Speaker 1: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Lori Howard: Welcome, everyone. We're so excited to be with you virtually and in person to the California El Civics Exchange, Accessible Instructional Materials for English Learners. Thank you so much for joining us today this first day of the TDLS. And my name is Lori Howard with CASAS. I'm here today with Portia La Ferla at CASAS, and Anthony Burik also at OTAN, and he's with you there in person. So we go to the next slide.

This is our agenda for today. We're going to do an overview of the El Civics Exchange, then an introduction to the El Civics Exchange website, we're going to tell you how to submit instructional materials and the rubric criteria you need to follow in order to submit appropriate materials, how to make your materials accessible, and how to give them Creative Commons attribution. We're also going to talk a little bit about resources, and then we'll have time for your questions and then a summary of what we've done today. Portia or Anthony, anything else to add to the agenda?

Portia La Ferla: No. I think that's it, Lori.

Lori Howard: So let's go to our objectives on the next slide. Thank you. So by the end of this session, you'll be able to identify the organization of the El Civics Exchange website, and identify the process of accessing and submitting instructional materials. And we hope you will both access and submit materials. Next slide. So now it's time for the overview, and Portia is going to do the overview for us today. Thank you, Portia.

Portia La Ferla: Thank you, Lori. So let's start with what the El Civics Exchange is. It's a repository for original materials that have been created by the California WIOA II agencies. And through this site, we're offering a repository for all of these great materials that agencies have been creating. And anybody can go to the site and use these materials, anybody anywhere. But only California WIOA II agencies can submit them.

And this has been a joint collaborative process between CASAS and OTAN, and it was funded by the Department of Ed. Next slide. So the El Civics-- the ability to share El Civics materials has been long requested by agencies. It takes a long time to create good and quality instruction instructional materials. And people wanted the ability to borrow and share so that they don't have to invent them every single time.

In the past, we weren't able to do that because we didn't have a method for vetting and posting the materials. We do believe that agencies should have access to quality materials. And so now, we have a system that will make them available to all. And we are only able to do that with the help of the CDE and in collaboration between CASAS and OTAN.

And through the submission process, there are two kinds of evaluation that will happen. First, CASAS is going to evaluate the materials for the quality of the content, and then OTAN is going to check to make sure that everything that gets posted to the site is accessible to all. And we hope that whether or not you use the materials, as you check them out, you'll use them at least for inspiration.

Maybe you'll find other approaches that you haven't thought about and maybe you'll vary your instruction and create better materials for your own students. But we do hope that as you create materials, you will consider submitting them to the Exchange and making them available to your colleagues as many generous-- many of our generous schools have already done. And next slide.

So this site is only for instructional materials that teach El Civics content to English language learners. And it is all related to the California El Civics objectives, and the language and learning objectives. So they should match whatever you're doing for your COAAPs. And the materials that you can contribute-- when people contribute to these materials, they could be for all of a unit, all 30 hours of instruction, or they might just be practice for one task. That's up to the submitter.

You can only submit materials and you can only access materials on the site. There are no assessments posted because in California, these tests are high stakes and people earn payment points for them. So we can't put them out on the internet where anybody can view them. And another caveat is that the materials must be original and not copyrighted. And then they need to be licensed by Creative Commons. And I think Anthony is going to tell us a little bit about-- more about that later on.

But it tells us how the user can-- whether the user can adapt the materials and give credit or what the conditions for use are. And then the other criteria is that the materials have to be 508 compliant so that they're accessible. And a lot of you are already making your materials accessible, but some of you are not as familiar with that. Margaret and I will be doing another session tomorrow and give you some pointers on how to do that. And the next slide, Anthony. Thank you.

If you submit the materials, they're going to go through a two-step review process. So first, CASAS is going to use a rubric, which I'll be showing you later, and that rubric is for the quality of the instructional materials. So we'll look at the presentation and the practice, how the COAAP is taught, and whether or not you've licensed it with Creative Commons.

And then after that, the materials go to OTAN, and OTAN will evaluate them through an accessibility check to make sure that that's OK. When you submit materials, you give us an email. And so we can use that to contact you in case there are any issues with content or accessibility that we need to help you remediate. Once the materials pass both those checks, they become available to everybody on the EL Civics website. Any questions about that part of it before I turn it over to Lori?

