[audio logo]

Narrator: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Alisa Takeuchi: All right. Thank you so much, everybody. Welcome to day two of TDLS. Are you guys having a good time? Yeah. So many things, TDLS is absolutely one of my favorite conferences because it's all tech all day for two days at a low, low price. And they give you breakfast and lunch. You can't go wrong with that.

So my name is Alisa Takeuchi. I am an ESL Beginning Literacy teacher at Garden Grove Adult Education. If you're not familiar with Garden Grove, it's in Orange County. My school is about 1 and 1/2 miles away from Disneyland, geographical reference. So that's where I am.

I've been teaching at Garden Grove. This is my 21st year. And primarily, I've been doing the low levels, but I have taught all of them.

And then just this past year, I've been teaching a CT class at night, so I have the ends. I've got the low-low-level English speakers, and then I've got the fluent English speakers on the other end. So it's been really, really great.

But I do want to talk to you today about Chromebooks. I primarily usually only just say Chromebooks because that's what we have. But I realize a lot of agencies do have laptop carts as well. And many of the things that I talk about are transferable. So I might always just say Chromebooks. But if you guys have laptop carts as well, it's going to apply.

So let's go ahead, and let's just take a few minutes. Let's have a discussion. There's probably enough of you where we can do shoulder partners or small groups. I want to take some time to get your thoughts about the Chromebooks or your laptops with your students.

Now why are you excited to use them or are you excited to use them? And then what kind of challenges do you think you might have in preparation for using Chromebooks? Or maybe you already are, and you do have some challenges.

So let's just take a few minutes to talk amongst each other. And then I'm going to walk around and listen to what you guys are talking about.

I was able to get to most of the groups. I heard some really interesting discussions. And trust me because I've done this session plenty of times, they're not uncommon.

The things that you are expressing, the excitement and the challenges, none of them are new. There are plenty of other teachers out here that are having those same issues that you are having, whether it's from low-tech skills or roaming Chromebook carts and scheduling and things like that, I've heard them all. Don't feel like you are in a unique situation. So because I can hear a lot of these things from a lot of different agencies, we will talk about them throughout this course.

All right. So fingers crossed, this is what I'm hoping that we're going to get through today. We'll talk about welcome. Not even just so much of what we just did right now, but also welcoming for you as teachers, teaching on the Chromebooks. And then welcoming for the students as they're trying to embrace this new technology as well.

Objectives, we're going to be talking about goals. That's going to be one of the major things that you're going to have to start if you're preparing to start using Chromebooks more seriously. I know some of you have already tried to start them, and maybe you want to expand that situation a little bit. Especially because we're beginning for the most part beginning ESL teachers, that there's always a lot more preparation in the forefront before we even start the lessons.

And then we'll talk about the difference between signing in and browsing as guest. So let me just feel real quick. So how many of you already have Chromebook carts in the classroom? OK. Yeah. And then does anybody use laptop carts? Oh, sorry. So let's do that again. So Chromebooks.

And then laptops, Windows-based. Yeah, both. Oh, see. I barely even ever ask that because we don't have Windows laptops. So yeah, that's nice if you guys even have both. That's going to be even more beneficial for your students. But at the same time, it's more work for you.

So and then let me just make sure, let me get a feel for the room. Beginning literacy, beginning low ESL? Beginning high ESL? No ESL? [chuckles] Or higher entry? Higher ESL? OK, great.

So we're talking about some of the difficulties that come with anything technology, especially with the lower level ESLs because language and computer literacy don't meet hand in hand. We know that we have low-level English speakers, but they're high in tech or the opposite. You can be native speaker, be low in tech. The language does not reflect their technology skills. And so but when you have the low English skills with the low tech skills, that's where some of the major challenges come from because now it's how do you reach those students.

And so I have a class that's pretty much like that right now. This is post-pandemic. So a lot of our pandemic or prepandemic students-- prepandemic as well too. But we were really trying hard to get them into more technology. And then the pandemic hit. And it was like, OK, now you are going to be into technology.

