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Speaker 1: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Renee Collins: But thank you for being with us today. I'm really excited about this particular presentation, and we are really-- at OTAN, and with CAP Technical Assistance Project, trying to recruit as many agencies as possible, or consortia to come on board with Canvas-- the papers version of Canvas-- and really experience all that it has to offer.

And so, for the next hour or so, we're going to be looking at the access, and equity, and outcomes that are possible with the Canvas Learning Management System, and what we've put in place in order to be able to assist with the implementation and adoption of Canvas for your program and your students.

So if you can, take just a minute and pop in the chat, please, your name, location, and role. That would be great. And then I can get a sense of who's in the room with us today. So your name, location, and role, and maybe also add whether or not you have adopted Canvas at your site at this point-- the paid version of Canvas.

Good. So lot of people using Canvas, but what we're also trying to do-- and maybe some of you can help us to do it-- is really kind of spread the word about this, about Canvas, about the opportunity that we're currently offering through OTAN and the Technical Assistance Project to really expand Canvas to all adult education agencies within California. So if folks don't have it, or maybe they're using the free version of Canvas, they can consider coming on board. And we'll let a little bit more about how to do that, and how to spread the word with and for us as we move forward.

All right, so thank you. Keep on keeping on in the chat. That would be great. I would like this to be really interactive today. So as you have questions, please pop them in the chat. Or if it makes sense to come off of mute, you're welcome to do that, too.

And I just wanted to-- I guess to close out this particular slide, I just want to say that the Canvas learning management system project is a joint effort led by the Outreach and Technical Assistance Network, OTAN, the CAPE Technical Assistance Project, and the Sacramento County Office of Education. They are our fiscal agent. That is where both OTAN and the Technical Assistance Project are located. So SCOE is an important partner in this.

And we'll move on to the next slide. So our objectives for today's webinar, beyond trying to kind of get the word out of just our interest in bringing people on board with Canvas, is to give you a very brief history and vision for Canvas and adult education, to hear from two amazing instructors in the field-- ESL instructors, specifically, who are going to talk to us about how they have used and implemented Canvas at their sites-- sometimes in the classroom, and sometimes with opportunities beyond the classroom. We're also going to talk with them about how they see Canvas providing access, equity, and outcomes to their students.

And then my-- our CAEP TAP and OTAN Canvas Leadership Team are going to be introducing themselves. And we'll each talk about our roles, and how the California Distance Learning Cooperative, which is the umbrella organization that organizes all adult education agencies who are using Canvas, they all fall under that California Distance Learning Cooperative. And we'll tell you some of the benefits of belonging to that.

And then, if you have not yet adopted, or you're kind of in the process of adoption and implementation, we'll talk about what those next steps look like. But those are the objectives for today.

And here is our agenda. So I know that I formally introduced myself. [chuckles] My name is Renee Collins. I'm the Director of Adult Education at Sacramento County Office of Education, and the Director of OTAN and CAPE Technical Assistance Project. Our additional introductions of our teachers, and of our leadership-- our campus leadership team I will make as we move through the presentation. The following-- this will-- we'll next listen to our panel of Canvas practitioners. We'll go into an overview of the California Distance Learning Cooperative, talk about the benefits, and answer any questions that you may have still.

At this point, I want to just take a minute, and kind of warm ourselves up, and get us all participating again. And answer the following question, please. What is the best digital learning experience you have had as a learner, or an educator, and why? Think about that, and then pop your answer into the chat. One more time. What is the best digital learning experience you have had as a learner, or as an educator, and why?

And you're welcome to come off of mute to-- come off of mute and take this one. Thank you, Mandilee, for putting the question in the chat.

Jamie, that's a nice plug for the OTAN conference. Thank you. All right. Elsa is talking about Blackboard, and easy access to class announcements and assignments. So another learning management system.

Blair is also talking about an experience with a learning management system-- and having 24/7 access.

Another plug for TDLS. Thank you, Diana. [inaudible] board training? Good. Hopefully we can get back in the classroom and start using those.

I was thinking about what mine was, and-- I was, I think, pregnant with my third-- maybe my third child, and had a midterm schedule when I happened to go into hospital to deliver him. And I was able to take that midterm from my hospital bed [chuckles] because it was able to be done online. And all those years ago-- it was crazy.

