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Speaker: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Janice Fera: Welcome, everyone. Special welcome to our panelists. We're so glad we could all join today. If you have a chance and haven't done so, please put your first name, last name, and agency name in the chat, in case there's any questions that we could follow up with you afterwards. My name is Janice Fera, Program Specialist with CASAS, and I'd like to also introduce my co-host today, Ms Kay Hartley.

Kay Hartley: Hi, I'm Kay Hartley, also a Program Specialist with CASAS. And thank you all for taking time to attend this today. Our hope is that the information shared by our panelists will be useful to you. Thank you.

Janice Fera: Thank you. Let me bring up the slides that we were going to share today. We would like to start off with a peek at the agenda. "What is HyFlex Instruction?", just v one slide on that, introduce our panelists, and they' can talk a little bit about what is the area of focus in their agency as far as how they're approaching HyFlex, and where their attention is most directed. We'll have some questions prepared, but we've also got some time. This is a 90 minute session. So hopefully we can engage the audience a little bit, and find out more about what your interests are, and where you stand.

There's also a poll that we've prepared. So Carla, I'm going to just do the one quick review slide about what it means, and then are you almost ready to launch the poll for everyone?

Carla Slowiczek: Yes. Give me the thumbs up, and I'll launch the poll.

Janice Fera: Before we start the poll, because there's a lot of different definitions of what is HyFlex, we're going with the more traditional definition, Brian Beatty, who is from excuse me, San Francisco State University proposed an outline of what it is, which is when students are both in-person and remote, and the teacher is addressing them in those two, we say, in the room and in the Zoom. We find that there might be reasons that it serves students well. And so from that framework, that's our next question, which is the poll. Go ahead Carla if you have time please.

So the question is, is your agency currently offering HyFlex instruction? And if so, how many classes? And you can pick one reply, which is like 1 to 5, 6 to 10, dozens, none but we are working on it, and none planned. If you have a chance, could you go ahead and answer the poll? We've got 50% participation. 60%, good. Thank you so much. We appreciate your feedback. One more minute. Maybe less than that. OK, I think we're pretty much done. Carla, would you like to show the result? It looks like it's a combination between 1 to 5, none currently but working on it. That's helpful for us. Great thank you.

So without further ado, I would like to introduce our panelists. And I'm just going to go down through the list. Alisa Takeuchi from Garden Grove Adult Ed. Most of you in the audience probably have met her before, but Alisa, would you like to share a little bit about your attention to HyFlex and what your focus is right now?

Alisa Takeuchi: Yeah that'd be great. Thanks so much. So my name is Alisa Takeuchi. I am an ESL instructor for Garden Grove Adult Education. And it was very fortunate for us that our district opened up our schools quite early, or quite earlier than most districts. And so at the beginning, we were trying to figure out how we were going to best serve our students going from all in class to all remote, then all of a sudden you know what do we do? And so we came up with the idea that we would go ahead and instruct students in class and online simultaneously on how they preferred to learn.

Janice Fera: Lisa, how many classes are you currently teaching with the HyFlex model?

Alisa Takeuchi: All of them. All departments, all classes have the HyFlex option. Whether or not the students have chosen to do in class or online is up to them.

Janice Fera: Excellent. We thank you for your attendance and your participation.

Alisa Takeuchi: Absolutely. Steve Hobbs from Merced, principal. Welcome, Steve.

Steve Hobbs: Thank you. Good morning, everybody. I'm Steve Hobbs. I'm the principal at Merced Adult School. I'm excited to be doing HyFlex. I didn't realize when we started this journey that this was actually the direction of Adult Ed. But I think when I was talking to Kay at one point, I said, this is more of a change in mindset to begin the process, because I'm one that likes to have students on campus. I thrive when I'm talking to students, and I was pushing for I want our students on campus. And the students are saying we're not coming on campus. And so I had to change my mindset a little bit. And luckily, our high school district that I am a part of had gotten all the equipment for us, and all of our high schools to start the process. So it's been good.

Janice Fera: Thank you Steve. Laura Dutch. Hello Laura. She's with Vallejo.