[laughter]

So for the good or the bad, for us too, many of you became students March 2020. How many of you did an OTAN webinar March through June of 2020? Yeah. Right. Because prior to the pandemic, we would do these conferences. We would go to CCAE, CATESOL, six times a year, and we would do a session. And if I had 30 people, that was a good session if I had about 30.

During the pandemic, those March, April, May and June, every single day, we probably had about seven sessions. And we had 200 to 300 teachers constantly.

So it was a very quick turnaround, where all of a sudden, you became students to be the teachers of your students, of the ones who showed up because that's what would happen. We were just trying desperately to just get our students back on, back into our classrooms. And we didn't know how to do that.

So doing this, coming back into the classroom again, now you're like, oh, but we're in the classroom now. So we can go back to the way it was before. You can't. There's no way because the world has changed as well. There was a little bit of talk about that yesterday during the keynote.

Everything is digitalized now. We've realized that everything can be digitalized, including things that affect your students all the time, banking, employment, applying for a job, interviewing.

So if you think that Zoom really doesn't affect you and your class, your students in your classroom now, it does. Because they may still have to do an interview online. They still may have to have staff meetings. And if they don't know how to do Zoom, like our Zoom students did during the pandemic, they're going to be at a loss.

So if we can still teach those skills that we had to learn during the pandemic, after, now in our classrooms, you're going to be the best. You're going to be better for it. And I've told other teachers this before, I never want to be blindsided again. I felt blindsided.

March 14 came. Bye, have a great weekend. I'll see you on Monday. I was getting ready for St. Patrick's Day, had all the stuff ready. And then Monday comes, and they said, no students are coming on.

We barely were able to get our stuff out of our classrooms. And as the time went by afterwards, I thought, I'm never going to feel like that again. We're like, one day, my students are gone, and they're not going to come back. I'm going to prepare my students to say, hey, let's join Zoom.

And so we do it in our classrooms sometimes. I even for my CT class, we've done Zoom because they need those skills as well. So just keeping those things in mind.

And then some interactive activities. I changed this. I didn't change the title, but I'm going to do like a full circle thing, where I'm going to show you something really amazing.

All right. So time, opportunity, and patience. If you can remember those three words, you are going to be able to make your students successful. If you give students the time, the opportunity, and the patience to do any of these things that we're doing technology-wise, they will be successful.

And that applies to you as well. Many of you who are learning some of these new wonderful things during these sessions, you need the time, the opportunity, and the patience for yourself to get used to it and master it.

And so same thing. So when we say a lot of other teachers, they fufu us, they're like, oh, your student, their English is too low, they can't do this. And we say that about a lot of things ourselves. Oh, my students can't do that, their English is too low. I just need to give them these three things, and they can.

I think in literacy, at least for us, because they're not as involved-- I don't know about your agencies, but they're not as involved with EL Civics. They don't have to do the government history. They don't have to do a lot of these other things that the higher levels have to do. I do have the luxury of time to spend with them longer with technology.

I can take a week or two weeks or three weeks to do one lesson if it means that they're just going to continually practice instead of just doing it once a week. And then they come back the next week, and we have to start all over again. So again, if I can give them time, opportunity, and patience, I know that they can be successful.

So I have two stories to tell you about today. And story number one is prepandemic. And what I was speaking about before is that I've been at this game for a long time. I've been teaching this level for a long time. I really thought I had it under control. I'm kind of a type-A freak. I'm controlling, and all the things that beginning ESL teachers are.

And so I thought, OK, I am going to start because we were the same. We had six Chromebook carts for all of our classrooms. So they were kind of rolling.

So I am very fortunate at Garden Grove also. They have supplied us with technology at the beginning. And so we also had two huge labs that the teachers would share. And so we would go twice a week for an hour, plus, we had the Chromebook carts.

So literally, I could have done technology every single day if I really wanted to, but it was like-- and this holds true for many, many other teachers, not just my agency. A lot of teachers use the lab time to correct papers or do other things because the students are on the laptops. They were on, let's just say, Burlington English. Or they were on some textbook web software Side By Side, Ventura, da, da, da. Yeah. And they were good for an hour. So now I can go back, and I can start grading, do my attendance, all the things like that.

