OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Hi. My name is Jennifer Gagliardi. I am an ESL and citizenship prep teacher at Milpitas Adult School, which is very close to San Jose. I just got the position of being a moderator for the civics education and citizenship group for lincs.ed.gov. If anybody has any special requests, please put it in the chat. Or if you have any questions during my presentation, please feel free to interrupt.

So I wanted to start off this presentation with the Jack London tree from Oakland. So that was a tree that would greet you as you would come out of the Bart Station in Oakland and on your way to CCAE. We are going to identify the latest resources related to civics engagement, US history, government, and citizenship in adult education and immigrant integration programs.

By adapting and incorporating these digital resources, participants will be able to implement learning strategies appropriate for EL Civics, citizenship prep, GED/HiSet online classes, blended learning, distance learning environments, or directed self-study.

I would like to talk a little bit about my ESL class. Of course, we follow classes. And we incorporate civics by having co-ops, doing co-ops in our ESL classes. Also, I teach a citizenship class that was originally in the classroom but has now been transitioned to distance learning because of COVID-19 and because we have a teacher shortage in Northern California. And we hope to return to the classroom soon.

So the first thing I would like to talk for, I wanted to talk about the way forward in citizenship. And most of today will be focusing on citizenship. So if you have something specifically about civics, please put that in the chat. I'm going to talk about the test redesign for the USCIS citizenship interview process.

So we have the website here for the naturalization test redesign development website. And all these slides will be available later for you to use, and to download, and to use yourself. They're basically putting out or testing two possible redesigns. The first one is a multiple choice test. Civics test. They're going to taper from a battery of 125 civics questions. And they're very similar to the citizenship questions on the 2008 civics test.

They're going to be delivered on a computer. So as opposed to when a student or applicant goes to their citizenship interview now, the USCIS officer asks the questions, and the student or applicant responds to those questions. During this pilot, they're going to be delivering the civics questions by computer. There's going to be 10 questions. It's going to be pull from that battery of 125 civics questions. There's going to be four answer choices. And they're not going to do anything like answer A and B are correct. Or all of the above or none of the above. So there is a specific correct answer.

The second thing that they're going to be talking about, I'm going to spend more of my time talking about this, is a standardized picture-based speaking test that are going to show things from daily routines, whether food and shopping. And it's similar to the Best Plus 2.0 or the TOEIC Bridge test. And the prompt is basically tell me about this picture. And it's scored on how well they incorporate vocabulary and phrases.

So here is the original picture that they were showing. They were showing a woman and a girl cooking. A lot of people assume that instead of a mother-daughter relationship, this was a grandmother and granddaughter relationship. And people were having concerns because it's like, hey, there's nothing about grandparents or grandchildren in the citizenship test. But again, people would be asked to describe it.

Now, so that was an old picture that USCIS was showing. This is one of the new ones that they're showing. And again, there's describe the picture above. Who is in the picture? Where are they? What are they doing? And think about your answer for 20 seconds. So here is more identifiable. You probably have a father and a son. You have more specific directions or more direction about how a person should respond to this.

So when they're delivering this part of the test, again, this will be done by computer. During the pilot, the person will be seeing this picture. They will be seeing the directions. However, they're going to record the voice response to the test. So if you're delivering this test or doing the pilot of this test, you're going to need to have a computer like a Chromebook or even an iPad. You're going to need to be able to record the voice, and they also want to have a camera on the person while they're doing the test.

So participating institutions will be provided with a full bank of multiple choice civics test, questions, correct answers, and educational resources. So our school has, I signed up for the test. We've identified two groups. We're going to try to have approximately 50 students take the speaking test and perhaps 10 students take the civics test.

We have not received these educational resources yet. Those educational resources, we've been invited to participate in another webinar or orientation center session next Friday. So we're expecting to receive those educational resources very soon after that.

Speaker 2: Jennifer, we have a question in the chat.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Please.

Speaker 3: Hi. Jane here from Hesperia Adult School.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Hi.

Speaker 3: In forward thinking with the speaking portion of this exam. We usually do this in a test center with 20, 22 students at a time. Do you have any recommendations on how to do the speaking portion with a large group?

Jennifer Gagliardi: I don't see what the problem is going to be, OK? But with the speaking-- let me just talk about your physical computers for a second. Do you have cameras on those computers?

