[music playing]

Speaker: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Jaemi Naish: Just welcome everybody. It's great to be at the TDLS again this year and, boy, A I had a-- I just felt so inspired this morning to hear from our keynote speaker and hope you did as well, and because of that, I've actually changed a few things on my slide deck because I was so inspired. So here we go.

So my name is Jaemi Naish. I'm the director at Tamalpais Adult School, I'm in Marin County. We're a small adult school serving just about under 500, 550 a year, three program areas, a small health care pathway CTE, a GED high school diploma, and an ESL program. Do the SMEs also want to share who they are in the room? I think Elise is their.

Speaker: Subject matter experts, go ahead and introduce yourselves.

Lisa Takeuchi: So I'm Lisa Takeuchi. I'm an ESL and CTE teacher for Garden Grove Adult Education. And I'm Susan Geller, and I'm a subject matter expert retired professor, and that whole thing.

Jaemi Naish: Yes, it's important to be in adult Ed no matter what your role is. So Thank you. So we're going to come back to this part participant share question in just a minute. So I'm going to move forward for just a second just talk about just the plan for today, which is each slide deck has a guided question in hopes of just having some participation and sort of interactive discussion amongst our participants today.

It'd be great if we wanted to talk about some of these items here that I have listed, but really the session is open ended, so I've prepared slides for each of these areas. But if we ever land on something and spend more time on it, that's wonderful or if we just go through them that works as well.

So I'm going to go back here and just ask anyone in the room or online or both to talk about an innovative technology related best practice that you've used that's been a win for your school, your staff, or your students. There's no right or wrong here. It can be big, it can be small. I'm happy to lead off, but I don't want to hog the space. Is there anybody that wants to share just what's worked for them. Go ahead, Josh.

Josh: This is a big one for the District of Adult Career Education down in LAUSD. When the pandemic hit, everybody, of course was thrown online. And I think the majority of our staff really had not much experience teaching online or using technology in the classroom, so the district collected a bunch of teacher experts and they actually created some what they call master courses, which were just basically an LMS school which is what we use.

They were shells that any teacher could use in their classroom, and then they could sort of tweak the shell which-- the shell was fully formed. It had all the lessons and everything in there, but then the teacher could tweak it to meet their needs. And it was a very, very long learning curve, but ultimately it was very successful.

Jaemi Naish: And is there a particular class in particular that just really was highlighted or that teachers kept asking for or-- first of all, I love it by the way. This is so awesome to hear.

Josh: So we created shells for each of the ESL levels. There was a shell created for the high set program, and there was a couple of shells created for the ABE program, still working on CTE classes.

Jaemi Naish: That is wonderful. Thank you for sharing that. Who else? Who else would like to share an innovative practice that either came out of COVID or came post-COVID. I don't know. Are we post-COVID yet? I guess recently people think we are. But any innovative best practice that you want to share out? I love that, Josh, and that is big. Thank you for sharing that.

Speaker: We have Omar from Corona-Norco here.

Omar: So something that happened a little bit of an afterthought when COVID was ending, let's say and we were back, not everybody was back, many people are still not back, and so yes we have Canvas, we have some different things that we use.

But for me, I went back to the classroom, I went back to having a class teaching and what EL Civics being online and having some the test and the objectives online, and because not all of my students were coming daily because they have the option of having access to the curriculum online, so we did a little bit of a hybrid model, or I gave them some options to do additional hours outside the classroom.

I realized that with Google Slides being available and kind of keeping myself organized, I was able to create a Google Slide-- a Google page that had Google Slides that have the lessons, so essentially with the website, I was able to create a unit or a semester of it available.

We kept putting things up there, new pages, new information, videos, we were able to share. So it has developed for the last six months. I have something that I'm sharing in my session tomorrow just because it keeps everything together.

And so I'm excited to be able to create units based on EL Civics, have everything in one entity, and just having the students just go to that place, and that's where they do everything, they can watch the videos, they can comment, and it's a website just for that separate.

So I'm looking at it like creating a virtual file that is always there with all my links, and so I think that was the missing piece. I know how to use YouTube. I know how to use Kahoot. I know how to use all these things, but I didn't have something outside Canvas that I can own and manipulate.