But that child is now 22, and I think that was one of the most transformative experiences for me, to know how accessible distance and online education can be. So that was great. And I did pass that class.

OK. So funny, Jamie. She also happened-- she also finished her master's while having a baby. That's fantastic. All right. So we're going to go on to the next slide.

And I'm going to give just a brief project overview, which includes those items that are listed there. So a little history, Learning management systems have been around for a long time. We know Moodle, Blackboard, Google Classroom, for example. OTAN has utilized Moodle for the last 15 years, and now we're making this transition to Canvas. The pandemic has spurred us to provide increasingly accessible and equitable learning platforms, as well as to further align our K-12, adult, and community college educational systems.

Canvas is recognized as a leading high-quality learning management system, and has been adopted by the full community college system, higher education systems, and by many K-12 districts. OTAN and CAPE TAP launched a Canvas pilot in January of 2021 with 25 agencies.

Canvas is not only for distance learning, as many of you know. It can also be used in face-to-face and blended classrooms. We'll be able to visualize, through some brief Canvas demonstrations, how Canvas has relevance during the pandemic and beyond. With support from the California Department of Education and the Chancellor's Office, we are able to extend our offer of statewide leveraged pricing for Canvas to additional WIOA Title II, and CAP agencies.

Through the spring of 2023, OTAN and CAPE TAP are able to waive a one-time Canvas start up fee of $2,600 for agencies that come on board during our expansion. We are also able to provide 50 pre-paid licenses to agencies for the foreseeable future. We expect that Canvas is here to stay, and that the 53 licenses will just be part of that package. Beyond providing time for personnel to be trained, and for administrative support of this effort, agencies or consortia could have little to no out of pocket costs.

For those that want to expand more quickly and need additional licensing, we've negotiated low cost fixed licensing, and we'll discuss this more as we move through the PowerPoint-- on how an agency could request additional licenses. Overall, our vision is to make Canvas available to all of our adult education agencies statewide, and to support the implementation, training, and maintenance of the platform moving forward.

All right. Now we're at what I consider the fun part. I am going to, in just a second-- I will introduce Julie Caspersen-Schultz. She is an ESL Assistant Professor at Sierra College. And Diana Vera-Alba. She's one of our OTAN Subject Matter Experts, as well as an ESL Instructor and Open Educational Research-- Resources-- I'm sorry-- Open Education Resources Faculty Coordinator at San Diego College of Continuing Education.

And being that the community colleges are a couple-- probably a couple of years ahead of us, as far as the use of Canvas, they-- I certainly consider them experts, in this case, to be able to share how they have been able to utilize Canvas with their students and in their programs. So, Julie and Diana, do you want to come off of mute, and say any-- introduce yourself in any additional way? And maybe talk about how Canvas is used at your sites?

Julie Caspersen-schultz: I could start, I think. Hi, I'm Julie, and I work for Sierra College, as Renee said, but I also have a background in adult education. I worked in adult education before I transitioned to community college. So I was working in adult ed for quite a few years as a ESL teacher.

And we use Canvas at our school site-- well, all college-- all community colleges in California use Canvas. And during the pandemic, instructors at Sierra College were required to use Canvas while remote. In general, it can be used to supplement an on-ground class, and as a standalone learning management system with asynchronous and synchronous classes. It can bridge online and on-ground learning.

And what's another great thing is teachers can share their Canvas material in the comments. And maybe you'll hear more about that.

Renee Collins: Perfect, thank you. Diana?

Diana Vera-alba: Yes Hi, I'm Diana Vera-Alba with San Diego College of Continuing Ed. And how our district uses Canvas as an LMS, we not only use it for teaching, and housing materials and resources for our students in the form of Modules, we also use it to provide faculty professional development through self-directed courses, as well as facilitated PD. Our individual departments have a discipline-specific Canvas show, where leaders and faculty can share materials with each other.

And then we have coordinators, like myself, and Monica, who's also here at the conference, where we have OER Canvas Shells for ZTCs, zero textbook cost materials, and free teaching resources for faculty departments and disciplines at our college.

Renee Collins: That's incredible. You have taken us so far beyond the classroom, and that's exciting. It's exciting to think about. And the possibilities for our different leadership projects that we have within Adult Ed. Great. So Julie, I'm going to invite you to share your Canvas--

Julie Caspersen-schultz: All right.