Laura Dutch: Good morning. I actually like the fact that in the slides, HyFlex has that little line under it like it's misspelled, because I think it's been a learning for all of us. I didn't know a year ago what HyFlex was. I didn't two years ago what Zoom was, but here we are. For us, five years ago when we did WASC, we put as one of the goals in our action plan that we wanted to increase student enrollment and persistence attendance. And then we were doing fine until COVID came along.

And like everybody else, we had the challenges of going on to Zoom. So we came back in the fall, and at that point we had to figure out what would work for our students? And like Steve's, we had students who wanted to be back in person, had been waiting for us to open up and be back in person. And then we had people who were saying, no way. So I had to look at the staffing I had for ESL. I was able to keep people either in person or online with Zoom, and students could choose. But when I looked at my high school equivalency, that's how I ended up with HyFlex.

Because I had one teacher. And I knew that the students were going to be in that same category of wanting one or the other. So we bought some Owl cameras and we started using HyFlex. And it's been a learning challenge. I actually talked with Alisa a few times about our Hoot, we call them Hoot. And it's going well. And right now we're getting ready for WASC accreditation next spring. And all of our data meetings, we've had just a few so far, but with our staff, has been focused on looking at the three different modalities, either in-person, Zoom, or HyFlex. And we're looking at enrollment, attendance, and outcomes.

And outcomes being cost us data gains, looking at how many people have gotten their citizenship, how many people have finished high school diploma or high set, and just trying to figure out where we go from here, because I think it's great to introduce these. But I think the data piece of it is really important so we know going forward how to proceed. So thank you.

Janice Fera: Thank you Laura. And we do have a couple of slides at the very end about a new field we've added to TOPSpro Enterprise for keeping track of HyFlex class instances. And I can share that with you. Thank you Carla. She uploaded a copy of the PowerPoint for today. Now Laura does have to kind of leave in the middle of the presentation a little bit. She has a conflict in her schedule. But we appreciate you coming today Laura. Thank you so much. Stephen France, Director at Acalanes Adult Ed. Hi Stephen. Good morning.

Steve France: Hi Janice. Hi Kay. Welcome everyone. Good morning and good afternoon to those of us that are attending from the East Coast. My name is Stephen France, Director of Acalanes Adult Education. For those that don't know where we're located, we are located about 30 minutes East, depending on traffic, of San Francisco. We're in the Walnut Creek, Lafayette, Orinda, Moraga area. And we are a high school district, and an adult that district only. Since I've taken over as Director of the Adult Ed Program, I've always wanted to offer some form of online learning for our adult learners, being that most of my experience has been working in the high school setting.

COVID kind of pushed us in that direction and forced us to do that. So like everyone, when we shut down in March of 2020, strictly online, and in August, we were committed as a school site to offer flexibility options, support our student learners, we call them guests by the way, so I will be referring to them as guests. We've done a lot of evolution during this time period. And we also wanted to maintain that persistence of our guests and their learning, and abilities to access the instruction. It was just kind of natural for us to do it considering that our high schools were still in online format, and we weren't necessarily having the guests ready to come to our school site in person, as we do also have a very high risk population of guests in our adult program that are unable to attend in person because of COVID and their health issues.

So it was just a natural push. The staff just jumped in. We, and at some point we'll talk about it later, but we equipped every single classroom on this school site to have every possible tool necessary for the staff so that they're able to provide the best instructional opportunities for our guests as possible. So it was something I wanted seven years ago. COVID happened, and here we are now with it all. And we offer it for all of our courses. And it's up to each individual teacher with their comfort level in some of those programs.

Janice Fera: Thank you Steve. We featured Acalanes Adult Education during the October 2021 CASAS National Webinar. So if you want to get more information, Steve produced a beautiful video about their program there. Also, he's got a presentation, I think Eric your technology person, is presenting today at TDLS at 2:45. So rather than having this panel get into the nuts and bolts of Wi-Fi, and plugs, and things, we're going to defer to that session today later this afternoon. All right. Next up please, welcome Jennifer Varnell and Diana Battista from Conejo Valley Adult Education. Welcome ladies. You want to share a little bit about what your vision for HyFlex at your school is?

