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Speaker: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Marjorie Olavides: Hello, everyone. My name is Marjorie Olavides. I'm a project specialist for the Outreach and Technical Assistance Network, also known as OTAN. And I'd like to welcome you all to this month's OTAN Tech Talk.

Our speaker today is Elisia Doonan from the San Diego College of Continuing Education. She's also an OTAN subject matter expert. And today she'll be sharing with us creative ways to engage all levels of online learning. All right, we're ready to go. Take it away, Elisia.

Elisia Doonan: All right. Thank you so much. Again, she introduced me. So let me go on to my next slide. And thank you again, everyone, for coming, attending.

So hello. I'm just making sure everyone-- hello. I want to thank you all for being here on Friday the 13th. Yes. Hopefully everything is doing well, everybody, right?

All right, so here we are, working-- I have worked with learners with disabilities for over 38 years. As all of us have encountered, I have been online since COVID of March of 2020. I have not been back face to face. That will happen shortly in the spring.

Many of my learners are nonverbal. All of them, most of them have some limitations of memory, cognitive abilities, and reading abilities, as well as math. I have varied social skills and attention skills. So once we went online, that put everything in another ball game. So here we go.

If we're online, my classes always consist of social greetings, so equals Zoom etiquette, which for many of you, if you were online during that time, Zoom etiquette was a lot of things to go over. So we went over that, looking at the camera, putting-- a lot of my learners are not capable of chatting in the chat, changing the backgrounds. That's really pretty high functioning or high level for them. So Zoom etiquette was something that we worked on. Interrupting was something, raising a hand. That was tools we had to work on.

I also have an objective of the day. As you can see with this, a category that I use is critical thinking. And I might have a picture, as you can see, the hamburger. An example of this would be things you put on a hamburger.

There's many ways to represent this particular lesson. It would be I could show it. I could take it away. Again, everyone would see this in a full screen. As you all are seeing this, they would see my picture of the hamburger.

And I might ask them things you put on a hamburger. What do you see? I see a hamburger. I see a bun. I see lettuce, that type of thing. Those would be some pictures that I would use to elicit, get some language for them.

If someone is able to-- is a higher level, I might ask them more things. Explain to me. Describe it. What color is it? Don't tell me what it is, but describe it to me, trying to get more adjectives, more language from them. So those are some ways that I would do that.

Now, another phase of the session that I do is also interaction as what? I'm trying to communicate with them. Now, if I have someone who is nonverbal, I could say-- I might say, Suzy, is hamburger something you like? Or I would say, who likes hamburgers? Put your hand up. So I also have to change my presentation for everyone's ability.

One thing that I can say, I'll do the interaction and the summary at the end. What did you learn? I might say, I learned that Suzy does not like onions. I remember she said that.

Is there something I forgot? Maybe someone forgot to tell me there was lettuce in the picture. Again, so we're working on the critical thinking would be memory. What did someone say? Obviously, we're working on attention span. So these are all things one simple picture does.

I always go over those each session. All right, some of the other things that I like to use with my online learners is the use of photos. I prefer to use my own photos. The copywriting is much easier.

Something with this one, this, again, would be the whole screen they would see. This one is a little bit busy, but it still works. I would ask them, what do you see? OK, so someone might see, I see a cup. OK. I see a jar. All right.

And I might ask them, would you find this in the bathroom? How many would find this in the bathroom? So there you go. They could raise their hand.

Would you find this in the kitchen? Hopefully everyone's giving me a thumbs up. Yes. What do you think they're doing with this? So that would be some ways to elicit some language.

And that is a picture of different spices. And then that's pumpkin. That's pumpkin syrup and a frother. Anyone who knows any of that, anyway, that's what that is. So those are some-- again, what I like to do is use my own photos and just try to get more language from them.

Here's another one with them that I have and. This one I have also labeled 1 and 2. I love having my own pictures and then also putting the numbers on that. So using these photos, language, memory, and critical thinking-- so looking at this, you can also say, what do these two have in common? There's so many ways to go. A lot of times I can do that. What do these have in common?

Now, someone might say, I see water. OK, that's true. Someone might say, I see sky. OK. I see trees. All of those things are some things.

Now I could say, what is different? Is there anything different? Tell me which one. And the thing is you may see something different than I see. But if you can explain it and it makes sense, that's perfect.

So number 1 might be, I see a person. I see a kayak. That's different than number 2. You might say number 2, I see a light in the background or something shining.

I can get my Annotate out. That's another thing that I like to use, my Annotate. Are you talking about that? Is that what you're referring to? How many kayaks do you see? Oh, I see two, or partially two, that. So using the Annotate is another great tool that I love to use.

See if I can get that-- now since I cleared my toolbar-- sorry about that-- everything is back to normal. So there are so many ways to elicit language on that. I might say, number 1, would you like to be there? Has anyone tried kayaking? Has anyone done any water sports? Is this something you would like?

What time of day do you think this is? Where do you think it's at? Obviously by water. Some people might know this area, maybe not. Doesn't matter. Those are some things to talk about. These seem to really-- my learners really seem to like this, this activity.

