OTAN. Outreach and Technical Assistance Network. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Hi, everyone. Again, we are still getting a lot of noise from the live session. So it makes it hard for people that are online and for us to be able to hear. So please, if you could, try to keep talking to minimum. We will give you opportunities to speak because we would love for you to have a chance to interact as well. 

So we are going to start. Again, our session is Intentional Incorporation of Technology for Everyday Skills. And my name is Marcia Luptak. I am the associate dean of Adult Education at Elgin Community College. 

HEATHER MARTIN: Hello. I'm Heather Martin. I am the assistant dean for the Center for the Enhancement of Teaching Assessment and Learning also at Elgin Community College, which is outside of Chicago. So it's probably a lot warmer where all of you are live. I hope you're enjoying the weather. 

All right. So the reason we're kind of presenting this is we all kind of experience this massive thing together with COVID, where when everyone went remote, we were just in survival mode. I know a lot of our instructors here were doing things like phone calls, and emails, and like texting assignments, and dropping things in mailboxes if necessary. 

And during that time of the spring of 2020, fall of 2020, and sometimes even into spring of '21, the priorities we had with our technology in the classroom was first of all, is it available? Can I as an instructor access it? Can I access it for free? Even better, can my students access it? Can my students access it for free? Ease of access. So basically, can I get it? Can I access it? Is it free? Is it there? 

And then the focus of those technology choices was all based on content delivery and activity because especially when we were first at home, we had our curriculum. We had our assignments. And then all of a sudden, we were in this different setting. And we were kind of stuck figuring out how to do what we had originally intended to do. 

So when we made our choices on technology tools, they were based on, A, can I get it? And B, can I give this assignment this way? So that's kind of a background of where this came from. And the first thing we want to do is ask you what technology tools you use in your classroom? So to answer, you can type in the chat. People that are live, we can unmute and get some answers over there if you'd like. Those of you online, you're free to unmute as well. 

So in the chat, we see we have computers, smartboards, calculators. What else? What other tech tools? Phones, tablets, TVs, projectors, Canvas. A lot of people are using different learning management systems, whether it's Canvas, or Blackboard, Google Classroom. How about, is anyone using Google Suite or Microsoft Office Suite? Maybe some videos? Yup. Google Docs, Slide, Padlet, Kahoot. Yes. Zoom. I see your question. It seems like we're getting a lot of both the tools and the platforms. So yeah. Lots of Zoom, lots of phones. Burlington English, Rosetta Stone. Good. Google Suite. Yep. OK. Yes. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: All right. So Thank you everyone for sharing. So we found that we were using very similar tools in our classrooms. Our teachers were using many of the things that you have mentioned in the chat and in the room. So one of the things that we realized after the return to the classroom, that we realized that we needed a new approach. Because we were using a lot of tools that were practice tools, that were LMS's, those types of tools. But those aren't the tools that our students need to use in their everyday settings. 

So we started looking at it, and we said, we had several societal changes. Everything went digital during the pandemic. Things that you used to do in person, things that you used to do over the phone, you now had to either do on the computer or with your phone. So this was a major change for everyone. And we found that a lot of our students were being left behind because of this. 

We also found that just everyday contexts for technology changed. More forms, more applications. Everything are now delivered via technology. You don't get your newspaper on your doorstep very often anymore. You don't get as much news from the TV. People are going to the internet to get this information and to get it right away. So that was another change that we saw. 

So I want you to think for a moment. Just give you about 30 seconds, and you can put this in the chat again. Or you can talk aloud in the room if you're in the room. What are the contexts where your students use technology? What do they need it for to get by every day? 

Again, put it in the chat, or go ahead and say hello. We can't hear the room right now because we've got you on mute. But please share if you're in the room. So what are the contexts your students use technology, need to use technology? And I see most communications, information, training in using technology, learning job. OK. 

Job applications. Social. Learning to get a job. Writing documents. All of these are-- news, absolutely. Email, jobs application, registration, appointments, translating. Oh, yes. Now they're coming in. They're flying in. Watching YouTube. Absolutely. Or TikTok nowadays, depending on the age of your students. So yes. They are using it every day, all over the place. And they need to know how to do that in order to be functioning members of our society. 

So think about it. It's important that we think about contextualizing digital literacy because we can't function without being able to navigate an online form anymore. If you want to put your kids in school, you want to apply for a job, you need to be able to fill out an online form. If you need to find things, we don't use white pages and yellow pages anymore. You have to be able to search for your information on the internet. 

And when you search for information on internet, you need to be able to read a web page and find the information you need. It's not just finding the site but where on the site can you find it. And you're going to see we're going to use some of them today. QR codes. Again, during the pandemic, these exploded. Do your students know how to use a QR code? These are some of the practical situations where your students need technology. And if they don't know how to use it, we need to show them how. 