Jennifer Varnell: Sure I'll go first. My name is Jennifer Varnell. And I'm a Medical Instructor at Conejo Valley Adult School. And I think I'm one of the few here who is doing the HyFlex way of education. So for us, we were all on campus before COVID, and then our learning curve was just like straight up and down when we went to Zoom and started Zooming that way. And for me, that was great because I was able to kind of see students at home and what their lifestyle is, dogs, cats, children, kids home from college, which I could relate to.

And so we were all learning this together. So there was a lot of grace, and mercy when mistakes were made, or something didn't work out. And through technology, we actually learn together. So when we came back on campus, I really saw the challenges that my students, I teach a certified caregiving class, and so I saw many of my students with the challenge of how do I get certified in this, and still take care of my loved one at home? How can I swing that?

And COVID actually was in a sense, a mixed blessing for our particular group, because we were able to educate, and encourage, and inspire the folks who want to and need to stay home with their adult mother, their adult father, or their spouse who may have underlying conditions that would be compromised if they had someone come into their little bubble, and they had to leave home to attend class. So when I came back, I wanted to continue that because I knew there was a percentage of our population that really desired this education, but because of the challenges-- because of their lifestyle and who they took care of, would not allow them to attend regularly a 2 and 1/2 hour class in the morning, or the afternoon, and the evening.

And that's how we offer it. We offer a morning class two mornings a week, and evening class that's identical to it. So if someone missed the morning class, they can come to the evening class. It offers them that flexibility. We also have a very accelerated course where people come four days a week. And that's really exciting because it keeps people on their toes. And they like that. And I enjoy it too. It does though, when you talk about barriers, it wasn't just a transportation barrier. Here in California where we teach, the price of gas is almost $5 a gallon.

And we have international students. So we have people who are here from Bogota, Greece, and they're here, and they could certainly afford the price of gas. But then we have other international students who are here and they cannot afford that gas. So they come once a week to practice the skills. And that's when we kind of have the party day, where we got the lecture, we've got interaction through Zoom, but then everybody arrives and we take off practicing all the skills. It's very difficult to teach CPR, first aid, how to take care of someone who's in a wheelchair, a catheter or a hospital bed, it's difficult to do that remotely.

So we have to move our AVerMedia camera around so that when we demonstrate, our students in the classroom and our students on Zoom are looking at a particular skill. And so when they all meet together on Wednesday, it's like nurses see one, do one, teach one. So they've saw it. Now they have to do it. And now they have to turn around and teach someone else that skill. And that's where I think the thought for our particular institution, that really marries very well together.

Yes, child care enters into it, but it's also elder care. And so I've made that point. But it also encourages other students who feel like they were forced back to the campus too early, when they see how interactive our Zoomers are, they'll come up after class and say look, my mother in law's coming to town you know, and we haven't seen her in a month. Is there any way I can Zoom this class tomorrow night? And I say, absolutely. I've already sent out all the links. Just enter in the challenge for me.

Of course, I have to be on top of my game with attendance wise. And those people, when they miss something, or maybe I'm a little head by a few slides or back, they already have my PowerPoints, the workbook, and the regular textbook. And they can go at any time onto the web page and see where their particular class is supposed to be, what they're supposed to be reading, what they need to be prepared for.

The last thing is, within our medical department, we have a very high level of cleanliness, and things need to be sanitized before every class, and after every class. So yes, that's a bit of a challenge for me. But we teach the students how to sanitize their own areas. So now they know before they clock out, that they have to go through and sanitize all the areas, and wipe down all the equipment that they used while they were here on campus.

Diana Batista: Thanks, Jennifer. I'm going to cut you short because we probably have a couple of more questions to answer. So I just want to add that in our ESL program, the students also have the flexibility of being either in a strictly on campus class, or strictly in Zoom class. So that's why we're kind of marrying the two together, either strictly Zoom, and then also in person, along with this option to be in-person or in Zoom with Jennifer's class. Thank you.

Janice Fera: So, Diana, how many classes total do you have at Conejo that are following a HyFlex Instructional Model?

Diana Batista: Well, the HyFlex model is only in our integrated English Second Language Education program with Jennifer through the caregiver class. The other classes are either strictly Zoom or in-person. But what I think we're doing is baby steps still with increasing access for the students to get back to class. Even now, we still have some students who have a lot of underlying reasons why they don't want to come back to class. But like Jennifer said, they know they're required to come for the first day of class, and each Wednesday for skills. So this way, it gives them the option.

