you don't have to worry about that.

But I was able to put a little something together. I had some-- I had to find the buttons while presenting. And so I never really done this. It was like having people watching over you, which is interesting because even when you do it before you're like, Oh, I could do it and you do it quietly. When you're talking through the process is a little interesting. So having somebody help, definitely thank you Christina for your help. And I don't know Thoibi , do you have one that you guys created? Were you able to complete one? Go ahead. Audio if you can turn it on.

Thoibi Rublaitus: Sorry, I am very good with unmute myself. So Bijal has already created one. If she's allowed to share that.

Omar Andrade: All right, let's see.

Bijal: OK, let's see. So can you guys see my screen? OK, this is a preview of tomorrow. Please come to my presentation everyone. And I'm very excited honestly. OK. I'm going to stop this.

Thoibi Rublaitus: You're awesome. Oh my goodness. What are you presenting on tomorrow, I'm certainly coming to yours right now?

Bijal: Yeah, I'm presenting on videos, to use videos in the classroom. So Yeah.

Thoibi Rublaitus: There you go, but there you go.

Bijal: I'll stop showing, thank you so much.

Thoibi Rublaitus: Thank you. Anybody else wants to share what they created today?

Omar Andrade: . All right so what I did is I was just showing them how to put the pieces together. I wasn't very successful because there were some buttons that were not working that we're not doing what I wanted to. But what I did was able to use one that I had already and kind of pace some things. So we wanted to get a concept of motivation behind this little video. But the best part about it is, and this is the homework. This is the teacher in me. Please make sure you create a log in and create an account and share it with us I want you to get into it. So I'm just going to share real quick what we created. I created for the group, let me put it from the beginning.

So the idea was to get people motivated and positive. So there's no message yet. I took never give up, you can do it, just keep people cheering them on. Here you can have a message, connect with your teacher and your friends stay in school type of thing. Don't forget to smile. And the last piece will be just bringing it all together to the whole idea of not quitting, not giving up. So talk to your friends, connect with the teacher, and then boom. So it's surprising that 20 minutes is not long enough. But definitely I want to encourage everybody to do it. I learned by getting on there, and don't worry on this in my videos and sharing with you guys so everybody has a chance to learn from one another. And I would love to see your own that you can create. There's definitely pro versions, don't buy anything yet. Get comfortable with the free version and then you might consider it.