And so now having the Google site creates that opportunity, and I can break it in chunks that make sense for me and the students will have access forever essentially, or it could be updated life or daily. And so I'm excited because I've done websites before, but having something that is so intuitive, so easy, and free is exciting for educators.

And having it in my phone and put it on my drive, and I can just push it out, I'm teaching my session tomorrow all with my phone on. So that's going to be great because it's all there. And so I like things that they can do that, and they don't need a download, they don't need many other things or purchase anything, which is great at least for my students.

Jaemi Naish: Omar, that sounds absolutely fantastic. And I think really what you're talking about is that you've expanded access to your class in so many ways to the students that are participating in your class, and that's kind of what I'm hoping-- that's exactly what I was hoping that we could talk about today was doing that very thing, and you've done that, and that's just amazing.

And a question for you is what have you noticed with your students? Are they able-- yeah, go ahead. I'll leave it open-ended.

Omar: Great Ps and the great takeaway is if done correctly, and I've been an administrator, I've been an educator, so when you have all of those paths, you're thinking from different angles. So as an administrator I love that we can capture hours and reach additional or meet goals or meet all those things beyond the confines of the classroom and the time with the teacher. So that's amazing.

We just have to do a little bit of how to keep track of those hours and along with the activities will take place, so you can give it like a number of value. As a teacher, again, great because all of a sudden-- still stay connected without necessarily being there because I can just record the session as I'm doing the class, even if it's just a slideshow with my voice, and they I can upload it and they can watch it later.

Again, I don't have to send them just a PowerPoint. They can actually see the class, see the interaction with the students, and it's kind of archived. So it's great because then even when I do it myself later. So it has so many layers as an educator and as administrator because you can get all these things.

Jaemi Naish: Thank you, Omar. Thank you so much. Yes, this is amazing, and it's wonderful, and I bet your students are just very appreciative, and just the fact that you're expanding your access to students in this way is just wonderful. Thank you for sharing that.

Does anybody else want to share? I know I saw-- it's her pictures, Regina, but she says she's Arlene online, and Arlene is using Google Classroom, I don't know if you would like to share out on that. I think she's unmuted, but I don't hear anything. And I will just say-- well, hopefully we'll get that fixed, but it's great. Good job using Google Classroom. Anybody else feel like sharing in the room, or online?

Speaker: So, Jaemi, I just want to say, we're doing this right here. That's incredible. We're having a vibrant conference. Wouldn't have done that three years ago, wouldn't of you?

Jaemi Nash: Yeah. You are so right, Susan. That's exactly right, yes. I will do a quick share-out of something that we've been using this year. And I'll talk about a little bit later, but we've been using really intentionally focused on the HyFlex model. So allowing students to be in class, but also to be at home to access education or their class.

And we've been doing it for a variety of different reasons, one of them being the weather's been rough around here-- I think probably where you guys are, too. And so the bus system is horrible here. And if it's completely raining and deluging, no one's going to get on the bus and do the walking that it requires because the bus-- again, the system isn't great.

So we've been allowing-- some of our teachers have been allowing students to Zoom in when the weather's just chaotic, or if they're sick, because we still have people that have COVID. And that's been a game-changer for our students.

And, I will say, one of the newer things that we're looking at is the HyFlex model for subs. We have a humongous horrible teacher shortage here in Marin County, and I imagine it's like that everywhere else. And so I have teachers that live in different areas, not necessarily the Marin. And they might teach an online class only, but they're able to sub remotely.

So I can have our students join in the classroom, but the teacher-- the sub for that class in particular is remote. And that's been a game-changer for us. So instead of changing or canceling a class, I've been able to have a remote. So that's something new that I hadn't thought of that would be a success, and it-- students seem to be OK with it. It hasn't been horrible.

So, has anyone else tried that? Has that been something anyone else has used? OK, no. So, I'm going to move on. Any other last year? So, I'm going to move us on OK. I will just give one little small one.

Alisa is in the room, and she was our first-ever-- during COVID, our first-ever ESL lowest-level, remote-only teacher. We never had offered a class in at that level remotely, and it was just a wonderful opportunity for our students, especially during COVID, because we all know that group was so disproportionately affected by COVID. At least that was our experience.