So just briefly, our objectives for today. Our objectives are that you will be able to identify why it is important to contextualize digital literacy. Not just to use literacy as a tool to teach language but actually teach the skills that they need to use the tools. We're going to identify tools for specific contexts and skills, and we're going to have you think about create some classroom activities using these tools. Right, Heather? 

HEATHER MARTIN: Yep. I forgot to unmute myself. Sorry. That's like the third time that's happened today, ironically enough on our technology presentation. So like Marcia said, there was a shift in how we approach this now because technology is so different than it was even just three years ago prior to the pandemic. 

So now, when incorporating technology, technology should serve a purpose. It should be associated with the process and not the product. So previously, a lot of times, we'd be like, oh, I'm just going to incorporate this tool for the sake of incorporating it but not really embed it throughout the entire learning process for our students. But now, the technology is embedded throughout their everyday lives and throughout their kind of real world contexts. It's important that we mirror that in the class. 

And there should be a relationship between the technology and the activity the students are doing. So when designing an activity using technology, you should ask yourself first, is this activity aligned with the curriculum and the content, which is something you'd ask yourself regardless of technology incorporation. 

And then are the technology skills used increasing digital literacy in a transferable way? So we're going to look at some examples of what that might look like. So for example, a lot of us that teach maybe lower ESL classes do a lot with personal information. So activities that we often incorporate with personal information is something like completing forms, either like intake forms at a doctor or registration form for a class or for a child school. 

So to do this in a digital format, we can incorporate an online form, Google Forms, Jotforms, things like that. So you'll see the digital tool first of all is aligned, the activity and the content are aligned. And also, that digital tool, the online form is a transferable skill because as we said, as Marcia said earlier, the students need those forms. As you all brought up in your contributions in the chat, the students use forms to register their kids for school to register for like to new doctors appointments, things like that. Most of these things are done online now. 

So then, with money and shopping, another potential content area. The activity, a frequent activity is making the grocery list. Oh, I am sorry. Making a grocery list or putting together a budget. Gosh. Anyway, my phone never rings, and here we are. So making a grocery list or putting together a budget. 

I've seen this done a lot prepandemic, where an instructor might bring in like circular flyers that you get in the mail or that you can get at the grocery store. And then have the students look through and say, OK, like you're going grocery shopping for the week. You have this much money. What can you buy, right? 

But now, instead of doing it that way with our little circulars, we can do it with the grocery store website or app. I don't know about a lot of you. I can tell you my mother has not stepped foot in a grocery store since the pandemic. She does all of that through apps now. And I don't think she's ever going to step foot in a grocery store again. So this is a way that we can mirror that kind of societal evolution in the classroom. 

Is it aligned with the content? Yes, it is. And is that skill transferable? Yes it is, because the students access or usually will access this material digitally in real life now. And then for a final example, weather. The activity could be reviewing weather vocabulary. Cloudy, partly cloudy, humid, things like that. 

A digital tool would be Quizlet or Kahoot. So is this aligned with the content of weather? 100%. The students need to know this vocabulary. It's aligned with the curriculum. It's an activity that's making sure they reach their objectives. Is it a transferable skill? It is not. Now the thing with these quiz tools, like Quizlet, Kahoot, things like that, they're great tools for review. I know I use them a lot for like gamification because students get really excited. They get that competitive drive going. And it's a great motivating factor. And it's fun to incorporate in class. It gets them excited, especially if some of you teach really long classes. 

However, this is not a tool that they're going to be using in the outside world in most cases. Now that doesn't mean that it shouldn't be included in your class. 100%, there's a place for it. Like I said, it's fun. It's gamifying. But it's different than something like filling out an online form because they're not gaining a digital skill that's going to serve them outside of your classroom. 

Now a possible exception to that is some of the Quizlet type tools, students can make digital flashcards and study from them on their own. And that is a transferable skill. That's an academic skill that will serve them in other settings. Yes. And there is a comment to the chat about how the grocery store offers ESL students the opportunity to practice English. Definitely. 

I'm not saying we should encourage our students not to go into grocery stores and practice every opportunity they get. That's very important. And the more settings in which they can practice those real life interactions, the better and the more comfortable they get. But just to make sure they have the tools if they choose to navigate real life that way, we're giving it to them in the classroom as well and allowing them to practice there too. Yep. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: OK. So to continue the conversation about looking at context and skills when choosing technology. These are really important for us to consider. So we want to teach our students something, for example, how to go to the doctor's office, how to get their medicine, how to do wellness checks. We talked about insurance. These are all common topics in the ESL classroom. And they're great topics. 

But we really have to think about what skills the students will need in order to do things in these contexts. Again, yes, we can do these often in person. But I'm finding that more and more that we don't even have that option. We don't have the option to come in person. We don't have the chance to come in, call by phone. 