Anthony Burik: Do we have any online questions on the chat?

Lori Howard: Next slide.

Portia La Ferla: Over to you, Lori.

Lori Howard: Thank you. So now we're going to give you an introduction to the website, and we're going to do this in a static way just showing you some slides. But then Anthony is going to take you to the actual website. So Anthony, next slide, please. So this is what-- if you log on to elcivics.otan.us, you will enter this page. And it starts with a description of what the El Civics Exchange is.

And on the left hand side, you have a menu of the different topic areas for collapse. Next slide. When you scroll down a little bit, you see those topic areas in visual format. And you can see here that we have two active materials in community resources, five in health, three in employment, one in government in law, and three in workforce training.

We're missing some in consumer economics and transition, and we're going to be asking you later to perhaps submit in those areas. But we do have various materials ready for you to access. Next slide. And these are the materials, and you can see not only the COAAP number that you're familiar with and the tasks and the levels, but the school that submitted them.

So we're so pleased and proud of these schools who took the time to submit their materials to be available to everyone in the state and beyond the state, people who are interested in teaching either the COAAPs or these El Civics topics. So we have 14 different materials ready for you. Some of them are teachers guides. Most of them are student materials ready for you to use. Next slide.

And we just want to tell you how the El Civics Exchange has been used. You can see that from December through January, for a little bit more than a month, there were 309 downloads of materials. That's what's happening now. But you can see that in September, at the beginning of the school year, there were a lot more, almost 200 more downloads of material. So we've had a lot of people downloading the materials.

In total 300-- almost 4,000 total downloads since we opened it up in March of 22 through the end of January. And then we've had over the year and a little bit almost 5,000 visits, and 1,000 unique visitors. So those people who are coming to the site are coming back again hopefully because they've found the materials useful to them. And we hope you'll be one of these statistics soon if you haven't already. Next slide. So your turn, Anthony. Now, Anthony is going to show you the live site.

Anthony Burik: OK. Thank you, Lori and Portia. So I'm going to escape out of our PowerPoints and-- one second. Zoom is in the way. OK. So I want to show people a live view of the El Civics Exchange. Again, the address is elcivics.otan.us. And when you type that in, you're going to come to our main homepage for the El Civics Exchange.

As Lori said, at the very top of the page, you'll get an introduction to the Exchange, a little bit of information about the materials, how they are organized, and then you can start your search. So I think one of the things that we mentioned is that anybody can come to the Exchange site and access the materials.

So whether you're in California, if you're outside of California, if you're currently working as the El Exchange-- El Civics Exchange person at your agency, if you're assisting with El Civic at your agency. Anybody can come to the site and access the materials, OK? So we'll show you how that works. As Lori mentioned, here on the left hand side of the screen-- let me click onto the screen here.

On the left-- and it's not-- OK, so we move here. On the left hand side of the screen, we have this menu where you can see the seven categories which are used to organize the COAAPs. So if you're doing El Civics at your agency, you should be pretty familiar with the categories here. In other states, you may have the same similar-- you may have a similar list of categories.

They maybe slightly different, but hopefully, the topics will match up with what you're doing in your state. A little bit later, we're going to talk about how to submit materials to the Exchange. And your starting point will be the blue button that you see here that says Begin the Instructional Materials Submission Process. Again, Lori and Portia are going to talk about that in a little bit.

So again, as you're scrolling down the page, you'll see those categories, again, in tile format, and you're able to click on any of the tiles in order to see the active materials within that category. We scroll down a little bit more. Back on the left hand side of the screen, you'll see actually a search-- our search feature here. So you're able to search by levels.

You can also do a keyword search as well. So if you're looking for a particular topic like DMV or employment, you can also search by that. And then actually, if you know-- you can check and see if the civic objective, or the COAAP number is included in the Exchange so far. So if you have the specific number, you can also type that in and do a search for that.

And then you can-- these boxes are clickable, so you can go back and forth between different levels, see what might be available on the Exchange as well. So I think that's pretty much the live view of the home page here. Are there any questions so far? Any questions online? Do you have any questions online? OK.