Renee Collins: --courses.

Julie Caspersen-schultz: OK. So I'll do a-- I put together a few assignments and activities that I'm going to share, but I wanted to read a student quote first. This is from-- not an ESL specifically-- an ESL student, but somebody from Sierra College. We did a survey-- a campus survey-- and I saw this quote. And I said, oh, I'm going to read this.

"Course content is now online, as well as in class. This is wonderful, as I can review the material over and over, and then ask the teacher questions. This has significantly strengthened my learning. I think Canvas has been very helpful for students. In the classes where it is not used, the knowledge transfer is much less." So I thought that was a really powerful statement from one of our students.

Renee Collins: Absolutely.

Julie Caspersen-schultz: Let me share now. So Diana mentioned Modules, and this is how we do our weekly work in Canvas. We use Modules. And so, I put together a little Module for this workshop. My Module for students are, of course, different, and the way we build them-- you scaffold the information, and then maybe have a quiz, or some sort of an assignment, scaffold, scaffold, scaffold-- provide material, information, videos, content little by little, and then develop the weekly Modules like that. But I wanted to just show you a few pages and assignments that I used in some of my classes.

So I'll start with the Home page. This is a Home page for one of my classes. We have Home pages for all of our classes. And I chose to put this so when students come on, they see this right away. I can change it. I just updated it with "I Stand With Ukraine," So when they come to my Home page, they can see this immediately.

And then I can add some other information. "Life is pretty crazy. Let me know if there's something I could do to support you." And then we can scroll down, and welcome to the class. There's a picture, so they know their teacher. I publish my classes a few days before school starts, so they can look on here before we even meet. And so we have instructional assistants that are really big parts of our classes, and really helpful. Here's a welcome video the students would be able to watch even before school started starts.

So it might talk about the books we use, and we're a low cost LTC and ZTC also. Our college is going that way-- zero cost textbooks and low cost textbooks. I just wanted to mention that. Here's my instructional assistant welcoming students to the class. And then here's some buttons they can go to. They can click on the syllabus.

I made a padlet about me, so if want to see their teacher, and see a little bit more about me-- some fun stuff-- they can do that. And then Welcome to the Class. Basically, here are our books, links to the books, where to get them. And then a little information-- how to reach us in the first week, a link to our first Zoom, a link to a little survey quiz I do on campus, get to know you quiz. And then set my contact information, and my instructional assistance information. And basically, that's the Home page.

So all of your information that the students would need to start the class. And they can come back to throughout the semester, if they need to do that. And I'm just going to kind of go through each one, if that's OK. And this is a way-- I just wanted to share that can embed videos through YouTube, or through Studio. And so this-- the students could watch-- and then we can embed quizzes in there also. So you could embed a quiz in the video through Studio.

You can pause it, add a question. So as the students are watching, they would answer a question. Or you could-- this is not it. Sorry. This is me reading a book. This is Studio, and I recorded myself. So I read the book every week for the students that can't come to Zoom-- we read two little readers, and-- this is a reading and writing class. But I wanted to show you what you could do with these videos.

So you could make a comprehension quiz on Canvas. So after they watch the video, or read my book, or read the chapters, then I make vocabulary quizzes and comprehension quizzes, and I let the students take them up to three times. So there's learning-- if they don't get it right, it's not like, OK, you've got eight out of 10, and you're done. No, they can go back, review it, look again, and answer the questions again, maybe ask me, ask our tutor, or ask a family member for help. Because all that, I think, is they're learning while they're doing that.

And then this is a Community Vocabulary padlet. And so all the students would post to this, and then you can go through, and the students can go through and see the words that their classmates have posted. And they're not supposed-- they're supposed to look at it, and not-- and they're not supposed to post what's already there. So I can make vocabulary quizzes off the vocabulary that they have chosen out of our content, and I love that.

And this is a padlet, so I've integrated a padlet into Canvas, and it's pretty easy. And the students get it right away. All you do is click on this button, and they can add to it.

Renee Collins: Julie, how is the learning curve as a teacher, learning Canvas? Some folks on the call might wonder, is it even possible for my teachers to produce all this?