That'll let me clear. OK. Now I'm going to go to my next one. That toolbar. Here we go.

All right, here's another one. Now, this is the use of Jamboard. Now, some of you may know Jamboard. It's going to be out of use in December 2024. I don't know how many of you have used it. Take a look at it. It's a wonderful device. I like it.

This, again, as you see this kitchen, if I was in presenting it to my students, it would be the full screen. So this is made on Jamboard. I like it because I can use different colors for my numbers.

There's number notification. They can identify something by color. And I can also label anything I want on it. And it's also good for my nonverbal and verbal students.

Now, an example for my nonverbal students would be I could say something like, what would I-- I could get my Annotate out again. And I would circle this. Is this something that you can have in the morning? How many see this out their house? So they could raise their hand and say, yeah, shake their head.

And then I would ask another person, another learner. Suzy, can you name number 2 for me? I might also say something like, what number can I eat by? What would be something that I could eat by or sit at? That would be something that I could use for them.

What number is where I would wash my hands? What number is where I would wash my hands? That would be something that I would say. So those are many ways to use Jamboard.

Now, Jamboard, I inserted this photo, and then I put the little Post-its on it and numbered them. The numbers work really well and the colors. So even if my learners do not know their numbers, I could say the pink, the yellow, the blue, the green. So that's one way of doing it. All right. Again, reaching all levels for learners-- if I wanted to make it harder, I just ask my question harder for them.

Now, here are some websites that I have chosen. One of them is Bamboozle. It is free, has different categories. It's interactive. And it has a lot of game modes.

The one thing I really like about Bamboozle as I've been looking through a lot of games is that Bamboozle has numbers. They have a matching game. And it's all numbered, which works really well for my students because sometimes there's a lot of games that aren't numbered. It's kind of a format, a grid of different matching.

This one has numbers. It has many different topics. And I'm just showing you what October, a date in October. It tells you the language. I pick English. And then it has a number of types of games.

Also, besides just the basic matching, you can do it in teams. I choose to do one team. We all are the same learners. And we all root for each other. But you can do a competitive mode if you like. But again, I like to keep it kind of simple. And that way we all learn something together.

Here's another website, Jeopardy Labs. This is another one that is free. It has different categories. Interactive and game mode-- as you can see with the different categories, what's really interesting or very exciting for my students is it has 100, 200, 300. And, of course, being a instructor, I like to say, oh, going for the big ones, right? Put us on the board, first one in the category. I like to be that person. And they really like that. So that's a good one.

And a lot of times we may not know that topic as well. This topic would be very hard for my students. So the typical ones that I like to use would be breakfast food. The other one would be snack foods, social manners. Those are some hot ones for my learners.

And if they can't read, I can read it for them. It's very simple. And if they need help, if they're stuck, I can tell, would you like someone to help you? And they'll say yes. So that's always a good thing.

And I will read the question. Or if they would like to read it, they can. And you can pick how many columns you want or how many topics. You can create your own Jeopardy game if you want, or you can find one. So this is just the place where you would insert what you want to find.

It's very nice. And you can also, if you like one, you can edit that particular game. Just download it and edit. It's really nice.

Here's another nice website, Edpuzzle. Oh, I have-- that's a typo in there. Sorry, Edpuzzle. So it's free, interactive videos. It has quizzes and categories in it.

Now, with this one, this one I have, these are my-- these are my folders. I have parks, mental health, Hispanic heritage, holidays, St. Patrick's Day, and February Black History. Those are my particular folders. I have a lot more in there.

What's great about this is they have a lot of history station videos. And also, they also have really nice quizzes inside, in the video, incorporated. I choose anything five minutes or less because if I have a quiz in that, it takes me about a minute or seconds or more, and we discuss it. Not to say that if it doesn't have a quiz, you can go ahead and stop it at any time and ask questions.

Again, these are nice. They have a lot that are over. Some of them are 20 minutes. Again, for my students, I choose five minutes or less. I really like four minutes as a sweet spot.

Again, here we have a-- I've listed websites. There are many more websites available for you also. There's matching, drawing, math, reading, and music. I didn't list them, but you can google them and see what you like.

So this is correct. Here I went over the Jamboard, Bamboozle, Jeopardy Labs, Edpuzzle, the use of your own photos, and to explore the internet for many websites. Now, again, these are my favorite ones, especially if I use these because of the different learning abilities for my students. I can change these quickly for them changing my question for them. So these are what I found that works best for me.

And thank you all for attending. I really appreciate you coming on Friday the 13th. There we go.

Marjorie Olavides: Thank you, Elisia, for all that great information. And I'm laughing because I had to save Jeopardy Labs. I love Jeopardy, so--

OTAN would also like to thank all of you for coming to this Tech Talk. If you have an edtech tool or some tips you'd like to share with the adult education field, then email your idea to support@otan.us. I also want to encourage you to subscribe to the OTAN YouTube channel, where you can view archived Tech Talks, as well as view other OTAN videos.

You can contact us for anything else, including professional development at your site. Just visit the OTAN site at otan.us or contact us by phone or email. Thank you again for watching today's OTAN Tech Talk.