So I think what we wanted to do next-- let me go back to the presentation, is-- let me just go back to where it's 1. OK. So now, we wanted to give you a few minutes to do-- search the site on your own. Lori and Portia are available for our online participants, and I'll be here in the room for a few minutes. So maybe we'll give you about five minutes or so just to explore around the site.

See if you find the material that might be of interest to you or something that you're currently working on at your agency, and see what kinds of materials folks have submitted for the COAAPs. OK. So we'll give people about five minutes to do a little searching on their own. So we have a few questions here on the screen or maybe people can just give us their general impressions of the Exchange so far. Any comments, questions, ideas, suggestions.

Speaker 2: So I found it really easy to use. I remember looking at EL Civics 20 years back and was out of the loop current. So looking at this and what's available, it's zero available on some of them because I know it still exists.

Anthony Burik: Correct.

Speaker 2: [ INAUDIBLE ] but the material is very easy to click quickly through it.

Anthony Burik: OK. Did online folks hear that from Lilia?

Lori Howard: It was a little muffled for me.

Anthony Burik: OK. So Lilia was saying that it looks like it's pretty easy to navigate around the site and find the materials that are available on the Exchange.

Lori Howard: Thank you.

Anthony Burik: OK. Are there questions? Or anybody online, if you want to share your impressions as well.

Speaker 3: I just wanted to ask again-- I think I heard you say that we could use a portion of it. We don't have to sign up for the whole packet, for example, if there's just one exercise that supports a task that we would like to use. Is that true? It's not all or nothing.

Anthony Burik: Right. Yeah, Lynne. So if you find the material on the Exchange, it's up to you whatever portion of it you would like to use. If you'd like to use the whole thing, that's fine. If you want to use just the portion that would apply to what you're doing at your agency, you can do that as well. So really, you can use the materials as much or as little as you would like.

Speaker 3: Excellent. Thank you.

Anthony Burik: Sure.

Portia La Ferla: And that's true for submission too. Maybe you just have one really good-- you have curriculum-- really good curriculum for creating a job application. That's the only thing you want to submit. You can also submit portions of curricula. You do not have to submit an entire unit of instruction.

Lori Howard: And just to say-- and we're going to talk about this later, but since they're all Creative Commons licensed, the Creative Commons license allows you to adjust and adapt-- take a piece of it. And then just if you're handing it out or printing it out, then you would just show that-- give credit to the agency who originally developed it if you make any changes to it.

Anthony Burik: Other-- yeah. Ryan, please.

Speaker 4: I did like that you added the Resources tab to help out with the disability restrictions.

Anthony Burik: OK.

Lori Howard: We're not hearing that, Anthony.

Anthony Burik: OK. So Ryan said, he really liked the Resources tab that has more information about accessibility in particular, but some of the other things that are related to the website. And we'll talk about the Resources tab it a little bit as well. OK. So why don't we continue. We're going to move on to talking about how to actually submit materials to the Exchange. Let me move to the slides. OK.

Portia La Ferla: OK. So I'm going to take you to a live submission in a moment, but I just want to cover a couple of things beforehand. Well, yeah, let's go to the site. So Anthony, I'm going to go ahead and share my screen. All good?

Lori Howard: Yes.

Portia La Ferla: OK. So here, we are on the El Civics website, and there's all of this information here that you should definitely read through. And then when you go to submit, you're going to use this button that says, Begin the Instructional Material Submission Process. I have to go through a back door because I have more access than you do. But anyway, you come to this page, and there are a few things here that are super important. So you really need to read through this information.

Remember that only California WIOA II agencies can submit materials. And so in order to submit, you have to create a password. You do not need a password to use the materials. You only need the password to submit. And we use that to make sure that you're a part of a WIOA II agency, and also so that we can contact you in case, we have any questions or in case there are any issues with the materials.

Before you start, you should read the terms of licensing requirements. And it's directly here. It tells us just the same things that we covered earlier, that you can only submit non copyrighted materials. They must be original. Only WIOA II agencies can submit them. We ask that you submit them in Microsoft Word format or PowerPoint or something like that because of accessibility issues. That's just recommended.