And many of our students are nervous about doing things in person still because COVID hasn't gone away, people, especially in certain sectors are still having large outbreaks. So they don't even want to necessarily go in person. So we need to think about what digital skills they need in order to do these activities. 

So for example, for the doctor's office and pharmacies, students have to be able to complete forms. They need to make appointments. They have to communicate about appointments. They may have to navigate the health site to find the information. For medicine, they may have to put in their medication prescription orders online. I know that many of the companies are now having them do that. 

Wellness. They may want to monitor and track their health conditions. For example, they want to make sure that their heart is working right, or if they have diabetes, they need to track that. All of those are digital skills. Tracking exercise, eating habits or digital skills. And for insurance, shopping online is how most of us do that nowadays because we want to find the best deal. We want to be able to compare insurance plans. We don't necessarily go in person to do this anymore. We do this online. 

So these are the context and the skills that just a few, not all of them, that the students might have in this area of health and wellness. So what does this mean as far as tools? So for completing forms, you might have the students do Google Forms. You might have them do Jotforms. For making appointments, you might use calendar apps so that they can see how to use calendar apps. 

Texting apps, because I know-- for example, my mom has me on her appointments, and I get texts all the time about her appointments and where to check for information, where to check in, what to do. Navigating online health sites. You might have to get your health information online. 

I know, again, if I get my reports from my doctor, he no longer says, hey, I want to meet with you to give you the basic information unless there's something to be worried about. He says, oh, just check on your record online. Again, medication might be Google Forms. I talked about health apps, especially phone apps. A lot of people are using those to track their health. Health websites, insurance websites. So these are some of the tools that we would want to consider introducing to our students because these are the types of activities and skills that they need to do, that they have to do in order to function. 

So let's look at another topic. So how about just everyday activities, things you do every day? These are very useful, especially for our beginning level students. Now these are things that we talk about. So for example, we talk about the weather. We talk about the calendar. We talk about basic communication. 

So what skills do students need to be able to do this? Well, yes, they can look out the door, and they can say the weather is this. But quite often at the beginning of the day before I get dressed before I go to school, I will look at my weather app and say, OK, is it going to be hot or cold today? I live in the Chicago area it could have been 60 degrees yesterday, and it's 20 degrees today. 

And I can't tell that by looking out my window. And I don't know maybe it's 60 degrees this morning. It could be 20 degrees tonight when 

I leave work. So again, looking at the weather. Look at weather predictions. Also very important. Know what's coming. Because we have a possible snowstorm coming through. I need to be able to do that. Weather warnings. If there's tornadoes in the area. Again, these are very common things in our area. You get the tornado warnings. What do those mean? 

Calendars. How do you keep track of appointments? We used to have students do on paper, like do your weekly schedule. What are you going to do? Now they can do that with their calendars. And many of them are, but they're doing it in their home languages. Let's help them to use these in English because people might want to share their calendar. I need to know what they're doing. 

Using a daily planner, maintaining a task list. Again, with communication, reading, writing, and sending texts and emails, these are all skills that our students need. So we look at the skills they need, the context, and we say, what are some tools that we could use? And these are some things that we could use. For example, a weather app, a weather website, a calendar app. 

You can use the calendar in the learning management system. For texts, you could use Remind, What's Up, Google Voice, those types of things. So let's look at what this might look like. So I've got my web page here for weather for Elgin today. If you can see, it's a whopping 38 degrees right now. Cloudy. And we are anticipating snow later today after 2:00 o'clock. 

So as an ESL teacher, I would have my students go on to their phones or go on to the web page, and we could use real live information to tell the weather. There are things on here for them to learn, like 38 degrees. 38 degrees is a system we use in the United States. I know when I came from Canada, I had to make the switch from Celsius, and most of our students do. They use a different way of indicating weather. 

So 38 would be too hot to go out in their countries if you're talking about Celsius. Killer weather. 38 here, you're putting on your sweater. You're putting on your jacket. You're getting warm. So very important for them to learn. If you look here, it says snow possible after 2:00 PM. We have the possibility of snow tonight. Again, if you talk about the weather, instead of just looking out every day and say, what's the weather like? And again here, it's cold and cloudy most of the winter. So that's all the students get to practice. 

You can go on to your weather app and say, OK, let's switch to somewhere that's even better than here. Maybe I'm going to go to Venice, for example. Maybe one of my students is from Venice. And we can say, what is the weather like in Venice? And then you can do comparisons. So there's a lot of language that you can use with students when you use a weather app. And you're teaching them a practical skill that will benefit them day to day. 

So to go back to our presentation, I want to give you the chance to think about this. So what you're going to do is you're going to pick one of the contexts or the skills that I presented because we can talk about other ones later. So stick to the ones that I presented. And talk about how would it look like in the classroom. 