And so it was wonderful to have an online-only class for that group of students. And that was all last year, and that was the wonderful Alisa Takeuchi sitting in the room there. So thank you for that.

All right, I'm going to move on, if it lets me keep going here. OK. So one of the things that I heard-- really that I was reminded about this morning with our keynote speaker is that crisis breeds inequity. And I wondered if anybody else connected with that statement that was heard this morning. Did anybody else kind of think about that?

Omar: Yes. I know that there was definitely trauma. I know that there was a lot of things that you still need to address. I feel that we dealt with things, we opened up the schools, we moved forward. But we haven't had the tough conversations to understand that it will never be the same, that we are forever changed.

And I think we have to create environments that are different. I know as-- again, as an administrator, we want to see the classrooms full. We want to see the teacher in the classroom, but that's limiting, right? And so how do we understand that we can offer a class online, where their teacher is also online, when they might not be physically in our presence, but they maintain a high level of education, the academics are on-point, the students are still attending?

And it is not super attractive, I can say as an administrator, because we do want to have the control. But as an educator now, back-- going back to the classroom, if you were able to offer, let's say, in a perfect world, OTAN had some courses available for students like, they have for teachers, but in a virtual situation. I can [ INAUDIBLE ] about it, contract with OTAN to teach a class online from my house, or from Corona, on my specific area of expertise.

And it could be an eight-week course, or it could be a whole week. And maybe figure out a way to where there's not a double dipping, but the funding is shared. I don't know how the funding will work. This is the reason why it's such a hard conversation to have, because we all want to get credit for things financially.

But I think it's time for us to have that conversation, because it's needed. Some people-- you just said the weather has been atrocious for attendance. I am supervising the Corona High School classes. I'm there with six other teachers, and sometimes they couldn't make it, just because they couldn't get there. So I had to break up the classes.

I had to go in for a teacher, and all those things are not the best to keep your numbers up, or to keep people engaged or coming back, because it just fractures that trust. I don't know--

Jaemi Naish: Thank you, Omar. And I'm going to ask others in the room, or online, to kind of talk about how-- again, I really related to the comment that the crisis bred inequity. And I saw it almost immediately with our lowest-level English language learners.

So many who were public-facing, right, first to lose their jobs, had no-- in our area, very little governmental support for housing initially, and food initially. And access to technology was just-- all of it, horrible. And it targeted-- it seemed to target our very lowest-level English language learners first.

And so I'm curious about, from the people here today, what have you done differently, in terms of some of these that you see? We, just on the last couple of minutes ago, talked about things that have changed in your programs, which is great. What about some of those things like support services?

And I appreciate, Omar, you saying-- you're talking about the intentionality of having these difficult conversations. And hopefully we've actually all been having them, frankly, since COVID. But what are some of those new support services that you're offering to deal with what you know now that you didn't know then?

Or how have you integrated technology with your staff, especially in-- many of us have staff that really weren't so-- didn't love technology. And specific programs perhaps even had more teachers in programs where technology wasn't there first go-to. Did your site technology plan, or your continuous improvement plan change?

Did you apply for grants? Is your vision different for your school than it was before? And I think this little graphic, leave no one behind, is so important. We know way more than we knew then. So what are we going to-- what are we going to do to ensure that our people have access, and that we don't have a situation like that again? Anybody want to speak up?

Speaker: So, Jaemi, at Garden Grove, we had WASC during the pandemic, and then along with CIP. And so it really-- we really took a turn from our goals, and we switched them up, and-- with our action plan. And so we are much, much more connected with our community, our CBOs, our stakeholders. We make major connections with organizations we never had connections with before, and vise versa.

I mean, they really needed us as well, because their-- obviously, their business is what-- their clientele went lower as well. So for us to be able to help each other prepare our students, and then also let them know about their resources. And then coming to us, and telling us about our resources, and how they can help our students, it's been such a magical relationship.

And that's-- all the years-- 20 years I've been there, it hadn't been like that. So that was kind of a blessing in disguise because we were hit really hard, because we had WASC. At the same time, and then the new CIP. And then it was like so many things at the same time. But yet, we really focus on our goals.