We may be able to deal with other formats, but it is recommended, and we'll talk about that. It has a lot to do with the Microsoft accessibility tools that make it much easier to submit accessible resources. And also, you need to discuss this with your administrator. Make sure that you have permission to submit before you do that.

And then the other issue is about making sure that you have licensed your materials under Creative Commons, and there'll be more to come on that. I know when we say license under Creative Commons, if you haven't done that before it might sound daunting, but it's a very, very simple process. And then we're going to go back to the submission page.

So again, make sure that you have discussed it with your administrator and have permission. When you submit the materials, we ask that you submit them in level packets and not by sheet because it's just cumbersome for you to upload and it's cumbersome for us to review and for the user to use. So I'm going to show you an example of what that looks like.

In this one, we have 48.1 submitted. And if you look at the documents here, there's student practice packets. They have submitted it to tasks at a time in a student practice packet. You might do that differently. You might submit task 1 student packet, task 2 student packet, but it's not sheet by sheet. They are in packets. And that just makes it easier for everybody to use. OK.

And then it gives desired formats. There here. Notice, you can use images, and the document size should not be any larger than 110 megabytes. If these things do not seem possible, you have some an exception, you can run it by us or run it by OTAN. Sometimes we can accommodate differences in file types and file sizes. And then we're going to continue to the submission page.

I don't think I talked about the scoring rubric. I'm going to go to Resources here, and there is a scoring rubric. Just got to find it. How I got here. Sorry about that.

Lori Howard: Right there under submitting, yeah.

Anthony Burik: Yeah.

Portia La Ferla: In this one, right?

Lori Howard: Yes, I think.

Portia La Ferla: There it is. Sorry about that. That's what I skipped. I think it's not going to share properly though. Let me just share that. That's why I gave you the PowerPoint, Anthony.

[laughter]

So this is the criteria that is used to evaluate the materials, and there are several areas, including content and presentation and practice organizations. So we're going to look at all of those things. If these are student materials, do they have enough practice? Do they have vocabulary at the right level? If they're teacher materials, is there enough information for the teacher to be able to use the materials?

And if there are no teacher materials, is there enough information for the student to be able to know how to use them? Are they well organized? Are there clear objectives? And on the page, for example, design and format. Is the page properly formatted for the student level? So is there enough white space. If you're asking them to answer questions, is there space for them to do that? You can look at the font size. Nothing should be smaller than a 12 point font.

And then also just to make sure that the materials are properly credited to the agency on the Footer or the header, and that the Creative Commons licensing is there. And so in all of these criteria, it's within the submission process. The materials have to pass the majority of those things. I'm going to go back to the site. And sorry for skipping around there.

So then when we get to the material submission, I'm going to click on that button, and this is the form that you're going to fill out. It's a two page form, and it starts with your name, your agency, and the fiscal year in which the materials were created. I'm going to put 2022. We hope that you'll be willing to be contacted by other agencies in case they have questions about your assessments, and you must agree to the terms of licensing and conditions.

And then this is all automatic. If you select your COAAP number, this system will fill in the competency area and the civic objective. So for example, I'm going to use 47.1. Notice there's a dropdown. They're all there. You don't even have to invent them, they're right there. And when I enter that I get-- well, that's not the right one. I've got to get the right one. There it is. I get community resources, and it's about internet safety.

For the COAAP task titles and all of the information that we're putting in here, it's to help with search. So in this case, the example, it says task 1, interpret job openings. Task 2, role play a job interview. In this case, I'm going to submit materials for 47.1, and I'm going to put them in for task 1.

And if I look that up in the COAAP system, that task is identify internet uses. And that's just the task title. If you look at El Civics materials, it's there. You don't have to create that. And then in this case, eventually, I'm going to upload materials for all levels. Not now, but eventually. And my materials are written, so I'll check written.

And I'm going to do a student packet. And my materials have print and visuals. If there's something that I want to tell the reviewer, I can put that information in this box, and that material will go-- that information will go through to the reviewer. So once I've completed the form, I hit Save and Continue, and now you can see all that information populates here.