So I gave an example of the weather. Try to pick another topic. Go to the Jamboard that you can either go with the QR code if you've got your phones in front of you if you're in person. Or we put the link if you are here virtually, so that everybody can answer. And you're going to go to the first Jamboard. And I see that many people are joining. Wonderful. 

So I want you to think about how this looks in the classroom. And just write down some of your ideas. If you're doing this live, you can talk about it in person. But let's talk about how this looks live. And Heather, were you going to put everybody into the breakout room, so that we can have them talk in groups? 

HEATHER MARTIN: Yes. So I'm going to put you in breakout room. So if you are able to show your face, great. If you can't, that's fine too. You can use the chat to communicate or just talk amongst yourselves by unmuting. And then as a group, if you can put some of your ideas on the Jamboard, that would be great. So I'm going to put you in groups now. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: OK. And to add things to the Jamboard, you can just do sticky notes. Type what you want on the sticky note and then save it. And it will allow you to put it onto the Jamboard. So that's how you will add any types of questions you want. So sticky note. Help. Save. And then you can just move it on to the Jamboard. So that's how you're going to add things to the Jamboard. And you can do this either via your phone. Or again, if you're online, you can use the link that we gave you, and you can type directly into it with a sticky. 

HEATHER MARTIN: If the Jamboard gets too crowded, you'll see at the top of the Jamboard, there's also a little one of five kind of note card with an arrow. There are other pages. You can just click on that arrow. And that'll take you to a next page, which is exactly the same this one. So I'm going to go ahead and throw you in breakout room now. You'll just have to click join when given the opportunity to do so. 

AUDIENCE: Can you put the QR code back up for the people here please? 

HEATHER MARTIN: Yep. Sorry about that. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: OK. So does everybody have it in the room that is live? Again, please feel free to talk in groups in the room that you are in. And think about ideas, talk about ideas. And when you're done talking, we're going to give you about 5, 7 minutes to do this. Then you can add your comments to the Jamboard. So we'd love to have people talking. 

AUDIENCE: Everybody should back up to the QR code, and then you can talk amongst yourselves. You still downloading? OK. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Yeah. The first time you go on to Jamboard, if you don't have it on your phone, it does take a minute. So we'll give you some extra time for this first activity to do that download. 

AUDIENCE: They're working for everybody? 

AUDIENCE: I wanna hear the directions. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: So the directions are for you to look at the context and the skills that are listed there and the tools that are listed there. Pick one with your group or whoever you're talking to. And then post what your group comes up with as far as how this would look like in the classroom. 

So for example, I gave you the example of what the weather app might look in the classroom. We just want you to think about how would this look in your classroom? How could you use any of these tools to teach these skills to your students? So I'm going to ask for the people that are in the live room, if you can unmute the people there, so that they could share some of the ideas that they came up with, what they might want to do. I see a lot of things on our Jamboard here. What I'm going to do, Heather, can you maybe-- OK. 

AUDIENCE: We're back. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: All right. Perfect. 

HEATHER MARTIN: Can you also make me a co-host again because I just hop right out of this meeting. Thank you. Yeah, Marcia. Are you going to-- 

MARCIA LUPTAK: So if you could read some of the things on the board, Heather. 

HEATHER MARTIN: Yes. Absolutely. All right. We'll give it a minute. 

AUDIENCE: OK. I'm going to get rid of that. There we go. 

HEATHER MARTIN: Looks like people are still in some breakout rooms. So I'll give it one more minute. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: I think everybody's back, Heather. 

HEATHER MARTIN: OK. Thank you. For those of you in the live room, can you make me a co-host again, whoever is controlling that on your beautifully large smartboard? That would be wonderful. I'm sure my face is like four feet tall right now. So thank you, everyone. Welcome back to the main room. 

We have a lot of different answers here. We've got, let's see, Google Forms. Short reading comprehension assignments or even pronunciation tasks. So just taking activities you already do, like short reading comprehension, and putting them in a digital form. Let's see. There are lots of free fitness tracker apps and sites. Classroom walking challenge, that's fun. You can also probably embed some math in there, which would be pretty cool. 

Project-based learning, health and wellness. Being OK and being vulnerable and safe during the learning process. So this was something in my group, we talked about just like familiarity, like giving students the opportunity to get familiar with things. And in our group, it was specifically in reference to high school equivalency tests that are now online. But giving students the opportunity to practice, so that way, that doesn't kind of cause anxiety when they go into their testing setting. 

Let's see. Again, Google form surveys for everyday activities. Allowing students to practice, instilling confidence. Transferring the skills of what students use in programs on their phones to use in other online applications on a computer. This is something else that came up at my group as well. You were talking about how students, even our students that are very familiar with technology and comfortable with technology. Some of them are lacking keyboarding skills because most of their comfort comes in the form of devices that require you to type with your thumbs. 