I'm sure that everyone else has that same experience. We have a number of students that are on campus, but we do have six classes that are strictly in Zoom, ESL classes only.

Janice Fera: Definitely the pandemic has taken its toll on any of the hands on kind of laboratory, phlebotomy, whether it's plumbing, the CTE classes are the ones. And we just applaud you Jennifer for finding ways to integrate remote education into what appears to be a very, very hands on subject matter. Thank you. Thank you for that. Any questions in the / I'm just going to peek over there right now, t see if there's anything we need to jump on. These are some of the discussion topics that we're going to offer to our panelists, kind of just going in order, looking at things like challenges, and equipment, and collaboration, and recordkeeping.

So unless there's any questions, let me just sort of dive into the first discussion topic. And we're asking what were some of the unique challenges and the ways that you addressed those in your agencies. And I'm going to kind of offer this out to the panelists if any of you have a really kind of a thought about that you'd like to share with the group.

Steve Hobbs: Well, would say for me, the challenges were just that you have teachers at such different levels of technology skills. And so trying to find the-- it's hard to find a PD that fits everyone, because some of them just need to know how they switch from their camera on their computer, to the camera that's in the classroom, and down to OK, we're going into breakout groups how do I keep the people online involved in the discussion, as well as keeping the people in class in discussion. So there were such just different levels of need for PD that it's really a work in progress every day still.

Janice Fera: With CALPRO, CASAS, CALPRO, and OTAN as the three supporting groups to the California Department of Education, we've talked about what kind of PD could be created. And that is exactly Steve, what you said, that's the challenge we've hit, is that does it have to integrate with Canvas? Does it have to integrate with additional frameworks, and the different levels of expertise of the teachers? Good point.

Kay Hartley: Steve, how did you approach the staff development with your teachers? I mean, did you have special training? Did you work with them individually? How did you do it?

Alisa Takeuchi: So when the district ordered these type of-- all the equipment and put them all the classrooms, there was district wide training. And at that time, we only had a few teachers use it, because we had some classes that were just strictly Zoom. But what's awesome is my staff is a very, very tight knit group. And they are always bouncing ideas off each other. So I literally walked into a class one week, and the teacher is doing Hyflex, but they're using the camera on their computer. So they're teaching from behind the computer screen. And I call that teaching to the online students and not to the students in the room. And then the next week I've gone in there, and that teacher was up and teaching to the students in the room using the camera in the room.

And yeah, it's just been an awesome progression and if I see someone who's really lacking, or I see where there's hey, have you tried this? And I'll give those suggestions. And I've got an IT person on campus that had done some PD individually. He'll go into their classroom and find out what exactly they need, and get them to the next step. So that's been very helpful.

Laura Dutch: I would echo from my experience what Steven said, is the PD aspect and the training of the teachers was paramount during this rollout. When we first did our shutdown, I would send well, initially started daily emails out to all the staff with links to different trainings that I found that were online. My sister is also a teacher. So I would steal from her district what they were using as well. And whatever our district was offering, our k-12 side of the house, and whatever else I could find, in addition to what the state and federal agencies were offering.

Then, when I met with our tech department, who I hope you attend his at 2:45, because he's been pretty much the foundation of rolling this out, he and I would hold almost weekly drop in sessions for all of our staff on all the tools that we had, from Canvas, to Zoom, to Doceri, which he will be talking about I think in that presentation as well, all of the six plus different cameras and microphones that we used. And it was an opportunity for us not to necessarily tell them how to do things, but for them to ask us how to use what was in their classrooms once they were exposed to it.

What I've always through my short, long career, I don't know, 20 plus years in education, what I always despised about PD was always being told what to do and how to do it, versus being able to as the teacher when I taught English, how do I use the instructional materials? Like I needed to ask those questions. So it was important for me to have that exposure and opportunity for our staff to be able to ask those questions. And then we set up training sessions in our Canvas teacher training course, that we uploaded short five minute videos. Because if you've used Canvas, they're training videos are nice, but they're very long, and they're not step by step. So I would record it, and I would do step by step of how to do it, based on what the teachers at those drop ins would ask us for.