So it's me. It's the year. My COAAP is here. My COAAP task is here. And now, I'm going to add the materials. So it gives you very clear instructions about how you are going to label the materials. In this case, we want the COAAP number, the level to levels, the task number, and the type of materials such as student practice packet. And notice, everything is separated by commas.

So in this case, my materials are going to be for 47.1, and it's a beginning low, beginning high task 1 student package. And then my file is going to be named in the same way. Notice here, material files should match. And this time instead of using commas, we're going to use underscores. And so then I'm going to choose my file. And here it is labeled in the same way with the underscores, and I'm going to upload it. And if I come here, there is my material.

If later on I want to delete it, I can delete it here. And if I have four or five files and I don't the order of the file because the way that you order them here is how they're going to appear, I can use this to drag them to a different order before submitting. Once I'm happy with my materials, I will submit the materials for review. Oh, I'm sorry, I can keep adding materials. I only put this one task 1 here. But if I wanted to put all the tasks, all the levels, I would just keep adding materials until I had all of them and then I would submit material for review.

Lori Howard: Can I just say, we'd like you to add them all at once. Or if you do want to wait and add more later, let us know so we can give you an edit version so they can all be in one place. It's easier for people to access it if it's all in one place.

Portia La Ferla: Yes. It's best to upload them all before you hit Submit material for review. Any questions before I submit my materials for review?

[side conversation]

Anthony Burik: OK, thanks. No, we're good, Portia. Thank you.

Portia La Ferla: All right. There they go. So that's been submitted, and now it's waiting for CASAS review. And after that, it will go to OTAN review.

Speaker 5: How long does that process usually take?

Anthony Burik: So Portia, the question is, how long does that process usually take?

Portia La Ferla: It depends on how hard they are to review. Some of them are really great and they fly through, and others need a little bit of remediating. So we don't sit on them, but some are harder to review than others.

Lori Howard: And we are given-- we are sent an email. As soon as you submit, we are sent an email that it's there. So we will try to look at it within the next couple of days and then review it as soon as we can.

Portia La Ferla: And if it's one file, that's very different from 10 or 12 files.

Anthony Burik: All right. OK. Thank you, Portia.

Portia La Ferla: Should I stop sharing, Anthony? Good to go back?

Anthony Burik: Sure. Yeah. Other questions about the submission process? OK. All right. Let's go back to slides. I just covered this. All right. Yeah. This was the rubric criteria that Portia showed us already, and this is also available on the Resources-- under the Resources tab on the Exchange. We went live. Oh, that last one was just make sure-- the first thing is to make sure, if you are going to submit materials, that you do create an account on the Exchange.

So again, just to be clear, anybody can come to the Exchange and access the materials that are already there. You don't need to create an account for that purpose. If you do want to submit materials though, you do need to create your account first and then you'll be able to go ahead and begin submitting. OK. So let's talk a minute or two about a couple of the criteria that Lori and Portia mentioned earlier. One is about accessibility, and then the second question is about licensing. OK. So first we're going to talk about accessibility.

So we know that a lot of folks still are learning about how to make materials accessible, in this case, for the El Civics Exchange, but also actually just in general for any kind of materials that you create for student use at your agency, materials that you create for your staff as well, for your colleagues too.

So really, the goal is for all of us to begin making our materials accessible. So on the OTAN website, we actually have a page devoted to accessibility resources. So we encourage folks to check that out. Some of the materials that we have at the very beginning of the page are some guides, how to begin to make your materials accessible.

So what are some of the things that you have to consider if you're creating a Microsoft Word document? What are some of the things that you have to consider if you're making a Microsoft PowerPoint? All right? And so our guides cover the big topics that you need to consider when you're starting to create those materials.

And as Lori and Portia mentioned earlier, one of our sessions tomorrow actually is devoted how to begin to make your materials accessible. So that would be a good session to attend if you're interested in learning more about that. But otherwise, on the OTAN website, we do have a lot of resources about accessibility. It's a very big topic.

Some people are a little bit daunted by the fact that they would like to make their materials accessible, but it seems very-- like a very big hill to climb. But step by step, we really-- both on the CASAS end and on the OTAN end, we really want to help you get started with getting your materials accessible.