They really weren't getting anything out of it except for an hour. A lot of students actually just left. They didn't find any useful meaning to that because it was just like, oh, my teacher just put me on this and blah, blah, blah.

And then the Chromebook carts would come. And so I used to have a photo, and I wish I still had it. So maybe this applies to you. You have a beautiful Chromebook or laptop cart. And now the books are piling on top of it. And students backpacks are right next to it. It becomes the treadmill with the clothes hanging on it.

[laughter]

I'm exactly talking about your class. Yeah. And every time I tell that story, you all laugh because you're like, yeah, it does happen. It may not happen to you, but you know somebody. You know a classroom where it's like, it's in the corner. It's like this. It's in the corner, and you start piling stuff on top of it. And it's like long to be forgotten.

So then it's like, let's bring these Chromebook carts out, and let's start using it. And everybody goes, but it's so hard, and we have to do so much work. Yeah. But once they do start getting it, that time, opportunity, and patience, man, it's so fulfilling. And they do get it. It just takes a little bit of time.

All right. So I had this grand idea. And this was actually with OTAN as well. It was an experiment. It was a little project for me. And I was going to start my ESL, who had not used the Chromebook carts yet. We did the lab, but we hadn't done the Chromebook carts. But I was going to document everything. I was going to have a plan. And I was going to-- these were my goals. And this is what I was going to do. And I was going to document everything because I really wanted to see is it worth it. Is all this hard work and time worth it for my students? And I was going to give myself x amount of time, I didn't even know what it was.

And so we talked about the sign-in versus the browse-as-guest. Now prepandemic, our students did not have school email addresses. So that was another thing on top of everything else, is that if I wanted to use the Chromebooks using Google tools, everybody had to create a Gmail account.

So that's like on itself is another thing because and again, our school and me in particular wanted to be controlled about this. And so we were trying to set up our students with a Gmail account that was formulized.

It was going to be LEC, my school, Lincoln Education Center, LEC, student ID number, initials. So all of our students would have a unique one, but it was all the same, in case they forgot. And then their password would be their student ID numbers.

All right. Sounds good on paper, looked good. Man, it was awful. Yeah. Just the thought of it, you're all listening going, yeah. Just to get that part of it was a step-by-step process.

And so I don't know what your situations are at your agency. Now, all students have a school email address. But again, there are challenges to that as well, no matter what. I forgot. Eliza, I don't know. We all know those situations. It's like, oh, did you write it in your student handbook? Oh, but my student handbook is at home. OK, well.

Luckily with formulized passwords, I can help them. Specific information, it was formulized. I can go through, and we can troubleshoot it.

Well now, they've had to redo their passwords, and it has to be 10 characters. And I can't know what they are. We can't use formulized ones anymore because of this whole hacking situation that's going on with all the schools.

So that's like, I'm sweating now because I'm thinking, oh, my gosh, how am I going to help my students? If they can't even do the formulized passwords, and now they have 10. And so we had to do a bypass, which is like a last pass, and getting them through all that. So anyways.

So it's the whole idea between signing in with an account, a Chrome account, versus browsing as guests. Does anybody know what the difference is if you do one or the other or what are the advantages or disadvantages?

Yeah, it's a simple click. Click, and now you're on Chrome. What are the advantages of that?

Easy access. I can get my students on. All I have to do is show them what the Chrome symbol looks like. Tap, you're in. And then it's moving forward from there. What are the disadvantages?

You can't say anything? You can't use any Google tools.

Right. No bookmarks, none of that. So if you are starting out with your beginning ESL, any ESL class, and you just want them-- if the goal is to just get them into the Chromebooks, do browse-as-guest.

If your goal is just to get them familiar with the Chromebook, what is a Chromebook and how do I use it, using a touchpad, or if you guys use mice, things like that, do browse-as-guest because there are plenty of things you can do with that that don't relate to Google.

You can do Learning Chocolate. I'll give you some resources to for lower ESL. They can go to your school website. They can do a lot of things. They can look for-- I'll tell you about the library. They can navigate through the internet without having to use any Google tools.