And the key was, it had to be short, and had to be succinct, and had to be targeted towards that one topic so that they could click in and see what they want. We then created a wiki page also for them to access the training videos. And we did a separate one for our guests. We did a guest training from their side of how to access all the tools available to them, because when they're at home, they can't just necessarily go and seek out the teacher, and ask for the assistance. So it was important to have those two models for all of them. And then it was important to have my office staff trained in all of these tools, so that as the teachers, or our guests would call our office and ask for assistance online, they were also well versed in all of the accessibility.

The other challenge was online textbooks. So we did partner with some textbook companies. We were able to go from the actual paper copy of textbooks, which I always seven years ago wanted to go to online as well, but to go back to what Jennifer was saying about having to clean everything, we couldn't sit there and clean a textbook, and wait 72 hours, and then reissue it and tell them to drop it off, and be in our spacesuit for them to come pick it up from us. So we work with textbook companies. And what we learn through that challenge, was that some of them for adult materials, didn't realize that they needed to also have accessibility and keys to log in to Canvas so that our guests could access it in Canvas. So it was kind of an aha moment for our textbook companies, that we are so great with our k-12 side of the house, they forgot about the instructional materials that we're using from the adult ed side. So we got a lot of those materials also.

And then one other challenge we discovered was purchasing some materials that are not in the United States, for example Oxford Picture Dictionary. We got it, but because of the nuances of purchasing within our district and within the state, it's difficult to purchase items that are international. So we had to figure out a way in a process to go through to purchase these online materials so that we could then be able to purchase those online items. So there were a lot of challenges. But a devoted and dedicated staff were what we had, and all of us have, I know throughout the country and the world. And we couldn't do it without just one person doing it all. We were a village.

Janice Fera: That's the collaboration among teachers that makes such a difference. Alisa, you had a lot of teachers that had to be brought into the knowledge base of HyFlex. Anything you'd like to share with us about that?

Carla Slowiczek: Oh sure. I mean, I'm just piggybacking on what Steve and Steven said. For us, it was a very slow roll with our teachers, because we also have the gamut of experienced tech teachers, and then some who were thinking about retiring during the pandemic because they didn't know if they could handle the challenge. And they persevered, and kudos to them. But now, we're asking them to combine this in-class instruction with the Zoom instruction at the same time. And so when we were able to order the Owls, they also came in a slow roll, because we have a bunch of them sitting down on a cargo ship on the shores of Long Beach waiting to come. And so the ones that we did have, we asked the teachers who would like to pilot this the Owl and use it.

And so you know, of course the more techie teachers were the ones that got them first. And then now, as we're still waiting they're coming in slowly, the other teachers who have kind of experienced what the first teachers were doing with, they can see the benefits of it, and that is not so scary and challenging. And so we have now taken upon ourselves, the ones who have been using the Owls, to train the other teachers in a very self-paced manner.

You know, they're just taking baby steps, and so that they're able to incorporate this new technology, and really feel comfortable with themselves. Because like we learned in the pandemic, we all became students very quickly on so many different tech resources, that after a while, the teachers were so burned out. It was just incredible, because they're trying to teach the students while they're learning themselves. And so to really acknowledge the fact that some of the teachers just weren't going to be ready to do it. At the same time, it was fine for us.

Janice Fera: Alisa, I think you and I talked a few days ago, and you mentioned something about the ability for one teacher to observe a class. Were we talking about that? It's helpful for a teacher. You can give them it verbally. You can give it to them in a video, but just being in the classroom. Am I on the right track with that one?

Alisa Takeuchi: I don't remember the conversation. But yeah, we do do that. I mean, we have multiple opportunities all the time for teachers to come and observe if they want to, or participate with somebody else standing there, kind of a mentor mentee situation, so that again, they could be with somebody if something-- the biggest challenge for a lot of the teachers during this time was troubleshooting. You know, it wasn't the fact that we have this technology, and here's how to use it. But what happens when it goes wrong? Something doesn't work. Now they're panicking because they don't understand how to fix it. They don't know how to troubleshoot it very well.

So if a teacher came into my classroom, I wanted to practice using the Owl or doing simultaneous instruction, then if something did go wrong, then I could kind of help and step in and guide them into figuring out how to fix the problem, especially with the Zoom students because that was the biggest challenge during remote instruction was to troubleshoot that for the students on 12 different devices.