We tend to find that actually rather than going back to older materials and trying to make them accessible because they weren't originally made accessible, that's a little bit more difficult than starting from scratch. So think about some of the new COAAPs that you're using at your agency maybe this year. And with the new materials that you're developing, start from scratch and build those materials accessible right from the beginning.

That's going to be a lot easier when it comes to the review process to make sure that they're actually accessible and ready to put on the Exchange. OK. But otherwise, on the OTAN website, we do have a lot of resources for you to take a look at that cover many different accessibility topics. OK. Any concerns about accessibility either online or in the room? Any questions so far about that? OK.

The other criteria to be aware of when submitting materials to the Exchange has to do with licensing your materials. So we know that over the years, agencies have been sharing materials back and forth with one another, but we want to make that process more official. And one of the ways to do that is to actually license your materials.

We follow the licensing format of Creative Commons. So if you're familiar with the organization Creative Commons, they have a very robust licensing process, a licensing framework. So a couple of things about licensing. Really, we want to be able for you all to share your materials with other agencies across the state and across the US as well.

And so the way to do that is to license the materials. So basically, the license gives other people the permission to use the materials that they find on the Exchange and make them their own back at their agency, OK? So as the slide shows, really, what we're trying to do is make these resources available for you to use, but with the understanding about how to use them based on the license. That's what the Creative Commons licensing is for.

Again, as we've been talking about, the materials that you create at your agency are original materials. So you're not using copyrighted materials, you're not photocopying pages from textbooks and including them in the packets, things like that. So we're really-- it's important for you at your agency to be creating original materials, OK?

And that's not to say that you can't use things that you find online, but there are ways to make those things understood that you're using them in the right way, OK? So for example, if you go to a picture sharing site like Pixabay or Pexels for example, those sites it's very clear about how you can use those pictures.

And very often, the creators of those photos have given you the permission to use them in your material. Sometimes you have to credit the photographer, for example. But it's very clear how you can use those materials in your creation and your materials back at your agency, OK?

So we're really hoping for no more copyrighted material showing up in El Civics materials. That's the goal. And hopefully, with the understanding of how to properly license materials. OK. This is the license that we use from Creative Commons. So it's CC BY and NCSA. So basically, the different components of this license give you the ability to use the materials that you find on the Exchange.

You can make some changes to them. You can't turn them into commercial materials. So nobody's getting rich off of EL Civics, OK? And you want to make sure that you give credit to the original creator. So if I work at Chula Vista-- if I work for a Sweetwater Adult and I'm using materials from my friends at Torrance Adult, so when I create my Sweetwater materials, I'm giving credit to Torrance Adult because that's where I found the original creation, OK?

I'm taking it and remixing it for my own use, but I want to give the original credit back to Torrance because they were the ones who first created the materials, and now I'm using them at my agency in my own particular way, OK? And so basically what we're asking you to do is to add this particular license to your materials that you create. Basically, all you have to do is copy that license, that graphic that you see, make sure that it's added to your materials, and it's clear that this is the license for these materials specifically. All right.

We do have some-- oh. OK. We do have some additional resources that you can take a look at that give you more information about the licensing process, what it means, making sure you're not using copyrighted materials, so on and so on. And I will say-- I forgot to say at the beginning, we can make these slides available to you when-- we'll put the link to in the chat and you can take a look at them at your leisure. OK. Portia, Lori, any questions or any additional comments?

Portia La Ferla: Just a little comment on accessibility and making accessible documents. It's like many other things. When you first start out, it's like when you're learning a musical instrument. The beginning is really hard and then it gets easier. But there are little things that you can learn pretty easily, and then it's like a puzzle and it's fun. So Margaret Teske and I are going to be showing how to do that through word and PowerPoint tomorrow at 9:50.

And I'm going to show you a couple of documents side by side, one that's accessible and one that's not, and what I did to make that document accessible. Because that's what helped me the most when somebody showed me. So if you're interested, it is a lot, what we should all be doing with all our documents. We'll try to demystify some of it. And hopefully, you'll think it's fun to in the end.