Speaker 3: We do not.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK. So that might be one of the problems. Do you have headset?

Speaker 3: Yes.

Jennifer Gagliardi: So. I think you're going to be able to deliver on the civics. I don't know if you're going to be able to do deliver on the speaking. But they're going to come up. I think you can go and negotiate with USCIS on this. Have you actually signed up to participate in this pilot?

Speaker 3: We have not but in considering the possibility of doing that or what the test could look like in the future. We want to be forward thinking if we need to order cameras, webcams, or things like that. We need to do that sooner versus later because our fiscal spending window opens quickly.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK. The other thing is that I-- the question is that, and I have the email at the very bottom, when you basically say, hey, we want to participate in the test, you can say, we don't have these webcams. Is it OK to do the large group together? Because I was assuming that we're going to do something one on one because we have a really small school. But I know that your school is much larger. So these are the questions that USCIS needs to address before you would participate. And I think that's a really, really important question. But I am going to be going to, Annette. I can bring up this question in when I participate in the webinar next Friday. And I would be really happy to pass on those comments to you.

Speaker 3: That would be great. Thank you.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK. So we'll have to exchange emails a little bit later. OK. So after all the pilot information has been gathered. So they're starting the pilot now. They're going to be running it through the summer. And they're going to try to finish it in mid-September. They're going to gather the information or the data that has been captured. And they're going to have a tag team that's going where they're going to review the results. And they're going to basically say, what questions are appropriate, what questions are not appropriate.

Because if we have questions that are consistently get false readings and things like that, of course, we do not want those questions. And again, nonprofits and adult education programs can volunteer at natzredesign22@uscis.dhs.gov. The big question is why do they call it the naturalization test redesign 2022? It's because the announcement was released December 22. Gee. They could have waited a month and done 2023, right? But anyway.

Let's move on to some people who've commented on this or who had seen previews of this, this test. We have a comment from Bill Bliss who has concerns about if we do something that's picture-based, it's basically detaching the whole thing about the naturalization test from the N-400. So that's one of his main concerns.

Lynn Weintraub had some questions about the civics test. And my response to that is I really want a civics test that looks like us and who we are as Americans and our value as Americans. So for example, one of the things that I noticed when I first encountered the naturalization test is wow. There's a lot of references to war in there. And I understand how we respond to war as a society is very, very important. But maybe I would like to see something more about the labor movement or maybe something more about the feminist movement, et cetera, et cetera. So we really need to consider what kind of questions we want to have and how our students can see themselves with the test itself.

And am hosting a discussion about the citizenship test redesign on LINC. So that is sponsored by the Department of Education. And again, it's at the civics and citizenship forum. And then there's thoughts about the USCIS naturalization interview. So please participate on that, and I'll come back to that a little bit later.

So now, we're going to continue on about some new resources from USCIS and USCIS adjacent organizations. Does anybody have any further questions before we continue? So you may be wondering why I'm showing these pictures of nature. It's because I do have a blog, uscitizenpod.com. And I post something every day, so I've had over 5,000 posts about citizenship-related materials.

One of my favorite sources is the Department of Interior. Every week, they put up like a video about what's happened in the Department, a video. And they really touch a lot of communities in the United States that are not necessarily covered in the citizenship interview. So just bringing that to consciousness that we're all part of America is really important. So this was one of the pictures of the week.

Speaker 3: Excuse me. We have a hand up out there.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Sure. Please go ahead.

Speaker 4: Yes. Hi. I attended their first meeting that they did about the redesign. And I had sent them an email saying I was interested. And I never heard anything. If they are already interested in you piloting, would we have heard?

Jennifer Gagliardi: No. I don't think so. When did you send it? Was it like in January, or was it April?

Speaker 4: No. It would have been probably January.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Oh, January.

Speaker 4: It was a while ago.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah. So one of the big groups that applied really early was LAUSD. They haven't heard back yet either. So hey, it's nothing personal. But it's OK to basically send them another email and say, hey, we want in. OK? So that's perfectly OK to follow up on that. And that would be another really good question for me to follow up on. Hey, we haven't heard back yet.

Speaker 4: And regarding the meeting next Friday, how do we access that if we want to listen?