And so it's just that, again, that slow roll, just getting them to that comfort zone and that feeling of that yeah, they can go ahead and help the students, if need be and help themselves, if they need to.

Janice Fera: Jennifer's nodding. Did you have a thought on that, Diana?

Diana Batisa: Yeah, I was thinking of asking Jennifer to share, how do you address the learners in the room and what challenge that you had, that you shared with me about learners in the room and the learners online and how did you address that?

Janice Fera: That's one of the questions coming up when we actually talk about students collaborating.

Diana Batisa: OK, I don't want to jump ahead. Thanks.

Jennifer Varnell: Shall I go ahead? What I do is I turn my camera, my camera around, when the Zoom class- with our Zoom students. So I say hello to them. Then I flip it around, so they can say hello to all the students in the classroom and make kind of eye to eye contact.

What's interesting for me is that we say in-person learning, but I don't really get to see people's faces, unless they're on Zoom because of the mask mandate. So it's hard to read people's facial expressions when they're behind their mask here in the classroom. But I typically turn it around. I set my room up, so that there's a more open spot in the classroom, where both our Zoom students and our in-room students can talk to each other and see each other, practice the skill, which is really good.

I also have times where I'll set up teams to do-- to practice, verbally, what's going on in the homework. And then I'll just walk through the class. And I go, just tap me if you don't understand how to say a word or you guys disagree about the answer to the medical question. And so that's how I've addressed those kind of challenges.

Diana Batisa: Thanks.

Janice Fera: So one great note from Gould M. Is that you, Peg? Saying that they did a pilot trial program, a large number of refugees who attend via Zoom at the same time as the local ESL students, who attend in person. Thank you for your comments on that.

OK, our second question got into a little bit of the nuts and bolts of equipment and costs. And we've touched on Owl cameras and Doceri. Anybody else have anything that you feel your agency wants to share? I know we did-- Constance did a survey in December of several agencies doing HyFlex. And we said, what's the cost per classroom?

And we heard numbers from just a few dollars up to several thousand dollars. Anybody want to talk about that just a little bit? We still have plenty of time. Steve?

Steve Hobbs: Our costs-- I actually checked with fiscal before we got into this-- was for everything which was the-- oh, I want to say it's the Acer camera. I can't remember the name of it now. It's not the OWL, which I would like to have a discussion about the OWLs at some point.

Janice Fera: Was it the AVerMedia?

Steve Hobbs: Yes, that's it. Thank you. Between the camera, the stand, the microphones, everything was about $1,500 per cluster.

Alisa Takeuchi: I just wanted to jump in-- I'm sorry. I'm just going to jump in real quick. So myself and my director, M'Liss Patterson, we are also going to be in that 2:45 session with Marjorie. We're talking about equipment. So if anybody is really interested, more so, about the equipment from the teacher's perspective and then the equipment from administrators perspective about purchasing and costs and things like that, that will also be addressed later on today.

Steve France: Yeah, and I echo what Alisa said, as well. My tech guy will be in there, and I'll be joining to support him. But we did purchase a lot of materials for the classrooms. But one that we discovered was most important was a microphone that we installed in the ceiling, so that the guests at home could hear, very clearly, what our guests in the classroom were saying and the teachers.

So we had to kind of go through different iterations of microphones. We purchased a Logitech camera for all the classrooms. And we used-- we have two iPads for classrooms, a lot of stuff. But we had to get that microphone that could capture the size of our classrooms. So that was an important investment. And you could spend anywhere from a couple hundred dollars for something that may work to thousands of dollars, which was just out of our budget.

But again, I don't want to steal the thunder from the 2:45 presentation. But there's a lot of tools. And if anyone is on here that's not an administrator and is interested, the key is working with your tech department and your site administrator to kind of go into the classroom. And the administrator has to have an idea-- and your business office-- of what is needed to support our guests.

They look at it from the dollars and cents and how much it's costing. But we also have to look at the desired outcomes and supports for our guests, in person. And I love what Jennifer said, hidden behind a mask. So eyes and forehead. And then on online, as well. And it's all about that experience. So I'm all about the experience of our guests. And you can't assign dollar value to that.