Julie Caspersen-schultz: That's a very good question. It is a learning curve, and I took Canvas Basics maybe three times, or two or three times before I started using it. This was years ago, because I began using it as a supplement to my on-ground class. So it took a little while to get used to it, to figure it out. But now it's like-- once you get it, it's really easy, and it's really fun to create new things. And what can I do next, what could be exciting for the students.

And there is 24 hour support. I love it, love it, love it. And I think you get it with your paid-- your subscription. So I can call Canvas at any time-- I love it-- midnight, 365 days a year, 24/7. So if I ever have a question, how do I do this, I lost this page, what is this, they always help. They're wonderful.

And so, this is just something I put in there. I like to humanize my classes. Michelle Pacansky-Brock has done a lot about humanizing our courses online. So once in a while, I might just pop in my Module just something about myself. Hi, students, how was your weekend? This is what I did What did you do?

And then the students can actually respond. So this is all the student responses I got, here's what I did over the weekend. And then we can kind of read about each other. So it's not really related to the course content, but it's building community, and it's sharing together. And it just feels like we're in a class. We can learn from each other.

And then-- so every week, I do a humanity check in. And this is so that students can tell me how they're doing, so I don't-- because I don't see them at school. And even if we're at school, we don't really have time to check in with students all the time, right, because we're off to other classes they have to go.

But this is really a time for the students to tell me how are they doing, so they can write, like, all is great, I'm excited, or they can ask me a question, they can tell me what's confusing, they can share something about themselves. So I've had students say, I'm really confused about this, or gosh, I didn't understand this week.

So then I could write a comment back and say, oh, let me help you. Can you meet with me? Or here's a video that might help you, or something like that. Or they might tell me something like, I've had a really hard week, teacher. You know, this happened to my son, and this and that. And it's like, I think they just want someone to listen. So then I can just respond to them, I'm so sorry to hear this, thank you for sharing, I hope things get better, or something like that.

So I love this part. I do it every week in the Module. So I get to hear from every student, and they get points for all this stuff-- little points. I also do surveys throughout the semester. So I do one at the beginning, in the middle, and the end.

And I listen to them, and I can see their comments, and I try to incorporate their feedback into maybe-- like a student once told me, can we have some more videos with more-- we want more quizzes, video quizzes. And so I'm like, oh, that's a good idea. So that's good feedback from a student, so I can work on myself and maybe create some more video quizzes.

And so this they'll do. And so it's basically, how are you doing, any feedback, do you need any help kind of thing. So just checking in. And then this one, I'm going to go over here. So I just wanted to show what else is on the discussion. And we are reading a book, and in the book they talked about a harvest festival. So I said, let's share harvest festivals from our country. So what a great way to share.

We don't-- in a class, you'd have to have each student come up to the computer, find an image, and share them. It'd take a while. So here, it's all here, and I'm just going to scroll through and show you how beautiful. So I shared first, because I like to kind of model. Here's Thanksgiving. And then the students would come on. Oh my goodness, such beautiful pictures of harvest festivals and food from their countries. So that was one week's discussion.

And then they reply to each other. And I can-- I get in there, and I reply to students, too. So that's a really great way. And every student has a voice. Every student gets to share. Sometimes, in class, the ones that raise their hand or the more talkative ones, and the ones that share. But here, everyone has a voice.

And I think that's all. This is like conference time, so it's a little different. I mean, it's another way to make an appointment with me, but I think that's all I wanted to share. I know we needed to make it quick, so thank you.

Renee Collins: Thank you so much, Julie. Yeah, it's fun to see what teachers produce, the possibilities. And a lot of times, I hear how my students don't like learning online, but that's-- we're experiencing quite the opposite, right, when we see all of that connection, and relationship building. And so that's exciting to see.

And I know my own children I know are using Canvas, right, in their college courses. And I remember one of my sons missed his first class, and my husband said, well you better talk to the teacher and find out what you missed. He's like, oh, I can just Canvas. Well, you better see if they had any handouts. I'll just check Canvas.

Better see if there's anything do coming up. I'll check Canvas. [laughs]

Julie Caspersen-schultz: Yes.