So again, if that's just your priority-- I just want my students to not be afraid. There was a good conversation right here about the students are afraid to use the Chromebooks for whatever reason. It's technology. They're afraid of break them.

Just keep reassuring them that they're not going to break them. Sure, a page might disappear, and I'll help you get it back. But it's not going to be broken. And even if it is, they're kind of cheap.

Yeah, absolutely. But you know what I mean, they have their phones, and some of them are really like [imitating phone clicks] Same thing. You just have to let them know, and because it's not theirs. It's the school's property. And just if you demonstrate yourself, look, I'm doing all these things, it's not a problem. And just keep reassuring them.

And the more their hands are on it, the more comfortable those stuff work. That first day is going to be, they're like, oh, I don't know. I don't know when things-- and then afterwards, they're going to be like, oh, [imitating keyboard clicks] I've got it.

So again, disadvantages, got to know their username. They've got to know their passwords. But then once that happens and they're able to open up the Chrome, and all bets are off. And everything is welcome to them, even Translate.

So if any of you have to do your student technology surveys soon, that's a big one because we're going to have our students do them on the Chromebooks. And if they don't sign in with our dot nets, then they can't use the Translate option.

So again, just little things, like what outweighs the other. And so you need to be careful with how you decide if you want to use sign in or versus browse-as-guest.

All right. So prepandemic, this is my grand idea that these were going to be my objectives. I had to sit down and say, why do I want my students to use Chromebooks? What is it that they're going to get out of this?

And so again, they're going to create LEC, my school, Gmail accounts. They'll practice creating, writing, and responding to email.

Students will utilize Hangouts. So this is way back then where-- does anybody know what Hangouts are? Hangouts are like instant chat. And they don't have that anywhere in that particular thing. As soon as we learn how to open and send an attachment-- beginning literacy, these were my objectives.

[claps]

No.

[laughter]

No clapping. No. They would have-- I know. This is again, my grand scheme of things. Ambitious, I was like, I got it. I'm an experienced teacher. I got it.

Keyboarding. I was actually debating whether keyboarding was necessary or not. I did it. No, because I know it's useful for me, but is it really useful for them? I didn't know. So I wanted to experiment with that.

And then the lessons would be supplemented with Kahoot. Oh, man. That's like a whole other section because that was a big fail for me. Sorry. A big fail for me, sorry.

[laughter]

It was a big fail. Yeah. Kahoot was not applicable. Edit please.

[laughter]

I know. I know, and I might. One week prior. So this has been on my mind for at least three months. But I'm saying, about a week prior to this whole thing, before my students even knew that we were going to be opening the Chromebook carts. These are the things that I had to do.

We know as beginning ESL teachers, it's all about the scaffolding. So even if we get these big beautiful lessons in our textbooks, let's say, I still have to scaffold because sometimes they're just not-- my students aren't there yet. And so I need to do a lot of prep work beforehand to get to them up to that place of page one in the book.

So there was no textbook for me. I had to really think of it and really come up with it myself, like anticipate what I think the students would need. I had no background knowledge yet.

And so I went through, and I created these couple of things. And so the first one was Chromebook. And it used to say J2 students because that's my classroom. So it was geared basically for them, but I have since changed it just for any beginning-- well, that's what I'm really going to hope that this is going to work. Oh, no. It didn't. Let me see if it will work. Oh, no, of course not. It worked earlier this morning.

Yeah. I'm not sure what this error message is from. It happened before, but it was working this morning. If I can find the actual link, I'll come back to it afterwards. But what it is, it's basically a slides deck. And it goes through-- what?

Audience: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Alisa Takeuchi: Yeah. But if I click on it, it goes to the error.

Audience: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Alisa Takeuchi: Maybe. Yeah. I tried. I updated my Chrome browser. But then this is because I'm on PowerPoint. It's the Edge. It's Edge saying that I need to update my Chrome. I don't know. So anyways if I can find it at the very end, I will show it to you.

So basically it's this, it was slide one. It says, this is a Chromebook. A Chromebook is a computer. And it has a picture of the Chromebook.