And then M'Liss and I were in DLAC. So we really kept our goals very similar, and we kind of tripled it, and stuff. Instead of reinventing a whole bunch of different goals, we just kept to the same goals. And it really strengthened our program, I think.

Jaime Naish: Oh, that's amazing. I love hearing that. And did you have a particular partnership that really stands out, just for the rest to hear? I mean, because I love that you're talking about being ingrained in the community, and really forming different perhaps partnerships than you had in past years, or making them different. And I'm just wondering if there was anyone that really stood out in a partner, or in a community organization.

Speaker: Yeah, we have an organization called OCAIPA and it's a health organization. And they're literally across the street. Like, the crosswalk to their office. And we did know this for a long time because they didn't communicate with us, we didn't communicate with them.

And we just happened to find them, and it's a really great service for our students finding low and-- free and low health care systems, or insurance, or so many things Food banks, blah, blah, blah. It's almost a one-stop shop. And then also, our OC workforce. That was another really big one that was helpful for us-- for our students.

We have a mobile unit that comes to our campus now. It's a big bus, and they help them with finding jobs, and making resumes, and stuff like that. It's a mobile unit that comes. And so, yeah, Garden Grove was recognized at CCAE last year for best practices. And so it was just one of those really-- totally came out of the woodworks because of the pandemic.

Jaemi Naish: Wow, that is amazing. And because you've kind of talked about some really neat things right there, especially that mobile unit, is there anybody that has a questions for Garden Grove on anything that you just heard? I want to make sure that we don't just keep moving ahead, that if there's questions that you have for other participants or subject matter experts, especially on what we just heard, please do speak up. OK.

Speaker: I'm on the chat. But Jaemi, Arlene did post that using a Google Classroom to post lessons made a lot of things easier to reach your students in the COVID-19. And then she was also able to correct the student's homework, and do the work online. And it's become almost paperless, which is good for the world [ INAUDIBLE ]

But I'm curious if she can post something to follow-up how the students like that. I know she can't speak, but I think that she could type in her-- exactly.

Jaemi Naish: And I would love to know which level that you taught. Is at ESL, EDE, ASE? I'm assuming it's ESL, but maybe I'm wrong.

Speaker: And now she types, Josh has his hand raised. Oh, she teach levels 3 and 4. Sorry.

Jaemi Naish: OK, awesome. That is wonderful, and it kind of goes back to Omar's comment, right? Just one-stop clicking, one place to go, where to do, where to post, where to see your finished work corrected. It's great. Go ahead, Josh.

Josh: Actually, I have a follow-up question-- can you hear me?

Jaemi Naish: Yeah.

Josh: I have a follow up question for the room once we're finished answering the previous question, but it is related. I want to know from everybody here, apps like Google and other apps are great for students, for learning tech and collaborative learning, if they're not physically together in a classroom. My question is a huge of our students in LAUSD don't have access to computers, even though we actually have a program where they can borrow one. But some people just can't get to those places to borrow one.

What some of those apps-- some of like Google, for example, are very, very difficult to use on the phone. And I'm just wondering, A, how people have dealt with the sort of translation of how apps work on phones compared to computers, how you deal with that problem. And then B, if there's any apps that you use that are proven phone-friendly apps for doing the same sorts of things that we do with apps on the computer.

It's a big question. I apologize, but there it is.

Jaemi Naish: It's a great question. Who has comments for Josh on that? So I mean, it's looking at what are iPhone-compatible apps that we use to bring about our instruction, and also Google Suite-specific apps that work that oftentimes students have difficulty accessing via their phones.

Josh: Not necessarily accessing, but actually using, because they're not necessarily phone friendly.

Jaemi Naish: Got it. Yeah.

Speaker: I find that-- and I'm not sure, because I don't have an Android. But with my iPhone using the Google Classroom-- and I'm sure with any of the Google phones, it will work wonderful. But the Google Classroom is going to be great, because I think most of the time they'll have easy access.