So yeah. Just taking things you already do or taking things that they already do on their phones since they're already comfortable with that. And transferring it to a computer, which they're more likely to see in a work setting or an academic setting. There is a question in the chat about Google Forms. Does everyone have to have a Google account to use a form? So you have to have a Google account to make a form, but anyone can take the form. 

Using the Zoom group chat for typing and writing practice. Absolutely. Padlet for getting to know you introductions. Yep. Google Calendar for students to share study schedules for the week. That's like two transferable skills right there. One's with the calendar use, and one's was just getting those academic skills and practices in place, teaching them time management. 

On the next page, we have students writing an email to their landlord to report a household problem. Students takes the problem and what they want the landlord to do. Identify self and address. Perfect. Yeah. When teaching those, like a lot of those intermediate ESL classes. I remember in a lot of the textbook, it was a letter to the landlord. My light is broken, or my whatever is not working. 

And not a lot of tenants communicate with their landlords in written form anymore. Email, yes. Text, yes. Written letters with a stamp and put in a mailbox, typically not anymore. So yeah. Marcia, did you want to jump in on any of those? 

MARCIA LUPTAK: No. I think we have some great ideas. I think we're getting kind of to the idea of what we're thinking about as far as using technology and teaching students how to use the technology that they encounter every day, which is what we're trying to get everybody to think about. What is the technology they encounter every day, and how can we incorporate that into our lessons? 

So let's look at another example. So this time, I'm not going to put tools. I'm just going to talk about some of the possible skills. And if you're in the live session, if you can think of other skills that possibly should be on this list. Or if you're online, you can also just unmute yourself on the microphone. So we've got US skills. Now I have some ideas such as registration, communication, finding schools, locating resources. What are some skills that students need to be able to do online in order to function within our school system? 

So I have a couple of examples here, like filling out registration forms again. Navigating websites to find who to contact. Locating schools in the area. Comparing schools. Because a lot of students aren't aware of the difference between public and private schools in the United States, which is a big deal when they're talking about their children and where those children are going to go to school. 

And also finding resources. So for example, what if my students are failing? What if my student is having difficulties with bullying? What are the resources available to my students? Or if your students' thinking about going to college, or their children think about getting to college, where do I get financial assistance? Where do I go? So these are all skills again that they need. What are some other skills do you think-- and again, you can just say it. You don't have to write it. You can just say it. That students need, technical skills they need to navigate our US school system? 

AUDIENCE: I don't know. It means that we're good. Anything you want to say? Maybe activating email. Activating an email. Logging into a website. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Logging into website. 

AUDIENCE: Username and password protocols. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Yeah. Username and password. We're always trying to find ways to avoid usernames and passwords, but our students need to know how to do those. They need to know how to use a password manager because they're going to have a lot of passwords for everything they do. And also security. Talk about security of those passwords. Any other ideas? 

AUDIENCE: Having a baseline understanding of the terminology that's used on websites. And understanding dropdowns and where to even go because that by itself can be very, very daunting with a lot of dropdowns, and what direction do you even go in, and what does the terminology even mean on those selections? 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Exactly. So you've got all these things going on where it's like, well, I have to go to this page? Do I find this page, this dropdown? How many choices do I have? Even just looking at a web page and finding, knowing where to go. Oh, the headings are all at the top. These are all skills that our students need to be able to navigate the school system. 

HEATHER MARTIN: In reference to dropdowns, that's something that also comes up with high school equivalency test with the different types of responses. Whether it's a dropdown or whether they have to drag something or type something. So not only are those coming up in real life, like you stated, but also further down their academic career potentially. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: All right. And we also touched on this a little bit we talked about shopping very briefly. But think about it. All the things that our students again are limited by if they don't have the skills, the technical skills to do these. Searching for items in a store, purchasing goods, comparing prices. We talked about that a little bit with shopping. 

But think about banking. Banking has changed dramatically. You don't write checks very often anymore. You do a lot of things electronically. How do our students find out what these services are? How do they figure out how to pay online? How do they figure out how to do budgeting? A lot of these things are digital skills they need. So I've got a few here. What are some other things-- again, just shout out. What are some other things with consumer economics that they need digital skills for? 

AUDIENCE: Secure websites. I think understanding what's a secure site. So you have a little bit of the financial protection down there. But just a secure versus a nonsecure. Phishing, all of these things identity theft. All kinds of those security issues. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Very good. Yes, absolutely. Because it's a big problem, identity theft right now. People lose their information all the time when we were talking about those secure passwords, how to keep track of them. Also knowing the difference between HTTP and HTTPS is significant for our students. Any other ideas with the consumer economics? 

AUDIENCE: I put some in the chat. Car shopping, mortgage, credit checks. 