And so what I did was I physically opened one of our new Chromebooks. And I took photos every step of the way of what they needed to do. Anything I had to do, I took a picture, and I wrote it down. I took a picture. I wrote it down. Because we know any slight miscalculation on the part of what my students think they need to do and what they're actually going to do is just like, it's a tizzy because now they're like, Lisa, I don't see. And it's like, oh my gosh.

So I couldn't take a Chromebook that had already been used. I had to take a brand new one because that's what they were going to be experiencing. They were going to have a brand new Chromebook to open, and I had to show every single step.

And so then the other-- let's see if it does it the same. I don't know. The other one is for this our specific class. It's not in general. So this one is very basic for anybody who's going to use a Chromebook that has beginning ESL.

The other one was, this is a Chromebook cart. Look for your number, because all of our Chromebooks has numbers.

So this was my debate too at the beginning. I didn't know. Do I assign them a Chromebook or do I just let them pick one out? It's the great debate. I don't know.

The first time we did it, I just let them choose one, and it was chaotic. It was really a hot mess. And so after that, I went down my roster, and I assigned them numbers. And it was much, much better because our Chromebook carts have the numbers as well. As long as the Chromebooks, they all have that one just show it. But they all have numbers on the side. So everybody was responsible.

And it helped me, because if something was misplaced or open or something, I could find out who it was, and I can go and help them one on one. Like, hey, remember to put the thing here. I knew exactly who it was that had to get done.

All right. So again, here's my plan ahead. So these are all the things I had to do. I had all my pictures. I made the Chromebook PowerPoint, getting a Gmail account.

So if you are-- I'm just going to tell you out of experience. Any time students need to create an account or register for something, please, please, please take a screenshot of that registration form, and print it up as a hard copy. And give it to them so that they can write the answers first. It will save you so much time and headache.

If it looks exactly like what they're going to see on the computer, it's going to give them a sense of relief. And then I'm checking, do they know their first name, do they know their last name, is it correct or is it backwards. That happens a lot with our students.

So I had to make sure, did they put their address correctly. Or whatever it is that they're needing to put in the information, I always have it on a piece of paper first. They do it on paper. They give it to me. I check it. I make sure that it's what we want.

So then when we actually do go on the computer and they look at that registration, they literally just transfer that information. They see it, they type it. They see it, they type it. And they feel successful. And it's not a big headache. I'm not running around helping, putting out fires and things. They just have to follow the directions on the paper.

So that's what I did. I had the fill-in worksheet right here. I'm preparing them now for Gmail because this was prepandemic. And we didn't do that. How to create a PowerPoint.

So any time I make any kind of slides deck as well, I always show it to the students at least 2 times before they even do anything. Before they're opening up a Chromebook, before they're writing anything, they're just listening and absorbing some information. Because the first time, it's way over their head. They don't understand it. It's new. It's new information, new vocabulary they don't know. So then the next day, I'll do it again.

All students benefit from repeat. We all know this. You benefit from repeat. So to say, oh, they're going to be bored. They will absolutely not be bored. So even if they know some stuff, they're still not going to be bored.

So then this is even before we open up the Chromebook cart, I'm showing them those two PowerPoints. And then we watch it again, we look at it again. Now they're copying all the information.

That's why they're very short. They're short, simple sentences. I'm not making these big, long directions. But they are copying all that. So they have all the directions right there for them in case I'm not showing the PowerPoint again, and they need to refer back to it.

And then we're doing the pronunciation. We're doing all the things that we all do for our students when they learn new information. And then I have the how-to-type. So I was preparing myself to prepare for the students, and it ended up being way too much information.

So again, for you, I would create a fake student account. Gmail, that's the wonderful things about Gmail, you could have 1,000 accounts. And so I went through because every once in a while they will change the application process. So I don't want to take it for granted that what I did four months ago is going to be the same as it is today.

So if I give that sheet of paper that I made hard copies of and I gave them to all the students, and now we do it together on the computer, and now it doesn't look the same, what am I going to do? I have to start all over again because one little glitch like that really sends them into a tizzy.