It doesn't do everything that Canvas or other things do, but it is a good place to start. The Google site will connect-- so you can essentially have all your instructional pieces, and your objectives, and all your placeholder that is going to hold links, and videos, and curriculum at the Google site. And the Google Classroom will be a place where students can dump, or share, or put their assignments in.

So I would love to give you access to some of my Google Classrooms, so you can take a look at what you can do in there. And then maybe we can share the email at the end. So you can sign up, and then look at my classroom, or look at some of the things that are available to the actual website.

Jaemi Naish: And Omar, you mentioned, you're going to be teaching a class-- I don't know if you said tomorrow or later this afternoon. Did I hear that correctly?

Speaker: Yeah, I have my session tomorrow at-- I think it's 8:30. That's when we start. Yeah, it's early in the morning, and it's-- you'll see it on there. It's technology.

And let me pull it up, because I have it on my phone. That was the whole purpose. When I went to my last conference, I just thought how great it is to just have it on your phone and bring it up, so you don't have to deal with the computer. Because sometimes the students won't have a computer, but they will have a phone.

And so it's under enhanced learning, right? So technology-enhanced learning, and it has video links, and all of that. So I'll share that through a QR code. And that way, people can just go to the slides, and they look at the videos, and it's all on their home phone.

Speaker: All right. Sorry. I think one of the things for me, too, is that having the students be able to access some materials. But then, unfortunately, no matter what phone they're on, it's going to be difficult for them to do the work on their phone no matter what. Just the idea of making fillable PDFs was a huge thing, because that wasn't a thing before either. Because of the pandemic, like, that became a thing, too.

So that makes it a little bit easier. But when you're-- when students are on a phone, no matter how big their phone is, it's still-- the texting part of it is difficult. And so, yeah, it's unfortunate that we can give them all the materials.

But I mean, if it's still hard for them to do it online, on their phones, the work that needs to be done-- a lot of mobility.

Speaker: Yeah. Some of the assignments, believe it or not-- I know it sounds old school, but I have them do it on a piece of paper, and take a picture, and send it to me. And I'll just grade it, and circle, and send it back. So I have a lot of pictures of documents with their phone cameras. And a lot of times, it's just reinforcement.

I'm not grading five-paragraph essays, really, but just a follow-up question, or something to keep them engaged.

Jaemi Naish: And also to let them know that you're paying attention, and that what they're doing matters, even if it looks a little different if they're-- I love that. I love that you mentioned that.

Speaker: The process itself, speaking of uploading it is just, I think, teaching them a skill.

Speaker: So definitely maybe what it looks like is you have a two-week preclass session where you teach them how to access Google, and how to copy the code, and how to get that invite. And then you work on those little things, send them some tutorials through an email where you welcome them in a message. And then if you frontload those things, the core of the class will stay on point, knowing that some people are going to come in, because it's open enrollment.

So you kind of have to revisit that section on how you do that prepping session multiple times during your semester. But I don't know. I think it's somewhat doable. I don't have anything else that I would use.

Jaemi Naish: Well, I'm going to-- thank you, Omar, for that. And I'm going to just give a couple of comments that I just am reading in the chat from Arlene, which says that there are times when the phones aren't working also because they have a million things up and open. And so Arlene, which is awesome, has been providing a little bit of guidance on removing some of the apps from their phone, and kind of making less clutter.

And I think that's pretty great as well. And she said something about social media apps being open. And that reminded me that, with COVID, when we were all remote, that WhatsApp was a life-- it was a game-changer for a lot of our students. And it was a way for some of our teachers to reach students, because they were used to WhatsApp. It didn't feel like some brand new thing they didn't know how to use.

So thank you, Arlene, for that. And then-- yeah. Go ahead, sorry.

Speaker: Oh. I was just going to say, if Susan wanted to add to that. I mean, she's our apps queen in ESL. Is there anything else you wanted to--

Speaker: Well, I kind of like Google Forms, because on the phone, it's very clean. The interface is clean. And the students just have-- they have-- there are so many choices that you can do in Google Forms. They can do ranking, and they can do-- I mean, you don't have to do multiple choice. You can do all kinds of questioning on Google Forms.