Jennifer Gagliardi: I think it's only for the people who they've already chosen. So they've done a series of rollouts with community-based organizations. So that happened much earlier in the year. So now, they're slowly bringing things on. When they did the previous redesign pilot, there was-- first of all, of course, there was COVID and everything like that. But the thing is that they basically did not do things in a very controlled rollout situation. So they're being much tighter about that right now. So I don't think the answer is no. I think the answer is we're still going through our email. I think that's it.

Speaker 4: OK, thanks.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK. All right. So one thing that I really wanted to talk about, especially because of our adult education programs. I don't know about you. Our school has not still recovered yet from the drop in student enrollment from COVID-19. So one of the things that enrollment actually really blew my mind was these USCIS eligible to naturalize fact sheets. And so this information, it's two pages. Really nice PDFs that show the number of legal permanent residents who are eligible to naturalize by the country of origin. So these are people that should be in our citizenship classes.

The number of years as LPR status. So a lot of them are past five years. So they should be in their classes, but they're not there yet. They're category of admissions. So did they come in through H1-B visas? Did they come up through family reunification, et cetera? They talk about if they're male or female. They talk about their age and their zip code. And they usually pull out the top three zip codes of these Metropolitan areas.

So for instance, if we take a look at the one in San Jose or Santa Clara Valley. The top three zip codes where we have a lot of LPRs ready to get their citizenship. One of those is Milpitas. My zip code, 95035. First question. Do we have an adult school there? Yes. We do have an adult school.

Second question is what is the age of these people? Are they in their 30s or their 40s? If they're in their 30s or 40s, they might be too busy to come to school because they're working. However, as we look deeper into the information, we found that a lot of those people were actually over 60 years old, and they were Southeast Asian Indian. And also, they were older. So they were seniors.

So all of a sudden, it's like, wait a minute. We've got a lot of seniors here that need to get citizenship. Why can't they access-- why are they in our classes? Is it because of L1? Is it because there's problems with transportation? Because our adult school has problems. There's transportation problems. Is it that they don't know about it? Do we need to start advertising differently?

So that was really, really interesting to take a look at this. Also, not only is this interesting to use to plan our adult education programs. But it's really interesting. If you want to get the notice of a politician. So for example, I was doing some advocacy for Thistle, and it was meeting with a congressional representative. They were kind of sleeping through my presentation until I got to this. And I said, these people are not citizens yet. These people could tip the vote one way or the other. Suddenly, this person was very interested in what I said.

So if you could take a look at these fact sheets for California and take a look especially in these areas, do we have our adult schools there? Do we have publicity there? Do we have the teachers? Do we need L1 teachers to teach citizenship in a person's native language? Do we need to create a bridge? This is very, very important. And it will really be helpful to bring more data to any conversation that you have. And when you have more data, you usually get more funding.

OK. I want to talk about two more new things from USCIS. They have a civics guides to the Monuments and memorials on the National Mall. So for instance, sometimes you have your citizenship students in class with you for a long, long time. You've gone through all this material. This is a way to resee a or review a lot of the material, especially at the end of the semester.

So there's 13 PDFs based on each one of these monuments. A great way to review. And also a lot of our students have actually been on tours in Washington, DC. And so they really, really appreciate this. Also, they have this new civics or this new toolkit about families studying or preparing for the citizenship together. So maybe mom and dad are in the citizenship class. Well, how do they basically share this information with their children? So they have all sorts of games based on the civics context that's in the USCIS 100 questions. How they can share that through fun games with their kids. So take a look at these two guides.

The next one I wanted to talk about. I hope everybody knows about this. This is an oldie but goodie, is that we have preparing the oath. And it's one question, one video from the National Museum of American History and the USCIS. So I hope many people are using this. I like to use the PDF of-- what is that called? Not the transcriptions. Yeah. The transcripts. And I use them as basis for PDFs for close listening activities, et cetera.

So again, take a look at this one from preparing the oath. We have three new video series from USCIS. So if you're on YouTube and you go to the USCIS channel, you're not going to see everything under because they usually have the uploads, and you see that. But they basically put these in other parts of their YouTube channel. Say for instance, looking at the playlists.