[chuckles]

So I really go back, and I make a fake account. I make sure, and I take all the screenshots that I can of everything that they're going to need to know. And then I print that for them too. So again, if you're in a situation where you do need to create a Gmail account for your students, this is the way to go.

So this is my student. And he is doing that thing. What I did not anticipate because it didn't happen to me is-- or it did happen to me.

So when you do that, you now need a phone verification. So they put in that phone number. And then it sends them a little text thing on their phone. And I thought, oh, well, that's OK. And at first, I thought they could all use my phone number because I didn't care, and then I would give them a little code. Well, it only allows you two or three, and then it's like they think that you're a robot, a bot, and so that you're trying to create too many accounts.

So then it was like, OK. So then we had to step back because I didn't anticipate this. So we had to step back, and I said, OK.

So open your cell phone, and let's check text message. And so some of the students didn't have cell phones or they shared with their husband and wife. They have one, and they didn't-- so then it was like, OK. So then I had about three or four students who couldn't get a code. So then I try to use my phone again, my phone number to get a code. And it let me do it two more times. And then it blocked it.

So then I had to ask another student that's a little higher on the higher end of the English plus, the tech. And I'm like, can I use your cell phone number? And we got their codes.

So eventually we did, but it was a hiccup. It wasn't something that I anticipated because it didn't happen to me when it happened to all of them. So again, little surprises like that.

So if it does happen, we, just as a teacher, just step back, take a deep breath, and just let it be. It's going to work out eventually, whether it just means closing out and starting it again tomorrow or something.

You don't have to keep pressing on. If it's just getting too much, just have them shut down, and just let's do it again tomorrow. Let's try it again tomorrow students. No problem.

You know what I mean? Because once you start getting panicky and like, oh my god, I don't know, they feel that, too. They start accepting that energy that you're giving. And then they start getting in that mode like, oh, it could be broken or I can break this or the teacher doesn't know how to do it and [gibberish].

If you can, you can either just-- if you think you can manage it with the troubleshooting, keep pressing on. But if it doesn't, just say, hey, no problem, students. We'll try to do the cell phone thing tomorrow and just let it go, and then move on to something else.

So again, so these are students. So you can see here, this is the Gmail registration form. And then she was transferring the information onto the registration.

Now that they all have Gmails, to get to Gmail was incredibly easy because all they have to do is open up a new tab or Chrome, and Gmail is right there. It's right here on the corner, the little-- it says Google. And then it says right here, Gmail. They just do one tap. They don't even have to do gmail.com anymore. So that's a blessing.

And so then now, I put out my-- I don't know if you can see here. I gave them my email address. And again, this is all step-by-step about talking about how to make emails and things like that.

So after they learned how to create an email, I showed them my inbox. And they could see who has sent it. So if they don't see their name yet, they haven't sent it yet. Or I can see, oh, Juan, no email. And he's like, oh, OK. [chuckles] And then he'll go ahead and do it.

So again, these were the processes of-- not in one session. Again, so this was-- so they all-- hi, Lisa.

All right. So this was at the time, this was Hangouts. It used to be on the left-hand side. And then I would teach them how to. And they loved it. Anything cartoony and like emojis and things like that, they really enjoyed that. And it really helped them with their typing.

So I'm sure you've noticed this. If you taught remotely, if you taught anything remotely and used the chat box, did you notice how well your students started typing toward the end, after a period of time, if you use the chat frequently? The first few days, brutal.

I had to like, I say, type your first name. Do you understand first name? First name. And I would wait like a minute or two, which is forever in tech time because the students didn't know how to type. They couldn't find the da. But we just kept doing it every single day, every single day, every single day. By the end, they were typing so fast. I could say, what's your last name?

[imitating keyboard clicking]

And it all started rolling in. And it was really incredible. Their keyboarding skills, whether it was texting, because they were on a phone or on a keyboard, became so much faster that my in-class students won't have because we don't practice keyboarding all the time.

So those Zoom students really did learn a lot more things than we give them credit for, beyond just the stuff that was in the class. Maybe some other things did lack. But yeah, digital skills completely [whoosh] went up.