Renee Collins: So it's nice that we're creating this one-stop shop for students, but also making it easier on teachers because, I don't know, I used to be an ESL teacher, too. And I would keep my extra handouts, right, for those students that had missed the day before, or what have you. And now, you don't need to really worry about that. You can have it all on Canvas-- supporting your classroom, whether it's in-person or remote.

All right, thank you so much. I appreciate your sharing. I'm going to pass it off to Diana, and invite her to share about her experiences with Canvas.

Diana Vera-alba: OK. Thank you, Julie, for sharing, and thank you, Renee. Let me go ahead and share my screen. So I'm going to start off on the Dashboard, because I did mention that at our district, we not only use Canvas for teaching, but we also use it as a resource base, or for professional development. So the first Shell that you see here on the dashboard is my course. The next one is-- I'm also the OER coordinator, so I have a Canvas Shell for resources that faculty can access.

I've taken some professional development through the state Academic Senate on OPEN for Anti-Racism, so there's a Shell for that. Monica is here. She's our ESL Tech Coordinator, and she has a Shell that she shares with our faculty on anything technology based. So there are many ways to use Canvas.

You can have multiple Shells for different purposes. Again, I've taken another PB. This is one of our Proactive Online Course Design, which is through our distance education coordinator.

And we have distance education mentors because of the pandemic. Now, we were already teaching online prior to the pandemic, but of course that expanded, just like everyone else. And so those of us that were already teaching online became distance education mentors, and we were mentoring our faculty on how to use Canvas, and how to teach online. And so from that, this course, Proactive Online Course Design, was created.

[interposing voices]

Renee Collins: Can you share a little bit about what a Shell is? That sounds like a Canvas term that we--

Diana Vera-alba: Yes.

Renee Collins: --maybe not everybody is familiar with.

Diana Vera-alba: Yes. So actually, these out here are Cards. They're called Cards. And then the Shell is actually the Canvas site. So let me go into my Shell-- so this card with the book and the leaf. Let me just go--

Julie Caspersen-schultz: That's what students would see also. They would just--

Diana Vera-alba: Correct.

Julie Caspersen-schultz: --Start, and go right into the class.

Diana Vera-alba: Correct. So this is the actual Shell, and I have it on student mode. So this is what students would see when they come into my Canvas Shell. So I believe we call them Shells in at our district, but they're also-- another reference is Instance. So this is also called a Canvas Instance. And this is-- when my students come in, this is what they see.

So there are many ways to customize your Canvas course. I have it so that the latest-- the two last announcements that I send out to students. So this is another great feature of Canvas, is there's an inbox over here to the left on the course navigation, and I can directly email individual students, or the whole course-- or I can also add announcements, or a combination of both. So when I add announcements, students can go to the Announcements section here, and see all the announcements that I've sent throughout the semester. Or from the Home page, where they arrive, they see the last two announcements.

And again, you can customize this to only see the last announcement, or the last three announcements, or no announcements at all. So it's very customizable. That's what I like about Canvas.

Julie Caspersen-schultz: And students can get notifications so the announcement will show up right across their cell phone right away. You can sign up for notifications.

Diana Vera-alba: Correct. So this is my Home page, and I teach an ESL reading course. Just like Julie, I have a welcome message. I do use a liquid syllabus, and I send that out with a welcome message and welcome video to my students a week prior to the class starting. And then students-- I give students a couple different options to access. So they can use this course navigation here to the left. But for those students that are using phones, it's always much easier to have buttons.

So the same links that appear to the left here, I created these Quick Link buttons here. So they can access-- quickly access the syllabus, they can quickly access the Modules, they can go straight to assignments. They can go on Zoom, and they don't have to-- I have the password and everything here, but they don't have to enter the password. All they have to do is click this button, and it'll take them straight to our Zoom meeting.

I also give them Quick Links for the current week Modules, and then I star the current week. Our course materials, I also put that on the Home page. And again, this is all housed here in Modules, but this is for quick access, especially with somebody who's using a cell phone, or a tablet-- or a smartphone, or tablet. And then a Quick Link to my liquid syllabus, and then my contact information at the bottom.

So again, this can all be seen on a cell phone, a smartphone, a tablet, a laptop, and, of course, a desktop. So I'm going to go into the Modules section here, so you can see how I organize my Canvas course. So at the very top, I have Student Resources. And there's these-- there's a really nice feature where you can hide the resources. This is nice for students as well. As their Modules get longer throughout the semester, they can hide certain items, or access them just by pressing the triangle there to the left of the heading.