And the students, it's easy for them to use. I use them with your low beginning students when I was a guest speaker in her class. And we did Google Forms, and they got a certificate after they lose the form. And 17 of our 20 forever students did it.

Jaemi Naish: That's amazing. That's awesome. And I'm going to move us on here, but I did want to just make a reference. I know we don't have site technology plans anymore, but I still do at the adult school. And that's because I really do feel like we need to continue to think about what we want for our students. And for me, it just-- it feels more organized if I do it in a plan.

And I know now we're integrating it into the continuous improvement as well-- plans. But it's something I would encourage everyone to kind of consider, especially if you're an administrative role, or a tech role at your site is really kind of thinking about what your students need, and how do they need these things, right?

We're going to talk about data, I hope, in a little bit. But just holding the idea of the importance of a tech plan at your site, even if you're not required to have one. All right, let me move us on here. Oh, good. See?

We're right on target for data discussion. So one of the things that I think is really important-- and Omar actually highlighted this-- is that we need to continue to understand where our gaps are. What data are we using to determine what areas we need to improve in? And Alisa talked about the WASC process, and we went through that as well. And man, do you have to provide a ton of data for that.

Most of us just did our WIOA application, and heard on that. And so that required a lot of data. If you're involved in your Adult Education Consortium, and you're doing your one-year and three-year plan, that's a lot of data. So how do you use all this information that you collect to improve your programs, and to get the students what they need so that they can be in your classes successfully-- whether on an iPhone, which we know is hard, or in-person, or remote only, or a whole combination of those?

So I'm just wondering, what kind of data do people use to get the information they need to make their programs better?

Speaker: Ellie?

Ellie: And just to get rid of any confusion, there are two people here using my name. But I'm really Ellie. So I'm--

John: I'm really Ellie.

[laughter]

Ellie: So when we came back from COVID, we did do a survey of our students to find out who needed computers and/or hotspots. And then, I'm surprised, we actually followed through, and we hundreds of laptops and hotspots. So they gave the cheapest ones that were 10 years out-of-date, but it's better than nothing.

So I think, at least for that year, we met student technology needs. We're now at the point where there's a new crop of students, and we don't have as many laptops to give out. So I think we need to find a way to keep it ongoing. Another thing we did-- and it was because I complained-- we were so caught by surprise with COVID, as was everybody, that not only the students, but the teachers didn't know what to do to go online.

So when we all came back, they started to go back to business as usual, and I said no. There was-- we had excuse the first time. But if there's another pandemic, or another disaster, we need to be prepared. So we do now offer a digital literacy class for those students who aren't ready for primetime.

But I think we're not pushing enough. I don't think we've identified all the students need it. So it's now more of a-- almost a-- it probably feels to the students like a punishment. They come into the class. They do not know how to open the computer.

They're looking to type in 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, and they find 1. And they're looking around a keyboard for 21. I mean, that level of-- so at that point, we have to divert them. Like, we're singling them out.

And I don't like that. I think that tech literacy should be something we determine when they register. And it should be mandatory so everybody's starting at the same level, and not wait until they're failing three weeks in or until they drop out from frustration.

Jaemi Naish: Oh, I love it you just brought that up. That is so important to recognize starting off, that, one, the world has changed, and the way that we offer instruction. And that's not just not in education, but it's kind of everywhere. It's how we run meetings, and how people can apply for things, and it's changed. It's really changed.

It's not going to go back to non-technology-oriented. It's not. And so if we want to make sure our people have what they need, they need that technology skill-- those skills that you're talking about. One of the things that I want to highlight is this digital literacy guidance.

I can't quite see in the room, but can everybody just either thumbs up, or raise your hand if you've actually taken a moment to look at OTAN's Digital Literacy Guidance Document? It's really good, if you have not-- or if you have. So, not very many people? Is that what I'm sensing? I can't see in the room, and I don't see any hands.

Speaker: Check once.

Jaemi Naish: OK. I will make sure, and if someone could put the link to the guidance in the chat for everybody, that would be great. It's really important to have research to fall on, and other schools who are doing things that you might be able to implement in-- to up your technology game. One of the things that I was just thinking about with the last speaker, or last person that was sharing, was just the importance of a really good orientation.