So one of the playlists is USCIS multilanguage naturalization process presentations. So most people or most teachers who've gone through USCIS training have seen this information a million times. However, now they have native speakers and the closed captions in the native language. So the students can basically get a really good overview of what's expected during the naturalization process. They also have it in American Sign Language as well.

They have a couple new videos for Afghan nationals, especially about how to create their online, how to keep track of any of their applications for asylum, et cetera. So again, taking a look at these in Dari, and English, and Pasto is going to be very important. Ah. I see misspelling.

OK. And then there's the how to playlist. And the how to playlist is approximately 20 videos. However, there's a really good, simple, super clear videos that you want to pull out from this one. And then recent, they're talking about preparing for the naturalization interview because there's still a lot of misconception about what happens in the naturalization interview.

Especially with the naturalization interview, when I first started, people thought they would go in and answer all 100 questions. They didn't realize that they have to do the N-400. Now I'm seeing the pendulum sweep to the other side where they almost treat the N-400 as this oral vocabulary quiz. So they're basically really trying to basically forcefeed themselves all the different meanings of the Part 12 information.

So it basically presents a very balanced view of what actually happens in the naturalization interview and what to expect about the N-400. They talk about the civics test. And again, they talk about the reading and writing test. So before we continue, I'm going to be talking about LINCS, but does anybody have any questions or comments? OK.

Speaker 2: Sorry, Jennifer, there is. We have a couple. Go ahead and unmute.

Speaker 5: What is the N-400?

Jennifer Gagliardi: Sorry. The N-400 is the USCIS form. It's the application for naturalization.

Speaker 5: Oh, right. I get it. Yeah.

Jennifer Gagliardi: You know what? I say it so fast that my students think it's a word. It's the N for naturalization, and 400 is the number of the form. OK.

Speaker 2: Yeah. There's one more in the chat. Someone responds with I have no microphone. And they can go ahead and unmute if you would need further information on that.

Jennifer Gagliardi: About what?

Speaker 2: About the responses, I have no more microphone in the chat. I have no microphone.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Oh, OK. I'm not sure.

Speaker 2: She asked a question, is this a YouTube channel right above her message.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Oh. So let me step back. USCIS has its own YouTube channel. Is that OK? If we have time later on, I'd be happy to show you the YouTube channel. OK. So we're going to go on to LINCS. And LINCS is a forum hosted by the Department of Education, the ACTE department. So they basically oversee the occupation and career development and also for adult learners and adult education.

So they've just created two new forums. One is DEI which is diversity, equity, and inclusion forum. So it's a discussion group. Of course, they have discussion groups for edtech. They have discussion groups about math and numeracy. They have things about programming. But the one that I'm going to particularly concentrate on is the civics and education citizenship forum.

So I am the moderator of that. And on there, we talk about things about immigrant integration. We're talking about civics, how we can incorporate that into our GED high set and ESL classes. And of course, we talk about citizenship. So they take a very broad view of civics and the different literacies that supports civics.

So some of the recent discussions and bulletins. A lot of people are concerned about the end of Title 42. And we're trying to think about how it will affect adult education. And I think I have another grammar error there. Sorry about that. So I put up a series of resources about where we can start getting some guidance about how to respond to a potential influx of our students.

And so this is a really interesting question, guiding policies of civics education and citizenship prep classes. So we have really clear objectives, language objectives for speaking and listening and hearing. We have career objectives. But there's not really clear civics and citizenship objectives. It's more like it's assumed.

So we could say, well, in California, we have that because we have the CASAS COAAPs. But it's not explicitly stated in other states. So we're basically starting to ask this question, hey, where do we go for agreement and guidance to build up some better objectives for civics and citizenship prep?

We think, oh, well, we know what to teach with citizenship prep because we know we have to hit the N-400. We have to do the civics questions. We have the reading and spelling. And we have that really great guide from USCIS about the adult education programs, how to design an adult education program.

But again, we don't have any broad basis of that. And this is particularly important because there's been a lot of discussion about civics education in K-12. And there's some real challenges going on there. So we would like to start thinking about that. And so we can have something really strong to basically present not only for our own programs and our own teachers and students but also for the people who create governmental policy and vote on funding for us.

Again, this is a really interesting one. The American History and Civics Grant. There's two grants that are coming out. And they're going to be coming out in late May or early June. One of them is for USCIS basically to start funding innovation in citizenship programs. And they have a lot of deliverables, particularly about matching up with legal representation.