So I have Student Resources at the top. I have a Module 0.0, where students can use-- or can watch these how to videos on orientation to Canvas, how to use the Canvas app. And all of these videos-- I would say probably 99% of these videos-- were created by our wonderful technology faculty-- our technology coordinator, our distance education coordinator, our distance education mentors. We've all created these great videos, these how to videos, and it's been a team effort of faculty that have created these how to videos. And there are quite a bit in here.

And there are more. These are just the ones that I've added. And then the next section is Course Materials. So notice that none of these have a number, and I really wanted to differentiate that for students, because I wanted to let them know that all their resources that they need are at the very top of the Modules section. And then once we get into the Modules, I do use the numbering system. And this has just become really more of a convenience for me, as well as for the students.

So if a student emails me and says, I had a problem with the assignment, it's difficult for me to know which assignment, right, depending on which Module they're working on. But if they say the assignment 3.5-- the assignment number 3.5, then it's really easy for me to access. So I do use this numbering system. So Module 3 goes with-- starts at 3.0, and then I just number it all the way down as far as it goes-- as far as that Module goes.

Now, every week, I made it so that students have the same template, just different activities within that template. So earlier, Renee said how it was easy for her to access her test from the hospital, right? Well, the same goes for students who miss our Zoom meetings. So each week I have an agenda, just like we would have an agenda for a presentation, at the top. And then the lecture with slides that students can review down at the bottom.

And then the next tab has the Zoom recording that students can watch, along with that lecture that goes with the Zoom recording. So again, every week it has the same templates, the same headings, just the material within those sections change.

So I do have some advanced features on here because, like I mentioned, I have been using Canvas for quite some time. So some of these tabs, and things like that, Canvas does have training for it, but it's not like a face-to-face training the way that OTAN would.

So OTAN also provides Canvas support and, in addition to Canvas support, Canvas training, which I've participated in, and other OTAN SME's have participated in. So if you're interested in something like that, contact Penny or Renee about that.

I'll show you really quick one of my reading lessons. So, like Julie said she embeds programs, one of the nice things you can embed also is Quizlet. That's a really popular vocabulary app, and you can embed it directly in Canvas. So there's lots of apps that you can embed where students don't have to go outside of Canvas. So that's one of the things-- one of the apps that I embed for a lesson.

And then they go on to reading. So you can also embed PDFs, or add PDFs, but students can also download the PDF. So there's this little arrow for students to download. Or if they want to see this-- this is a reading article. If they want to see the article, I also include the story link if students want to read it online. So this is just an example of a way to organize, use color, use graphics, and just make it easier for students to visually see and follow the organization of the Canvas Shell. Questions about that?

Renee Collins: No, but that's fantastic. And it's great to be able to see the semester at a glance. Right?

Diana Vera-alba: Right.

Renee Collins: And I would imagine it helps you with your own organization.

Diana Vera-alba: Absolutely.

Renee Collins: I'm down to trying. Great.

Diana Vera-alba: Absolutely.

Julie Caspersen-schultz: I just have to add, when you're building a course, you don't have to have the whole semester laid out. I was only like a few days ahead of my students sometimes when I was first building my first remotes. So you don't have to have it all planned out. You can kind of work as the weeks go by.

Diana Vera-alba: Right. But there's also an ability in Canvas to-- if you have, like I mentioned, the weekly templates, if you know that every week you're going to use some of the same materials-- I tested it out this semester and it worked beautifully. There's a way in Canvas to create the Shell of the numbering-- even the numbering and everything. You just plug in the numbers you want to use, and the titles you want to use, and then it'll appear on this Modules screen. But when you go in, it'll be empty.

So, for example, I'll show you an example of one of those. I know-- oh, I have to leave Student View because-- oh. So the nice thing about Student View I forgot to mention is that if you are working on your course, like Julie mentioned, and you don't want students to see certain things, you just don't publish them. So notice that under Teacher's Resources, these are my resources.

These are my slides. This is the Teacher's Book which has the answer key. So I don't want students to see that, but I want to be able to have access myself. So I just don't publish it. So you see the circle with the line through it. That means it's not published for students, but yet I have access to the materials that are in there. And my notes, or anything that I need that I don't necessarily want students to see.