The importance of, perhaps, providing a technology class out before they even pop into your class. It's something that we've done at Tam Adult that's worked really well in our consortium. We partner with our County Office of Ed who, on behalf of all of the members of the Consortium, provides access to an organization called Tech for Life.

And Tech for Life comes in and offers classes in English and Spanish on Saturdays, if we want it, on about five different areas, all at the beginning level. And it's free for us at the adult school, because it's part of the program area that the County Office supports, and they've been incredible. They've just been incredible. It's been a game-changer.

So we issue students a Chromebook. They bring it in. They have a two-part class on beginning to use Chromebooks, beginner use of Chromebooks. It's either in English or Spanish. They can decide which class they want to take.

They get an email, they understand how to open it. They know how to change the language back and forth, and they look at our website, and a couple of other things. They have hand-held materials to go home with in English or Spanish, and it's just been a game changer for us.

We were doing it before-- not as well, but we were doing it. And it's just one small example of what you can do if you really think about what needs to happen for-- to get your students access. Does anybody else want to talk about what they do, or what they should do, or what they'd like to do? Go ahead, Josh. And sorry if someone in the classroom wants to say something. Please, Alisa, just let me know, or Susan.

Josh: So at our school, the Virtual Academy, we do have a step-class, which is only 12 hours, though. But it's better than nothing. So every new student who wants to take a class at the Virtual Academy must go through the 12-hour program, so that at least they're familiar with their device, with our LMS, and some other technical aspects. However, we really, really could use a more sort of extensive class.

So I was just going to ask you, Jaemi, if it's possible for you to share maybe a course outline, or the website for that class. It would really be great to sort of see how an in-depth class sort of differs from what we're doing.

Jaemi Naish: Yeah. I'm going to just put my email in the chat, and you can email me separately about that. And I am happy to share, secretly, their material. But also reaching out to them would probably be best.

They're up here in Northern Cal, but they might be willing to share their materials more widely. However, I'll say that 12 hours is pretty awesome. That's a good amount of-- that's a good intro prep class, I would think.

Josh: It is, but it does it does cover a lot of other things that aren't necessarily getting them tech-ready. There's we do have to test them for state purposes, and that eats up a big chunk of the time. So the teachers really have to make up a lot of the gaps. So yeah, that's why I'm asking.

Jaemi Naish: And that's just so hard. I mean, teachers have such a hard job as it is, and such limited time with their students. And really, all it takes is one or two people not to really kind of-- to be at a lower level technology-wise, and it just throws off the rest of the class lesson for the day. It's really just tough.

Josh: Exactly.

Jaemi Naish: Well, thank you for bringing that up. Other people? Is there anybody that wants to share what they do at their site, how they collect the data that they use to improve programs, or to create a-- for instance, a professional development calendar, or schedule for your teachers?

Speaker: How about you, John? Corrections-- tell us about corrections.

John: So this is Ellie from corrections.

[laughter]

So, as a public school teacher for many years before I went into corrections, we were always behind. I remember taking memory from two computers and putting into one so we could continue to run, and I think it's going to continue as we go into AI. Don't think data collection has changed all that much, quite frankly.

I think you have hardware, software, and then you have the literacy of both the teacher and the user that we have tried to bring forth. We're preparing two classes that are going to be 10 to 12 hours, basically in the same way you do the English, which is-- or in reading, first you have to learn to read, and then you read to learn.

We're going to have a learning to compute, and then computing to learn courses that we're going to, hopefully, put together, but it's going to take us a year. And that came from what you said, was in a class of either 18 or 27, two to three students that can't use technology will stop the entire process. And I've run into that in my own classroom.

Now that we have one-to-one, which only happened in the last month, I've gone from teaching GED math and GED essay writing back to the basics of computing, dragging, and dropping, logging in, using the calculator on the computers, et cetera. So we in corrections are no different than anybody else. But really, it's both anecdotal.

And then it's empirical data that has to become-- it has to come from the same categories. Right now, everybody is saying, oh, this is new, this is new, this is new. This is not new. It used to be PowerPoints. You put together a PowerPoint, that was one year's worth of lesson plans. Then next year, you change the dates. And then after the class, you would remediate or accelerate, depending on your students.