So again, this is the classroom setting. Here's my Chromebook partway in the corner. Sorry for the blurry image. But I was so excited. I almost forgot to take pictures because I was so excited. And plus, you can see how many students I have. I was sweating. I am running around, going around, and giving praise and giving feedback and helping out. I was bouncing from place to place. I'm like, oh, I have to take pictures. And this was with my actual camera not even a phone.

But you can see that the students are engaged. The ones that need help got help, either from their neighbor or from me. The ones that were fine on their own, they were doing stuff independently. It was really chaotic, but it was nice.

All right. So at the time-- don't copy this one down. At the time, I wanted to use typing.com. And I thought that it was a really good program. But again, they had to create an account.

So got the registration, did the screenshot, gave it to them. They filled all that information, blah, blah, blah. And it is a good website.

But what happened was, I ended up changing it to typingclub.com. So if you are on your device right now, you can actually do it. It's typingclub.com. And as soon as you open up the page, it says get started. Tap. They can start practicing typing. No account needed. There's nothing going to be saved. But that's OK. They can just pick and choose what they want. Or they can just keep repeating the same lesson, whatever they want to type.

So it gives them little videos on ergonomics, sitting up straight, things like that. It's really a great website. And so instead of doing creating an account--

[laughter]

Yeah, exactly. And some of my students know how to type. They're very good typists and stuff. So I tell them, oh, go take the test. Let's see how fast you are.

So it's like challenging because they're going to be a little bored going [imitating typing] S, S, S, S. So I say, let's take the typing test, let's see how fast you are. Are you faster than me? I give them this little challenge now.

And so yeah, if you don't want a hassle with making an account or having a teacher classroom and managing all of them, I was done with all of that. I managed so many other things. I didn't need to manage their typing skills. I just wanted them to practice. And so I started using typing club.

And so they started doing that for 10 minutes. I just thought, 10 minutes. I don't want to waste-- not waste, but I don't want to use a lot of time on it. But I thought maybe 10 minutes would-- and it really did.

And they went home, and they started doing it by themselves too because they could see how fast I typed and how easy. And they wanted that too. Or they saw other students typing very quickly, and they wanted that too. So it was motivation for them to actually practice at home.

10 minutes a session. So I tried to do-- the Chromebooks were Monday through Thursday. I tried to do it, but sometimes things happen or whatever, and we didn't do it. So it was 10 minutes a session.

So as soon as we open-- and some of the students came early to class. And they got their Chromebooks out. They open, and then they just did typing on their own. So they maybe gotten 20 minutes or 15 minutes more than what our other students were doing.

The other thing that's super easy, but they do need to have their Chrome accounts, their Google accounts, was maps.google.com. And they're very familiar with maps. They use it on their phone most likely. Maybe it's probably in their language, I don't know. But at least, it's something very simple that they're familiar with. So it's new content, but in a familiar way.

So we started with maps. And I always start with our school. So I put in our school address, and then it comes up. And then I changed the normal layout of mapping to the satellite or the 3D version. And they get so excited about that.

And so this is our school. And this was actually, I did the screenshot too close, but this was 2023. So it's very, very early. Down at the bottom, it'll say when that picture was taken. Because sometimes if you've ever looked your address up, it's this picture of a car that you had five years ago or something like that.

[laughter]

But yeah, this is a very-- so I zoomed in, and that's my car right there. And then I show them, so then we talk about it and I say, where's our classroom? This is our classroom right here.

This is actually, so this is J1, and I'm J2. So it's right next door. So the picture that they use for our school is actually the classroom next door to us.

And so then after I show them, we go through, and we type in our address. I have them type in their address, and ding, ding, ding, ding, and then they see their house. And I walk around, and I say, oh, is that your apartment or is that your house, whose car is that, or something like that. They get super excited to share that with them.

Then beyond that, so then we do the school. We do their house. Then I tell them to do it for their-- if they know the address of their house in their country or their city or whatever they know about where they're from, they do that also, and then they show me their stuff from their own country. And that's amazing.