Lori Howard: And it's important for our students as well as our fellow teachers that the materials are accessible that people who have hearing impairment or visual impairment can access our materials. And so making them accessible is very important. And we're here to help you also. As Anthony said, creating them from the beginning using an accessible template really helps.

So we're showing you right here the Civics Exchange resources that you can access by that little resources label up at the top of the page here. And if you press on that, you'll get to this page. And one of the things that we developed or I should say OTAN developed-- is it here? I'm not sure. There is a 10 point accessibility.

Oh, I think it's under the-- you can't see it, but it says, creating accessible materials, the third large heading there. There is a document that Penny Pierson and David Espinoza created 10 things to think about to create accessible documents. I'm sure Portia will be sharing that tomorrow at her session. And it's just 10 things that you go, oh, OK, I can do that.

One of them is not using tables. So many of us teachers think tables are so easy to use. And we put in a table and we make a list in a table, and that's not accessible. So we want to encourage you not to do that. So something as simple as that, starting out by not using tables, will really help the accessibility of your document. So again, Anthony showed you accessibility resources here on the Exchange. You have a lot of different resources getting started. Submitting the instructional materials, the rubric is here, and then some documents about creating accessible materials. Next slide.

Anthony Burik: And actually, Lori, if I could. So just back to our keynote speaker this morning, Dr. Betters, who was basically talking about equity. And so we know that some of our students will need support in different ways. And as Lori and Portia have been pointing out, for those folks who may have visual impairments or whatever or other impairments, so really, we're developing the materials in that spirit. We want to make sure that everybody is able to access our materials. And we often find that sometimes when we do it for some people, we do it for everybody. So that's really the goal with making the materials accessible and really addressing that equity issue. So I just wanted to point that out.

Lori Howard: And we don't want to have to ask people-- some people say, well, none of my students have visual impairment, but we don't really know that and we don't people aren't required to tell us that they have impairments. And so that's why we want to make them accessible. I also want to point out that all of the materials you're creating, you're being paid through WIOA II funds and federal funding.

And so these materials that you're creating at your sites really belong to the public domain because they're funded through federal funds. So we hope that you'll feel generous to share them because they were funded through federal funds. And we asked that you ask permission of your agency just so that they know you're doing it, but not that the materials necessary belong to the agency. They really belong to the state of California because they're funded through these funds-- funneled through the state of California. Next slide.

So we do want you to submit. We're very anxious for you to submit. So I've made this list here of the most used COAAPs. We want to at least have the most used COAAPs there for everyone to use because it impacts most agencies. So we have-- all of these are currently represented except for the most used, 1.6 and 52.2.

If you happen to have materials or about to develop materials in 1.6 or 52.2, we're really anxious to get materials in those areas so that we can have something in community resources and something in transition. And so even if you're not creating them new, if you have them and you think they could be made accessible, we'd like to help you do that because we want to fill and have all the materials that are most used represented, and then any other ones that people want to submit.

So the reason to do this is to share your great materials with your colleagues. We know you've worked hard on them, and we want others to benefit from your hard work. We thank all of you. Torrance Ryan is there. Torrance Adult School has been very generous in what they've shared. And just before the El Civics Exchange was there, but also now that it is there, we would love to have everyone's materials there.

You're contributing to the field. And as you develop your new materials, we hope you'll look to see what has been approved online so that you'll look at the Exchange and see the good model that we have there. One of the reasons to have the El Civics Exchange is to show a model of good print materials.

And then you can also look at the rubric to see what the material should include. So this is a good model of good lesson planning, for example. And that again, we want you to make your materials accessible for the benefit of your students and your fellow teachers. And we are here to help you. So we will help you with support and review and advice about making it accessible about Creative Commons and about your content.

So we ask you to submit your instructional materials at elcivics.otan.us. You might want to run it by one of us first. Portia and I and Margaret Teske do the content review, and then it gets moved on to OTAN for the accessibility and Creative Commons review. So if you have content questions, you want to show it to us first before you actually upload it, we'd be happy to look at it.

And remember, it's California WIOA II agencies only who can submit. Any questions about that? Next slide. So we'd love your feedback. Would anybody like to share either on chat or in the room what your reaction to the EL Civics Exchange and if you plan to access or submit materials, and what assistance or training you might need? Anthony, can you call on people there in the room?