HEATHER MARTIN: Yeah. I like credit checks. And that kind of ties in with something Marcia had said earlier. Like not necessarily maybe you don't want to pay your credit card bill online, but like can you check your credit card, like can you check your credit online? Can you check your balance online for your bank account, for your credit card? Yes. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: All right. So again, we want this to be very interactive. We want you to have the chance to talk to your colleagues. So we're going to do the same activity that we just did within these new contexts. The difference is I want you to think about what tools would you use to teach these skills. And again, how will the students apply it in the classroom? What will you have them doing? Because that's very important to be able to think about, OK, they need to know how to do all this. But what tools and what does it look like? So I've given you the QR code to the Jamboard, so that you can access the Jamboard. I'll leave it up here for a minute. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Heather, did you put it in the chat already? And heather's put it in the chat, so that you have access to it there. And then we are going to break everybody up into breakout rooms, so that our online people can talk in their breakout room. And people that are in the live session. Please, again, talk to the people in your room. I'm going to show you the page, so that you can share it. And think of ideas of what tools, what sites, what things could you use, what have you used, and how would you use it with your students? 

All right. So it looks like we have everybody back. I'm going to look at some of the post-its that we have from our breakout rooms. Somebody mentioned that the FDIC money matters curriculum is something that would be really good for our students. Navigation of websites. Practical with a scavenger hunt activity. I love scavenger hunt activities. For websites, I used to do this quite frequently with both my ESL and my ABE students because they needed to learn how to find things, and I had them look for specific things. 

If you ever looked online, it's called a WebQuest. And WebQuest is where the students are supposed to find specific information and do something with it. Another suggestion is to review LMS on laptops and phones. Filling out forms with Google Forms or Adobe Fill-in or dropdown forms. Absolutely. Practice searching different websites to find information. Teachers contact information. Again, that's that scavenger hunt or WebQuest idea. 

Creating budgets where students can discuss and advise each other. And again, teaching them how to use an Excel spreadsheet is a good thing because that is a practical skill that they may have to use in the workplace. Save and print phishing emails to demonstrate clues students can use. Excellent idea, so they can see if it's a phishing attempt. I get several of them every year, and saving them would be a good idea, so I show examples. Also, have students bring in examples would be a good idea. And then offer a Google Classroom orientation. That also would be a great idea. So thank you. Did anybody in the live session want to add to any of these? 

AUDIENCE: Anything you want to add? 

MARCIA LUPTAK: All right. We'll move on. I didn't have anybody, so we'll move on. Heather, I'll let you take over. 

HEATHER MARTIN: Well, before we move on, someone in my group said something. I'm not going to put them on the spot. But they made an analogy that was really interesting and talked about learning how to use the yellow pages and white pages, and learning how to navigate that, and that being an intentional lesson on how to kind of find certain resources, and kind of likening that to what we're doing here with the technology and the need for that and technology. So yes. That was an interesting thing that was brought up in my group that I wanted to repeat because I thought it was valuable. 

All right. So the next one we have is employment. So like the last few contacts, we have, and I think this was brought up in the chat originally at the beginning of the meeting as well. With employment, we have things like finding a job. What skills are necessary with finding a job. Where do you even look for a job? When I graduated college, I literally emailed one of my professors and said how do I find a job? Because that information was not given to me in my undergraduate experience. 

So what tools you need to find a job now? Where do you even look? And then applying for a job. What goes into that? We have resumes. We have cover letters. Any type of form filled out or added. And then the last part is once the students are in that job, they're going to have to collaborate. They're going to have to communicate. They're going to have to have these different types of interactions with their coworkers, with their supervisors, with any subordinates. What does that look like? What is an appropriate way to communicate? What is appropriate tone for communication, things like that. 

So what we're going to do is, well, we're going to move on actually to the next one, which is community resources. And I know this came up in the chat a little bit previously as far as different community resources. So the first one is libraries. Like local resources libraries, they're a wealth of information for our students. I know I've taken students on like library field trips where we've gone to the public library. 

And like what do you need to get a library card? What do you have to provide in order to do it? What does a library card get you? Like how do you find out what's at the library? Where do you get access to this? What information can the library give you? What information do you have to give them? Signing up for resources. I know when I signed my kids actually just last night at a swim lesson, there was a QR code on the wall that was like if you want to check your child's progress, scan the QR code, which is amazing to me. 

And then forms. Where do I go to look for these resources? What type of activities are offered in my area? How do I find the schedules? Who do I contact if I have a question? How do I register for these? Where is the physical location of this thing if I'm looking for it on the internet? 