But if you're talking to a really small adult school like us, we can't make those deliverables. USCIS says, hey, we do not want to discount you guys at the start. We're willing to work with you and adjust our deliverables, so you can participate in these grant programs.

The other one is coming out for the American History and Civics Grant. I'm seeing that more. Of course, they do not explicitly say that they are K-12. It's broad enough that you can bring in your workforce integration programs. So I think if people start taking a look at these grant opportunities and getting involved with that, I think this is a real way that we could build up our programs.

I'm always posting new events about citizenship and civics and immigrant integration. I always try to put up resources about whatever heritage month it is. And I'm always continually putting up information about the naturalization interview and test redesign. So if people have questions, please participate on that.

Speaker 2: We do have a person out there who would like to know where they find the information about the grants themselves.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK. So if you're going to lincs.ed.gov. So for instance, this is the form right here. I have a bulletin here about the grant. So let's see. Here it is. So when you click this link, I have information, contact information. And there's a seminar that's coming up about how to participate in this grant.

So I do really try to put up as much information as I can about the grant. So where you can get further information, if there's any seminars involved with that. So please take a look at that. And again, let me see if I can put this into the-- let me put this into the chat. So this is the chat here. This is the LINCS group where you would be finding this information. And of course now, it's not working. One second.

OK. This is the LINCS group where you could find further information. And let me go back. Let me go back to that. So now, are you seeing my original slide about civics and citizenship about LINCS?

Speaker 2: Yes. You're right back to it. Good job.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Great. So now, one of the things that we just came out with is a professional development guide. Because LINCS is really a massive website. So we are basically saying, hey, we have different parts of LINCS that would speak to your different needs. So the first one is the citizenship and education group, where we can start discussing more of our needs, and some of our concerns is citizenship and civics teachers.

We have LINCS courses. Now we don't have a LINCS course just yet about how to become a citizenship teacher or how to become a civics teacher. There used to be one that was hosted by USCIS. I understand that rti.org, which is a research group, is looking in and trying to develop a course for how teachers should teach citizenship or write lesson plans to incorporate civics content into their citizenship or into their ESL program and also to their GED and high set program. So keep your eyes peeled. I think we're going to eventually get something there.

Also we have something called the LINCS Learner Center. And we have a whole collection of resources from USCIS and a couple of other places that talk about how to become a US citizen. And of course, we have more resources related to civics education.

And state resources. So when we talk about state resources, these are the federal initiatives that are basically guiding some of our funding and also inspire or basically create the standards and objectives for our programs. So we have building opportunities through integrated English literacy and Civics education. Enhancing access for refugees and new Americans. So that's the EARN program. And that's just really getting off the ground. Or not getting off the ground. It's really gaining a lot more momentum. We're talking about IELCE and then also teaching skills that matter. So we have materials related to citizenship and civics in that area and those in the area.

Speaker 6: Question.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yes?

Speaker 6: I saw there's a citizenship teacher training, a full day one, requested. What would I do? Click on that link?

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah. Click on that link. The other thing is as are you familiar with USCIS Educational Opportunities?

Speaker 6: No.

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK. Let me see if I can share that real quick, super quick. And there we go. So USCIS. No. That's USA Learns. Anybody using USCIS Learns to deliver content? That's citizenship content. So if you go under citizenship, what's your take taking a look for is resources for educational programs.

So if we take a look at-- So we're at uscis.gov. We've gone to citizenship. And now we've gone to resources for educational programs. Under that, we have upcoming teacher training programs. And these are one day opportunities. And they have them in all sorts of places. I've gone to a lot in Fresno and in San Francisco. And they basically show people or teachers how to teach citizenship. And you walk away with a lot of great resources to take that. So I don't see anything coming up in California just now. But of course, you can basically sign up, and they can send you that information.

Also, take a look at the past training events. So let's take a look at that one. Yeah. There's the sign-up. And here are some of those seminars. And oh, they're closed. I could just do a whole hour on USCIS, but I'm going to step back for a second, and I'm going to go to USA Learns. So USA Learns has a citizenship program. I think I'll sign in as one of my students. Are you familiar with-- is this appropriate or not appropriate that I do this?