Anthony Burik: Does anybody have any feedback for us?

Speaker 6: This is new. This is recently this year. When was it produced because it wasn't--

Anthony Burik: Yeah.

Speaker 6: Yeah.

Anthony Burik: So the question is about when the Exchange actually began. So it actually-- yeah, it actually began in the middle of the pandemic.

Speaker 6: Oh, OK

Anthony Burik: So it started in July 2021. I believe we actually we had a session at CASAS Summer Institute that year online. So it's actually-- we're coming up on two years of the Exchange.

Speaker 6: OK. But this is the first-- well, I mean, [ INAUDIBLE ] already public, but this is the first time that all the schools are finding out about it so that they can put some--

Anthony Burik: Well, actually, Lori or Portia, do you want to talk about-- because I know in your network meetings, you've been talking about the Exchange. What have you been telling folks in the Network meetings over the years?

Lori Howard: Yeah. I mean, we've been encouraging them. I think during the pandemic, it was an especially difficult time for people to find time to do this because they were so burdened with other things. So I think it's been a slow start because of the pandemic. But as you say, we're encouraging people as they create new materials, they should be making them accessible anyways. And so if they're doing that, they might as well be submitting.

And as I said, we're here to help you do that. A number of agencies are writing new COAAPs or revising COAAPs. So we are encouraging them as they develop these new materials to do it. We're all very busy, but we hope you'll take the time to do this. And we can assist you. So if you have materials, contact us and will help you.

Portia La Ferla: We're really gone out looking for curriculum for the most used COAAPs. And we're just hoping that as-- that this will be like the snowball rolling down the hill. And that as people find things, they'll be more willing to submit things. Because we know there are things out there that we don't know anything about, and we would love to find out about them and have you submit them.

Anthony Burik: All right.

Speaker 4: OK. So just to clarify, we can submit materials that are right and wrong and get approved, and then OTAN will help us make them accessible?

Anthony Burik: OK. So folks online, so that the Ryan's question was, they can submit the materials as is, they may have some errors. But once they're submitted, what does-- what will CASAS and OTAN do in terms of helping to correct those errors? What's the what's the review process? How do we go about working with agencies when materials come in for submission.

Lori Howard: So do you mean errors-- what kind of errors are you talking about, Ryan?

Speaker 4: I'm talking about accessibility, making it 508 compliant.

Lori Howard: I didn't hear that. I'm sorry.

Portia La Ferla: He wants to know about if the materials are not completely accessible, will OTAN or CASAS take care of that?

Lori Howard: We would prefer that you did it, but we will-- especially if it's one of the most-- the necessary one, the ones that we want that are the most used, we will help you do that. And we can certainly give you advice on it. I mean, I think the best-- if you have questions Ryan, if you can-- let's send the materials to us before you actually go through the submission process and let's look at how accessible they are.

And well, one thing is, do you know how to run an Accessibility Checker? That's one of the things I think Portia is going to be doing tomorrow. But that would be to see if it's onerous, it might be too much for us to take on. But if it's close to being accessible, we could help you with that.

Anthony Burik: Yeah. I would say you're right, Lori. So oftentimes, the issue is, folks don't even know how to get started to check the materials for accessibility where the accessibility errors may lie. So we certainly-- yeah. The goal is to get as many materials onto the Exchange as possible.

So whether it's CASAS helping out and/or OTAN helping out to make them accessible, make sure they're licensed properly, CASAS doing their content review. We're invested in this process to get things onto the Exchange. So wherever the-- not errors. Wherever the issues may lie, we want to help take a look at that and remediate to the extent that we can. So very good question. [ INAUDIBLE ]

Speaker 7: Hi, Lori, Barry here. I know that LA Unified Adult has been making EL Civic materials quite a lot over the last several years. But I have no way of knowing really if people in central office are contributing anything to the Exchange. I mean, would off the top of your head and has there been cooperation and participation with any particular school district or-- I mean, maybe all I have to do is send an email to somebody and say, hey, you really should be involved in doing this or--