And then speaking of physical location, transportation. Public transportation. When does the bus come? Where can I get the bus? How close is the bus stop? Does your city have an app for public transportation? A lot of them do. Rideshare apps. Or if the student's driving or carpooling, any type of navigation or parking. Where do I find out how to park? Where do I find out how to get there? How long is it going to take me to get there? It's a different if I leave at 7:00 AM, if I leave a 2:00 PM? What does that look like? 

So we are going to break you up into groups yet again. And this time, we're going to look at tools for both employment and community resources. The QR code is up there, and Marcia has put the Jamboard in the chat. So please go into your groups, and we will be looking at tools for both community resources and employment. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: So some really, really good discussion going on in person. I loved listening to some of that ideas. I heard people talking about using Zoom for interviews and for different pieces. Does anybody else want to share some of the things you talked about in the live rooms first? Anybody want to share something? 

AUDIENCE: This is us. Anybody want to jump up and share with the group? There you go. I teach some high level students. They're foreign medical doctors actually. But I have to teach them how to communicate with doctors at one level of English on email and then another level with patients. Basically, they use a different level of English for patients. And that emails never go away. So when you're writing your boss or someone, remember that. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Yeah. That's a very good point. So I'm going to jump to some of the things from people that are online. They were talking about phone etiquette. That's kind of what you're talking about with the emails, is that we have to be careful that we practice etiquette and what the etiquette rules are in this country. Because things differ from culture to culture. Even within our country, some people communicate differently. 

Forms. Sometimes a place of resumes for jobs. I see that more and more that people are having just to fill out a form rather than attaching a resume. But they also need to know how to attach a resume when they're doing an application. Finding free library resources and classes on library sites. There are some great resources at our local libraries that we don't even know about. I know there's programs for learning that the students can be involved in, either in person or online. 

Finding a job or career assessment to do a job search for a future career activity. I think that's an excellent idea again. Familiarize students with Zoom because there are a lot of virtual interviews. I know I interview virtually. So yes. Zoom etiquette and how to use it. Very important. Lesson on using keywords to reflect the job posting. This helps with any AI components involved in hiring. Very, very good idea. 

I create a digital bulletin board for Wakelet or Padlet. Use the local city site to see what resources the city has to offer. A lot of our students don't realize that there are so many activities and events, parks in their area that they could be taking advantage of. Practice appropriate tone for communications. We talked about that. Look for a plan B in case your transportation isn't running on time. Yes. Excellent idea. Always need a plan B. All right. So Heather, I'll let you take the next one. 

HEATHER MARTIN: I unmuted myself this time. All right. So the next subject we have is housing. So similar to jobs, like how do you find a house, right? Real estate websites, apps, local realtors, social media perhaps. I see a lot of postings on local social media pages. Applying for housing. Any forms. Communicating. We talked about tone previously. Communicating with references. If you need a reference for your landlord or something, make sure you tell the reference. Who is that reference? Ask them first. Make sure you have those conversations. Provide necessary information or documentation. 

If you need tax forms, if you need proof of whatever, where do you find that? Do you have to download it? What source do you go to? Again, communicating with the landlord, we talked about a little bit earlier. Email. Again, formal and professional tone. And then make sure that tone can also transfer to any text or messaging app for communication with landlord. 

And then finally, utilities. Similar to shopping, you compare prices, right? A lot of times now, we have different options. We don't all have Comcast. Some of us just renew it every six months, so that we can get the new deal again. But right compare those utilities. Once you've chosen a utility company, setting up the utilities. Interpreting your bills. When you get your utility bill, what does that mean? How much do you owe? Where does that number come from? 

And then paying your bills, which kind of ties back into banking. You can go paperless. You can automatically withdraw. There are a lot of options there. Or you can continue to do it paper-based with a check, but then making sure that that's first of all supported, and the students know how to do that, and also that is properly communicated with the utility company. 

And then the democratic process. First of all, voting. How do you register to vote? Who can register to vote? When you register to vote, what type of documentation do you need? Where do you vote? Where is your polling place? And that ties back into transportation. How do you get there? And then voting practices, rules, and procedures. When you go in to vote, what does that look like? Until you go in and do that, a lot of people don't know when you walk into a room what's going to happen. 

All right. And then researching candidates. What websites are there to research candidates? What local political organizations are there? Local news sources, access to any candidate forums. And then beyond just doing the research, understanding your own political alignment. Looking for any type of assessment, so that you know what your priorities are. And just defining the issues and understanding where you stand on them before you can decide which candidate you align with. 

Marcia, instead of doing the breakouts, do you want to just hop ahead since we've only got about 10 minutes left? And then we can always come back to this afterwards. OK. So we're going to move ahead. We probably won't see you again. It's been lovely. I'm sorry. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Yeah. We wanted to give everybody a chance to have lots of time to talk because we think that as teachers, we learn more from each other than we can from somebody just talking to us. So we appreciate everybody being so active in their breakout rooms and in person room talking about these topics. 