Speaker 2: So there's a lot of interest online. Wondering if any of these classes are on the East Coast that you're mentioning?

Jennifer Gagliardi: So lots of USCIS trainings happen on the East Coast. So please go to that training that I just showed you. Yes, go ahead.

Speaker 2: And then someone lives in a remote area from any cities. Are there any online?

Jennifer Gagliardi: OK. I don't know of any online. But maybe we could put something together for us from OTAN.

Speaker 2: Absolutely. That sounds great. OK.

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah. I'm perfectly happy to do that. And then we can even invite USCIS people. So this is USA Learns. And this is sponsored by the Sacramento Office of Education. Yay, SCOE. And so we have a citizenship program here. So I'm going to go. So in the menu, it's divided up the whole process of study for citizenship into four parts. They have steps to becoming a citizen, N-400 practice, civics, and your citizenship and interview.

This one, number one, is really oriented on the whole legal aspect of starting for citizenship. It's incredibly boring. And I don't want to say boring. Dry. It's really, really dry. A lot of our students get bogged down in that, and they never return to the class. My advice, if you're doing a citizenship program with your students, is to use this almost as a warm-up activity for your students. So you're projecting it on the screen to your students. You talk about it a little bit. Then you come back to it the next day, the next day, the next day to get your students.

By then, you're able then to go on to the N-400. And this is divided into 10 different sections. A lot of people like this one about illegal activities. My students say it's the most interesting. And they have listening activities, vocabulary activities, all sorts of things too. And I'm sorry. It's not clicking right now. All sorts of activities to engage the student on online learning.

So when I do my distance learning class, I am basically telling my students to get their contents, their civics content from USA Learns. And then I meet with them for half an hour every week, and I do a quiz based on the things that they've learned. So I'm able to keep track of my hours in USA Learns and continue from there.

Speaker 2: There's a comment in the chat that someone feels that USA Learns is better curriculum than Burlington.

Jennifer Gagliardi: I would have to agree with you on that. No fault of Burlington. Burlington is great. But I think USA Learns takes a little bit deeper into the Part 12 stuff. Voxy also. Or sorry. Not Voxy. EnGen. That's basically sponsored by ProLiteracy, also had a very interesting program. But I think it was a little bit too high level for our ESL students. And I know that they're redesigning it. So they're trying to do something more appropriate.

Another one that I would really like to recommend is usahello.org. So they also have self-paced citizenship courses in the students' native language. So if you have a student who's really kind of unsure, and they want to go through that USA Hello Program first and then maybe go through the USA Learns things, they're going to be really solid when they go into their test. But remember, if you do too much computer-based stuff, I love computers. But you're going to go into that interview with a live person. And the person has to practice with a live person before they go for the interview.

Anyway, let's go on to-- I have a lot of questions always about Part 12 information. So here's some resources here about Part 12 information that you can access. So the definitions and things like that. When I give definitions, I prefer a little bit more context with it. I don't like one word answers because I think the people, I find that my students would be memorizing the one word answers, but they didn't understand really what they were saying.

So I really think that if you are teaching citizenship and teaching civics, this is a really good way to basically activate all the passive English information that they've been acquiring in their classes and really able to use it and apply it. Anyway, the more English, the better, I think.

So anyway, here's some of these. I have my own things that I've taken, I put together. And these are basically mini citizenship interviews that are focusing on certain parts of the N-400. So I used to like to print these things out, so the students could practice the N-400 information on one side. And then on the other side, there would be civics. So take a look at all this information.

Next one. Also, there's some really good video playlists. We have a teacher down from Southern California who's been doing some really, really interesting stuff. Also, I was talking about USA Hello. They were doing some of the 100 questions. Civics. I don't know why I put that in there. But again, there's some USA civics or the civics information.

Also, I put together last year. I presented this at, where was it? CASAS Summer Institute? I did an in-depth link between earlier parts of the N-400, Parts 1 through 10 and with the civics questions. So I was pairing up residents because where you live is where you vote. So trying to put those together with civics questions, I thought that was really appropriate. My students seemed to really appreciate it.

And also, so here's an example of one of the sections from here. Again, I'm asking questions. And then I'm also asking, have you have you ever voted? Did you vote in your home country? Why can't you vote in the United States? This is one of the questions that the USCIS officers frequently asked. And again, what is the relationship between residents and voting?