You can. It's a budget. My business office hates when I say that. But you do have to invest, in order for it to be successful.

Diana Batisa: Right, because it's all about student engagement. And if you don't have the students there to learn, then they're not going to be able to progress within your programs and stuff.

I just want to address something that Marin put in the chat really quick. I have done multiple staff meetings using my laptop, as well as the classroom desktop computer. And I did experience some of the problem that Steven just talked about, where some of the teachers that were in Zoom couldn't necessarily hear what the other teachers in the room were saying. So I'm sure that would be the same case with the students.

And it's sometimes a little awkward between because what I'm doing is presenting the presentation on the desktop computer, so the people in the room can see it. But I'm trying to use my laptop, so that I'm interacting with everyone. And I also do what Jennifer does, where I turn the camera around and I project the people in the room, in the Zoom room, to the people that are in the classroom. So it's just-- it's a matter of working through the bumps and different things.

But if there's this equipment out there that makes it easier, then we should defer to the experts. So I'm going to have to jump off in just a minute. But I'm really enjoying the presentation. Please evaluate it, so it gets recorded and shared. Sorry, Jennifer, you wanted to jump in?

Jennifer Varnell: I did. I don't want to-- one of the other ways, and I mentioned it to all of you, was that for our students, a lot of our students are very tech savvy. And so I've also asked them, if you've got a particular angle on the skill, and one of your students, one of your Zoom fellow students is having a challenge seeing it right now, do them a favor, just like you would in a classroom, if they need a highlighter or if they need something. Turn your FaceTime phone on. Turn FaceTime on your phone and use your phone to help that student see what's going on.

And they actually love that because it's all of a sudden like, oh, yeah, I can help. And it's just like when I tell them, just like nurses. You see one. You do one. You teach one. So you're allowing your fellow student to see it better, so when they're here on campus on Wednesday, they can do it.

Janice Fera: Excellent. That's the collaboration that makes it a difference. And collaboration., I believe, leads to persistence. It makes the students feel like a cohort, and it helps them stay together, as they go through their program.

Steve France: And if I may interject one more thing I forgot about is the Wi-Fi arrays. We discovered that we were implementing so much technology and that our guests were bringing technology in the classroom, our teachers had it. We're all accessing it. We had to invest in making sure that we have the most robust Wi-Fi. So we installed a Wi-Fi array in every single classroom, so that we weren't draining it too much and causing interference of the other classroom that may be right next door to them.

Janice Fera: Let me throw out one extra question about costs. Sometimes, since the pandemic, it's been more difficult for agencies to have a certain number of students in a room. So my question to any of you is, is there a cost savings at all with HyFlex, in terms of facility costs or addressing the cost of hunting for an instructor, if it's possible that an instructor could be able to address like, I enjoyed the presentation yesterday from Roz Tolliver. And she mentioned how she is remote, most of the time, and how she's able to engage with her students.

Any comments on those types of facility pressure or teacher shortages that this possibly has an impact on, HyFlex? Any thoughts on that?

Steve Hobbs: I haven't had any issues. There hasn't been, really, a savings. It has made some of our classes bigger. But not to where it's unmanageable.

Janice Fera: I know Kay and I have our monthly network meetings, here in northern California. And we had agencies talking about waiting lists of students and being able to include more students because of the different models of instruction, when they bring in the options of HyFlex. OK, anybody else?

We were talking about collaboration. We didn't get to go around the room, Steve or Steven. I know Jennifer shared a little bit about collaborating with the students. Do you have any thoughts or comments, Alisa, on that? With engagement?

Steve Hobbs: Just in my walkthroughs and observations. So we have-- all of our computers are set up to Smartboards, which are now really old technology. But not only can the online learners, through the cameras, see the students in class because the Smartboard's acting as like another computer screen, the in-class students can see the students on Zoom.

And so I did go in an an ESL room the other day. And I thought it was really cool. So there was partner readings. They were learning conversation. And so one partner was reading Reader One and the other partner was reading Reader 2. And the teacher was doing a great job of, OK, for Reader 2, I need somebody who's in-person. For Reader 1, I need somebody who's online. So they were actually going through the conversation with each other. One was in class. And one was at home. And I thought, wow, that's really powerful.