So this is the back end-- so the teacher's side of it. So it looks a lot more visually appealing to students than my back end teacher information does. So just going to show you really quick what that empty Shell-- this is what I'm referring to.

So in this Module, I did not use this heading, but it was there for me to use it if I wanted to so I just created a standard template of the different Modules that I want, or the different headings that I wanted in there. And then as I worked through the semester I decided, OK, I'm going to delete some of these things, it's too much work for a five hour class-- or I'm going to add to this.

Renee Collins: Right. Thank you, Diana.

Diana Vera-alba: You're welcome.

Renee Collins: I wanted to ask both of you-- and maybe we'll start with Julie-- how do your courses address access and equity for your student-- for students?

Julie Caspersen-schultz: So I feel that our college can educate students who never been able to take courses before. And that's what I'm really passionate about, and that's why I really want to be able to continue offering this, continue learning and growing in this online environment-- like single parents, full time workers, students with young children students, who have health concerns, and students with learning differences, who might learn better by being able to review videos and course content again and again.

Those are the comments that I've heard from my students that I just keep in my mind so I remember that these are the students that we wouldn't be able to have if this wasn't-- if this weren't an option.

So I think that's how-- one big thing is just to get those students that weren't able to come before. And I have a handout that I'm going to share later on equity in Canvas, how can we equity's our Canvas courses. And I have a whole handout on ideas I'll share after the questions.

Renee Collins: All right, thank you so much. Diana, do you have anything to add to that?

Diana Vera-alba: Yes. So Canvas offers the ability for students to access Canvas on any device-- so including smartphones, like I mentioned, tablets, laptops, and desktops. And, as a district, we've continuously worked on building student centered digital equity and inclusion programs.

So some of those campaigns have included providing laptops and hotspots for our students through our student equity and marketing programs. And I'm currently part of a committee who's working on digital literacy software, potentially using Northstar, as well as providing tutoring for our students. So there's lots of ways to incorporate Canvas in your digital equity campaigns.

Renee Collins: Great, thank you. Maybe staying with Diana for just a second. How do you feel Canvas has impacted your enrollment or persistence of students-- during the pandemic or before?

Diana Vera-alba: So, like all districts, the pandemic has had a negative impact on enrollment and persistence. However, our administration, faculty, and support staff from day one of going remote have worked diligently to provide students access to registration of our courses, and having access to the software and hardware that students desperately needed during that time, as well as training our students and faculty on the use of Canvas. So not only did we have these programs through our distance education mentors, which several of the faculty that we're already teaching online have provided-- faculty support.

But we also had Digital Navigators for our students. In our ESL department, we had phone support for students, where if they needed assistance, whether it was with technology, or just even accessing their Canvas Shell, we provided that support. So these campaigns and more have positively impacted our enrollment and persistence, as well as help students gain those important tech and digital skills for success in their courses as well as in the workforce. So one of the comments that's really interesting is now students are requesting online courses.

Because now that they've experienced them, they see how beneficial they are. So they can still work, and they can take a course online. And so, just through training, and through guidance, and support of students, they have developed their own ideas of-- of kind of not even having that fear anymore of going online, because initially it was scary for students, right, that had never experienced that. But now we see-- now it's we're turning a new leaf, and students are requesting online courses.

Renee Collins: It was scary for all of us. I think we all had a sharp learning curve, for sure. When students come into adult education programs, they-- we ask them to take the student technology intake survey. And recently, I looked at the results of that, which were more than 8,000 students responding to the survey. 68% of them said that they preferred online learning, which was kind of a surprise to me.

Honestly, even now it was kind of a surprise. And yet, it's exciting to see that they are making that transition, they are feeling more comfortable. We're feeling more comfortable as administrators and educators, and so that's all really exciting. Thank you. Julie, what about you? How is this impacted--

Julie Caspersen-schultz: Yes.

Renee Collins: --enrollment?

Julie Caspersen-schultz: Some of the same kind of answers as Diana. We saw the numbers drop, but it seems like they're coming back. And again, we can see they're voting with their feet. We had on-ground and online classes this semester, and the onlines are overflowing. I had to open a second section of one of my classes because I had so many on the waiting list, and that was my online class. And just the comments that I've heard-- I'm always checking in with the students, so I hear from them that they want online, they need online.