So we want to touch on some of the lessons that we have learned over the last three years as far as instructor proficiency. One of the things that we have discovered is that a lot of times, we have instructors say the students can't do that. And when we first started in the fall of 2020 with online classes, all of my instructors were like, oh, the students can't do this. They can't do that. They can't do the other. Because we were using an LMS, they said, oh, they can't use an LMS. They can't. 

What we found out is, yeah, the students can. And that the student proficiency and comfort was directly linked to the teacher, the instructor proficiency and comfort. We found that people teaching even very beginning level one ESL students who are really comfortable with the technology and the different tools, their students did really well in those classes. And some of our higher levels, the teachers weren't so comfortable, the students didn't do so well, and the teacher said that they struggled. 

So that was a really important lesson for us to think about, that it was like we need to make sure that we support our instructors. We need to make sure that teachers are supported. If we're going to ask them to teach either online or to teach digital tools. So that's a really important factor, especially for anybody who manages a program, or if you're in a program, to remind your managers that you need training. 

You need time for training. You need to be paid for training. Most of my teachers are part-timers. And I'm always like, no, if they're going to attend training sessions, we need to give them something. We need to give them support. So Heather was actually in our department during this time, and Heather was our tech support person. And teachers would reach out to her all hours of the day. All hours of the day. And say, hey, Heather, how do you do this? And if they didn't get a response from Heather, they reached out to me. And they said, hey, I haven't heard back from Heather. Marcia, how do I do this. So that support is really important for our instructors, so that they can feel comfortable with the tools. 

The other thing that is also important that we learned was that teachers need access to resources. We actually created a whole new faculty web page with all sorts of resources, videos, et cetera, to support our teachers during this time. And you know what? These have been wonderful since we've come back because when new teachers come on, we have all these supports in place, and I can't tell you how excited people coming into our program are. And they say, you do such a nice job of giving your teachers access to resources. So again, really important. These are some lessons that we learned during the pandemic about encouraging, teaching digital literacy. 

HEATHER MARTIN: And a lot of the tools that we use through the pandemic also did a good job of making sure they had their kind of help pages and how to pages significantly more accessible than they might have been in 2019. So that's another good place to start. 

So things to consider when you're incorporating technology into your lessons. First of all, is it worth using? Am I using this technology tool just to use it? Or am I using it for a specific purpose, and the students are going to benefit from that purpose? Second of all, is the tool user friendly? How accessible is it? Is it mobile friendly? A lot of students, once they leave your classroom, will access these things primarily on their phones and not on a laptop or desktop like they might in your room. And then also, is it transferable? Is it something they're just going to be using in the walls of the classroom, or is it something that they'll be using outside in the real world as well? 

And then just some reminders. First of all, don't use too many tools at once. I know we talked about a lot of different tools. But also I think forms came up in every single Jamboard. I think email came up in every single Jamboard. So start with a few really transferable tools that you can teach the students. They can get comfortable with it. And then you can expand it to different contexts. 

I always talk about cognitive energy when you're doing something with students and thinking about where that cognitive energy is. If the students are putting their cognitive energy into learning how to use a tool, then they're not going to be able to put as much of it into the content. So make sure you familiarize them first with a tool and support them through that. And then you'll be able to apply that tool to various contexts. 

And then also make sure the students are proficient before adding more tools or going deeper into the content. So you've got a few tools going and a little bit of content going. Then once they master those tools, tack on the searches. We talked a lot about searching for different resources, things like that. But that's like the internet's a really big place, right? So give them little pieces of it. And then as they become more familiar with those pieces, you can deepen and broaden the scope. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: All right. So just like any good teacher, we want to go back and look at our objectives. Hopefully you can say that we achieved our objectives with this. So can you identify why it is important to contextualize digital literacy? Can you identify tools for specific contexts and skills? And can you create classroom activities using these tools? 

So if you just want to give us a thumbs up, you can put something in the chat. Or if you're in the live version, you can just again raise your hands. Do you think you can do all of these things better now? 

HEATHER MARTIN: We got some thumbs up. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Are we getting lots of thumbs up? Awesome. Awesome. So before we leave, we have just a couple of minutes. But we want to give some time in case anybody had any questions. So we'll give you some time for questions. And we're also going to post our contact information while you're asking questions, just in case you want to reach out to us. Both of us are available any time to respond. We may not respond any time, but you can email us any time. We don't have the same work hours, and we get to people as soon as we can. So any questions or comments? 

AUDIENCE: Somebody say something. 

MARCIA LUPTAK: Everybody's quiet. No questions. We're just perfect. No. Not possible. Thank you. Thank you for attending, everybody. 

HEATHER MARTIN: Thank you for your participation in the groups. We really appreciate it. 

AUDIENCE: Thank you very much.