I have a Padlet that I've been updating. And this has more information about voting and online courses, things that teachers can use in their classrooms. And I try to put my presentations up there. So I need to update that a little bit. So again, that's bit.ly/uscit-padlet. So please take a look at those resources in there.

And I'm particularly looking, I'm trying to update the Celebrate America. Because I feel like if we use our holidays and our memorials, again, this is a really good way to convey American culture and enable the students to see their self and their place in American culture and also to practice their English.

And I basically expanded this by trying to create an adult education calendar. So this is a simple Google Calendar. So as you can see, I have Black History Month and Women's History Month. AEC, by the way, means adult education calendar. And I have something for the California Adult Education Week. So that was one of the big things. And Cesar Chavez.

But here, I basically, if you click this click the event, I have more resources and more links for people to basically go in and see different information about how people celebrate Adult Education Week. So it's really interesting to take a look at some of the schools, how they basically read their proclamations before their school boards or different activities that they were-- like when they went to Sacramento and talk to their legislators or visited their legislators in their own home cities.

So taking a look at these. So I've been trying to create these really simple guides, putting them in to this Google Calendar. And I really would like to get some feedback on this. So I'm asking people if they could basically add this calendar to your own Google Calendar and give me some feedback.

So how you do that, you go to your Google Calendar. You click the plus sign. You subscribe to the calendar. And what calendar you're trying to subscribe to is adultedcivics@gmail.com. And you have optional settings, like how you want it to appear. And then click back to your calendar, and you have all this information.

So I'm going to be adding a lot more stuff during the summer, and I'm also going to build it out for a couple of years, so we can know what's going to be coming up. I'm going to also include conferences and of course, OTAN Talk, and things related to civics. Especially, like for instance, one of the big laws for civics, for workforce is HIPAA.

So HIPAA has a day that it was passed. I would put things into the calendar, celebrating today is National HIPAA Day. Here's some resources. This is how our adult education programs are using HIPAA in their IELC classes. Yeah. Go ahead.

Speaker 2: I just wanted to let you know we have about 7 minutes. And I've also gone ahead and put your article for OTAN's May Digest, where you had the information about adding the Google Calendar and some of the overview. It's all written down in our free to access OTAN Digest, which is in the chat. Any other questions?

Jennifer Gagliardi: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Go ahead. I'm sorry.

Jennifer Gagliardi: So our wildflower in San Jose is the mustard greens, which was originally, I believe, brought by the Italians. And we actually eat this. We call it golubtsi. So a little olive oil, and it actually tastes kind of peppery and green.

But these next three slides, we're almost at the end. These are basically a hodgepodge of different resources. USA Hello talked about a community support of aspiring citizenship. Teachers and students. So again, take a look at those resources. It was a really good presentation.

Another really good presentation at COAAP was developing a digital literacy skill roadmap presented by Nell Eckersley. And she's basically working with Adult Skills Network. It seems to be spearheaded by a university in Minnesota. So they're trying to basically incorporate adult education pedagogy, adult literacy, and a program concern, so for instance, civics. So there is a sample of the curriculum and basically how to implement it in their different courses. So this is a really good slide. Start clicking those links. And you'll get lost because there's so much.

Another really-- this is again a concern about Title 42 and how it's going to affect our adult education program. These are initial resources. I'm basically going to try to see more about how we're going to be basically looking for how we can respond to this as an adult educators. And this is just a miscellaneous bunch of stuff that I put together.

The one thing that I talk about in the article that I did not talk about in this presentation. We talked about The Constitution Explained. So it's basically 35 videos. From iCivics and Center for Civic Education. They worked together. They put together some really great videos, and they put together some lesson plans for that.

So again, take a look at these resources. This one was really interesting for the American Bar Association about habit-building changes for DEI. So that was really interesting to basically examine and to respond to those challenges. Clinic put together some really good resources up here, especially this one. Neighbors not strangers. It's a new storytelling project. And that basically, put together with weave tales, which is basically TED Talks by immigrants. And they're talking about their experience. It's really, really interesting. And our students really, really enjoy watching it. And so please take a look at any of these resources. And I'm basically done. Thank you very much. And I just love OTAN.