And our campus, like Diana's, I do a tech survey at the beginning of the semester so I know what devices the students have. And I just want to know because if the student tells me they're using a phone, I can reach out and say, did you know the college will loan you, or in some cases give you, a laptop? And we have four things that we give or loan. I think-- hot spot, earbuds, webcam, and a laptop. So they can get those things easily, and I provide the link.

It's a Google Doc, and I'll mail it to their home. So that's a really an amazing way. And some of them do prefer their phones, but I like to offer. Are you sure? With the writing class, it's a little bit harder on your phone. And then, our embedded tutors also are very, very helpful.

Like you had your Digital Navigators, we have our embedded tutors in the tutor center. So the students have that support-- that additional support for tech or course content, whatever they need. And that's kind of the bigger answer. But I did reach out to my data department because I wanted to know, how am I doing as an instructor? How are my students really doing? So they can look at the data of my classes and see.

And so what I found out was the retention and persistence is actually higher in my online classes, and my students have-- success rates have been higher completing the next level. They can look into that. They can go back, and look at the past semesters, and see when my students finished one online class, how did they do in the next level when they finished. So I thought that was really interesting. Thank you.

Renee Collins: That's nice to be able to have that resource, right? To be able to really look at the hard data, and analyze whether it's working or not. For sure. But Julie, what about student outcomes? Do you feel like those have increased in general? Those students who are persisting, are they seeing better outcomes? It sounds like they are.

They're completing at the next level with increased-- at an increased rate. What more do you see?

Julie Caspersen-schultz: Well, we see that students are just maintaining the higher levels of achievement. We can see that through the work, through the surveys, and just the quizzes, and assignments, and our SLOs. We have to-- student learning outcomes we have to assess every so often for different courses. So I think that they're maintaining, and the data shows that they're even doing maybe a little better at the next level.

But one thing I wanted to mention was that-- how much personalized feedback you can give the students in this environment. And I think that really helps with outcomes, too. So for every assignment, or quiz, or the humanity check-ins that I do, I can provide a submission comment. Every time the student submit something, I can personalize it and say, oh, I'm not sure if you-- look at your past tense verbs. Let me send you a video again, or meet with me.

I can see that maybe we might need to study this a little bit more, or something. So I can see, and I can target how to-- some kind of feedback for each student. And then the students are able to submit comments to my submission comment. So they can write back to me and ask me a question about my comment, or make a statement, or whatever. So I think that personalizes it, and that could really increase the outcomes because of that personalized attention and feedback the students can get.

Renee Collins: Now we're-- I know we have our-- we have a digital learning project that we're working on, and one of the sections is the social-emotional learning aspect. And I think that this relationship building within Canvas is really-- really addresses that in some ways. Diana, how about you? What about outcomes that you're seeing with Canvas?

Diana Vera-alba: So similar to Julie, I use-- so one of the nice things about a feature in Canvas is-- it's called Speed Grader. So when you are looking at student work, you have the ability to continuously support student learning. Not only can you give written feedback, but you can also give audio feedback or video feedback. And I teach a reading class online, and so one of my student's weekly assignment was to either create an audio or video of themselves reading one of the passages that was part of their assignments.

So since they were giving me a either video or audio feedback, I was also providing that. So I would write out the feedback, but I would also record myself because that was really important to students, not only to personalize the message for them-- because it was personalized for their specific assignment-- but also to hear my response. I teach ESL, so pronunciation is really important. And so students really appreciated-- like Julie, I gave entry surveys, and exit surveys, and that was one of my students' favorite thing, is my audio and video feedback.

And then also, now that students have had the opportunity to experience online and distance learning, like I mentioned, there's been a surge of students requesting that modality. And that's because of the convenience. It's accessible on any of their devices, and then it can be equitable with the appropriate supports.

Renee Collins: Look at that. Put myself on mute. Awesome. [laughs] Well, thank you so much, Julie. Thank you so much, Diana.

I know Diana needs to run in a couple of minutes, but I would invite anybody that has any questions for Diana and Julie to pop them into the chat. And if they can't get answered here today, we can certainly-- I can certainly reach out to them. I know how to reach them and get those answers for you.