This is very similar. Canvas is just a much nicer version of PowerPoint. But you used to be able to drop in videos in PowerPoint, used to be able to-- well, you still can. And you used to be able to drop in pictures. And then in Excel, you used to be able to do a lot of interactive work.

OK. So that's one out of 25 to 30 teachers that would do that. The COVID changed everything, and my son and my daughter-in-law are both educators in the Redding area. And we in corrections sent everybody home when they had to still teach and figure it all out.

My daughter-in-law is a second grade teacher, which is herding cats when you're in a classroom. And then she was herding cats when she was teaching them all to use technology. And it was so inspirational, and fun to watch, and it gave me a lot of ideas that, when we were allowed to go back into the prison setting, we, at our site, instituted some of what she had to do, which was-- again, it was learning to compute way before.

I mean, there's so many little steps that get missed, and then it changes. So you are right now on a cusp of a huge tidal wave of change. I've had 15 conversations here with educators and administrators who are now working part time from home, part time in a classroom. Students are part time from home, part time in a classroom. And that changes your discipline structure.

That changes the organic classroom nature, and the synergy that you can sometimes get in face-to-face. I haven't seen that come really to fruition in a Zoom setting. I don't see a lot of woo, woo at the end, man. We learned something. It was hands-on.

My son happens to be a physical education teacher. And I was talking about standards, and he was having them do push-ups. And he wanted to do 25 for each of five weeks for the semester-- that was Zoom-- or for the quarter, excuse me. And then there was one student, and I was watching him. And he said, look, I guess if you can do 125 right now. You have met the standard.

[laughter]

So the kid banged out 225 push-ups right there. He got his standard that he met. So I think when we look at our ability to gather information, hardware, software, teachers, students-- and I think that we can create rubrics here at OTAN, and in these digital symposiums, that will guide the future. So that's my two cents' worth.

Jaemi Naish: And I will thank you for that, and I will kind of-- because your last point just reminded me, again, just to check out this Digital Literacy Guidance. Not only does it have really good information, but it has agencies that are doing different things. And I love that you brought up your daughter, and what she was doing, and using some of what-- the good stuff that she has done, and learning how to kind of bring it to your population, which is really different than what a lot of us have experience with. So thank you for sharing that.

John: And the link is up.

Jaemi Naish: Oh, good. Thank you. Any other quick share? I'm going to take us to our-- probably our last one or two slides, because we have-- yeah?

Speaker: Just saying real quick. So, going back to WASC, because it was such a thing for us, usually what happens with WASC-- and I'm pretty confident that this happens in a lot of agencies-- you get your WASC visit. And then you build up to you get your WASC visit, and hopefully you get here in six years, and then with a three-year bid review.

And what happens is that three years, nothing's been said, or done, or talked about until almost the time where they're going to come back. And then, all of a sudden, it's like this big crapshoot again to try to get them all up-to-date. So what Garden Grove has done is that we-- cognitively, we meet every other month, specifically for WASC, and we have a living document. And so all the things that are in our action plan.

We go through and we update our action plan every other month with our teachers in the different focus areas so that it's not just this catch-up after three years. It's like, we're documenting all of our data from the get-go, from the time the WASC team left, until the next time they come. And it's just been so much better.

Like, the tension on the teachers is far less, because it's fresh in our minds instead of, like, three years? Like, what did we do the last three years? And trying to make up, or figure out stuff.

Jaemi Naish: And it's not on paper, right? It's in that digital folder that you can refer back to, and add-on. As you said, it's a living document. It's so great.

Speaker: Yeah. I hope that other agencies can-- we all have it in our brains to do it. But it's like cleaning out the closet or whatever it is. You put it off. You put it off. You put it off. But if you really just have a plan to do it, we schedule it every other month. So that's been really helpful for us.

Jaemi Naish: Yeah. That's awesome. All right, I'm going to move us on. We have about six more minutes. I feel like we've gotten through maybe six slides of the 15 I had, which is fine.

I'm going to skip us out. Oh, this is one I really wanted to get to, and this is probably our last one. Who's using Canvas out there?