Then, if we do things like breakout groups or partner up, she either has the students online go into breakout rooms. Or if it's a smaller group online, she'll just have them interact. Or she'll put them all in one breakout group, so they can interact. But again, that goes back to training and who feels comfortable doing what and knows the process. But we're slowly getting there. But once it's-- when you see working, it's awesome.

Steve France: And we're still--

Janice Fera: Alisa, are you doing that sort of thing with your-- can you tell how you do that with your students?

Alisa Takeuchi: Oh, why don't we have Steven finish his thoughts and then--

Janice Fera: Oh, I'm sorry.

Alisa Takeuchi: No, no, no, that's fine.

Steve France: I was just going to jump in and say we're kind of right there with Steve. We're kind of getting over these speed bumps of training and getting our teachers comfortable with collaboration between our online and our in-person guests. But instead of investing in whiteboards, we purchased this site license for each classroom called Doceri.

So each classroom has two iPads. One iPad is for the teacher to use to see the guests online and the backward facing camera is pointed towards the classroom, so that they can see it. And the other iPad, it becomes a mobile whiteboard for the students, using the Doceri app. So whatever is on the whiteboard in the classroom, if the teacher, traditionally, would write on that, they couldn't see it from the camera that we had. We have, I think, three different cameras in the classroom. But it wasn't able to be seen unless you used a blue or black marker.

So with Doceri, what we did is it becomes a live actual interactive whiteboard for the teacher, so they can walk around the classroom. Whatever they're writing on that iPad of that slide is what the guests at home and in person can see. We have teachers experimenting with it. And what's great is you can then PDF that slide and attach it to your Canvas page or whatever you use. And so that becomes the note-taking piece for that particular class. And it can be individualized for each classroom.

But we also have enough iPads that we purchased throughout the years that we're having some teachers explore and experiment with giving an iPad per in-person group and then assigning, quote, a breakout group to that in-person group, so that there's guests at home and guests in person that can interact with each other. And so they kind of can pair that way. So it's kind of having three students-- three of our guests on an iPad with three in-person and interacting and working together.

And then what I'm working with the teacher right now is that you assign the breakout room per table group. So table 1 is breakout group 1. And then they work together. So it's kind of a training that we're still working on. So if anyone has great ideas, I'd love to hear it.

Alisa Takeuchi: I'm so glad I let you go first, Steven, because just hearing about-- because for three months, from March of-- well, April of 2021-- April, May, and June, we opened up our school for the first time after pandemic, and we opened our doors for the students. And I was kind of going blind. I really just kind of envisioned, in my head, how I wanted my classroom to work and how I was going to keep this community with my online students and my in-class students.

And as I was doing presentations along the way, more toward the fall, I got a lot of good ideas, in hindsight, I wish I would have used. And one of them was the external camera that I would have mounted on my laptop or monitor and faced toward the students. I didn't do that. And so I physically took my laptop and would flip it around to show the in-class students my Zoom students. And I didn't do it very often. And so sometimes, that connection was lost.

I could project my Zoom students onto my big projector, so my in-class students could see the Zooms, but not vise versa. My other thing-- so just learning from my experiences, you should. I was using a headset because I was so used to being remote for that whole year. I was still using a headset with a microphone in my classroom because I didn't know how else to hear both my Zoom students.

And it didn't dawn on me, which was, in hindsight, I'm kind of laughing at it now, is that I really should have just plugged in some external speakers and used my computer microphone. And even though it would have been a little bit more difficult for my students in class to hear the Zoom, I wouldn't have had-- I was just relaying information all the time, oh, Hun-- who was online-- Hun said, da, da, da. And then, oh, in my class, so-and-so said, da, da, da.

I was going back and forth and relaying this information. And I didn't see it later on, until after somebody suggested to me about these other suggestions, like oh, OK. That would have been much easier for me. Now, so for three months, I made it work. But it wasn't ideal. And again, it's because of time and experience. And then other teachers are hearing about my experience. They're like making suggestions. And I was like, you should have told me this three months ago.

[laughing]

And so it was a learning curve. I don't regret anything. There were some things I definitely would have changed. But as far as collaboration-- now, because I have the-- I'm so fortunate to have an OWL. It's so easy. I mean, it's seamless to have my Zoom students and my in-class students collaborate with each other.