They're so happy to see it. And for them too because many of them haven't seen their home in a long time or whatnot. And so now, it's right there on the computer for them. And so that's really fun.

And it's a really easier something to get them again acclimated to the Chromebooks using typing, things like that, navigating systems.

Again, here's our school. So some of the students-- I really enjoy it when students from different countries sit next to each other because sometimes we don't have that luxury.

Right now I have primarily Vietnamese students, and I have one Chinese student and two Guatemalans. So there's more Vietnamese. But the ones that do sit near each other, they really benefit from each other because they're forced to speak English and listen in English and help each other in English. And so you can see those are the students that really excel.

And so if you have the opportunity, if you do have many students from different countries, try to sit them in partners. Even not working it together, but maybe just sitting next to each other, so they help each other.

So my overall experience was that I felt like I was pretty successful. I was stressed out and things. But it was OK. It was very doable.

There was a lot of noise in my classroom, which is good. Administrators like noise in the classroom as long as it's somewhat controlled. It's not out of control.

But having students chat with each other and help each other and support each other? And that's a good thing. They were really engaged. It wasn't that easy lab time like, yeah, go and do it for an hour, and I'll see you at the end.

And then they learn to really trust each other because they really started helping each other with troubleshooting on their own. I didn't even have to help them troubleshoot.

Patience. Please give yourself patience as well. It's not just for your students. It's for yourself.

All right. Story number two, after pandemic, because we all know what happened during the pandemic. Most of us were in that same situation. We were on Zoom or virtual, a virtual meeting. And we had to try to troubleshoot.

This was my issue at least. I had to troubleshoot with my students on so many different devices that I'm not even aware of. I don't use Apple products. So I didn't know anything about the iPhone. I didn't know anything about iPads. And I didn't know anything about MacBooks.

So when they had trouble with any of those products, I just had to Google it myself real fast and then just try to help them as best as I can in a simplified language.

I absolutely think any family member that was at home that was supporting them, I got to know their name. And I'm like, thank you so much for helping your mom. I really appreciate it. She really appreciates it.

Just really acknowledging because that was really hard for them too, because they were at home, they're trying to work, or they have kids. And now they're trying to help their family member, my student, on top of everything else. And so we all know what happened.

So after the pandemic, like I told you, I wasn't going to go back to the way it was prepandemic like so many other teachers did. They were so relieved when we got back into the classroom because they were like, oh, textbooks again, and Chromebook cart back into the corner and things like that. And that wasn't going to be me.

So now, so our school, because we had WASC class here too. And that was a virtual experience, which was in itself another experience.

But we decided to make Website Wednesdays. We have Website Wednesdays, where all the students, we take Wednesdays, and we show them our website because it's updated all the time. We show them the student resources. We show them their community resources. If anybody needs help with mental health issues or food banks or da, da, da. We show them our website every single Wednesday so that they're very familiar with it.

And then in addition to that, all the teachers choose something to use with the Chromebooks. Because of the pandemic and we were able to save a lot of money on other things, we have Chromebook cart in every single classroom now, so we didn't have to share. And we got rid of the labs. So we made those extra classrooms.

And so now every classroom has its own Chromebook cart. So we can use it any time at our leisure. And so for all of us, we use it mostly primarily on Wednesdays. So I do the I-do-we-do-they-do. Are you familiar with that? It's a teaching strategy.

Audience: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Alisa Takeuchi: Yeah, it's a basic teaching model, where I'm showing them what's going to happen, introducing vocabulary, showing them, navigating the systems. And then I'll do it one more time. But then now I'm asking them, what do I do next? And we're all doing it as a group. And then hopefully, they're ready to do it independently or with a partner.

But I still have to write everything down because even if in my brain, I've told them five times, they got it. No, they don't They don't got it. [laughs] So I still have to do it.

So their login, so for us, it's the number. It's 188 and then our school username. And then password, first initial, last initial, the hashtag. Or we say now I have to say hashtag because most of my students are-- well, a lot of my students are younger. If I say pound sign or the number sign, they don't understand that. I'm like, shift-three. So we do that. And then it's shift-letter, shift-letter, shift-three.