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Speaker 1: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Archana Nekkar: Thank you, Jill. Good afternoon, everyone. Thank you for joining us. I'm Archana with my team from Campbell Adult and Community Education, CACE. We will be talking this afternoon about connecting students to hybrid learning. This is our agenda for this afternoon-- meet the team, our school, our hybrid program, and connecting our students.

The word hybrid was a rare terminology. Just two years back, we hardly spoke about hybrid. February, March 2020 seems so long back as we've made leaps and bounds in distance learning since the time pandemic hit. Summer of 2020, our administrators approached us to talk to us about OTAN's Distance Learning Academy or DLAC.

We were fortunate to be selected. And this is our team-- Jill Moreci, Lars Guntvedt, both ESL teachers; and our digital support for student orientation; and Archana, which is me. And I teach high school equivalency. Next slide, Jill. Thank you.

So CACE, or Campbell Adult and Community Education, we are located in San Jose. We are an independent separately funded program of Campbell Union High School District, serving the communities in part of South Bay. We offer ESL, high school, community interest, citizenship, and basic skills classes and support our students with free academic and career counseling services.

With our mission in mind, we work with partner organizations, community colleges, and community-based organizations to address individual needs and goals of our students. Our mission-- the mission of Campbell Adult and Community Education is to advance our community's economic workforce development and students' quality of life by raising all forms of literacy and preparing learners for careers, college, and civic responsibility.

Our schools was open in 2020. And today, we serve around in 10 locations in South Bay. And we have classes that are hybrid, distance learning, independent study. And also, some classes are fully online to support all student needs. We have classes in the evenings, mornings, and weekends to make learning accessible to all students. Next slide, Jill.

This is our student population. We are one of the few schools which have about 25% Asian students, which I think is not very common in most adult schools. So next slide, Jill.

The CACE goals are goals like most schools. For the year 2021 has been to increase enrollment, increase student persistence, improve student learning outcomes. And we commit to an equity approach, taking into consideration inclusion, giving students supportive services, and differentiation of instruction. So take away, Jill.

Jill Moreci: All right, thanks, Archana. So we're going to talk about the 21-22 school year. And before we could begin our school year, we needed to make some decisions and find the best solution for our school. So we did have a challenge. What was CACE going to look like for this school year 21-22? And how are we going to come up with a plan?

So we're going to take a minute and look at the CACE timeline, which is going to be familiar to many of you. Back in 2019-2020, we were all in our traditional classrooms, face-to-face working with our students. We had textbooks and workbooks in hand. We we're also adding blended learning elements and experimenting with technology. And many teachers were embracing different tech tools and applications at their own pace. And it was good.

But then we moved into 2020. And before we knew it, we were abruptly locked down and locked out of our classrooms. Can you believe that it's been two years now? Looking for reactions.

OK, so as we move into the next school year, 2020-21, in the context of the pandemic, we found ourselves safely confined to our homes while our classrooms were reduced to a 13-inch screen for most of us. Strangely enough, this small screen actually opened up our worlds as we embraced teaching and learning online. And we developed strength, courage, and the ability to adapt and grow. So in our virtual classrooms, we found connection and comfort and consistency during a time of great uncertainty.

So as we moved into 2021, this past school year, it became clear that the pandemic wasn't going away. And teaching with technology was here to stay. But how were we going to find a way? That's what we're going to talk about today. No, we're not going to talk about 2022 because, alas, I don't have a clue.

So there we were, online learning, safe and sound at home for an entire year. But it was time to get ready to move along. And it was-- and we decided to compare our options. What would we do for the school year? Should we remain online? Or should we step back into the classroom?

Well, the pandemic was being difficult. And it looked like our best option, perhaps, was to look at the hybrid learning format. So we took a poll. Actually, we surveyed many students and teachers and staff. But as you can see here, number one would have been online learning. Who wants to go back or stay in the online learning environment? Two would be a hybrid format. And three would be let's go back to the classroom. And the winner was-- any guesses?

Hybrid learning. Yay for the hybrid learning! So we transitioned back to the classroom-- or we were going to make the plan to transition back to the classroom while supporting our students. And that's what we're going to be discussing. Lars, why don't you tell us about the plan?

Lars Guntvedt: So we started to look at the process. And this is a process that was really created by the administration of our school. And in the process, we had to look at a concept development, creating a design for our hybrid learning. And then finally, it has to go back to the students. We have to figure out how do we connect with our students.

So the concept began with the idea of hybrid classes. So if we think of needing hybrid, this was basically the school's response to the need for in-person classes while still respecting the fragility of person-to-person COVID exposure. So that was the concept that we were dealing with.

The school developed a two-day in-person, two-day online format. Most of our classes were designed to be with that kind of a hybrid model. We also had some classes that were fully online and some classes that were simply one day online, three days in person for different reasons-- for different reasons. So as we see, the volatility of COVID variants recently has actually made this kind of limited engagement system very, very useful.

When we get into the design, the design required various levels of online involvement. Some students were fully online with courses. Some of them, most of the classes followed that two-day online, two-day in-class model. While others just have one day that was online. The bottom line here but 20 lines here, I guess. [laughs] The bottom line overall was that the design of the system required a massive student participation with online elements. So this design that we're creating needed to have-- needed to integrate all of that technology training into the intake process.

So finally, connect. How do we connect with the students? We needed to build a system that frontloaded student technology training even before the students joined the classroom. We needed a tech boot camp for our students. And the boot camp model needed to be robust enough to provide ongoing support for students, even after they became integrated into the classroom. So we needed digital literacy support personnel.

Focus on connection. So now, we're down to that connection area. And we're looking specifically what does that connection mean, how does it work? When we look at our intake, we're going to look at our orientation training. We're going to see how the students connect with the hybrid classroom. And then we're going to look at this new concept also of digital support.

The process started with our intake procedure. We developed a rolling intake process where the intake became almost a monthly process. Intake provided the number of new students and their ESL levels that they're going to be going into. Once we knew the intake population for that month, we could divide students into groups-- for technology-heavy orientation or tech boot camp. And these were weeklong-- this is a weeklong course.

So student advisors along with a new position of a digital literacy support staff would manage the course and provide log-in, Zoom, email, Google Classroom, and Canvas training for the students. Students would come out of the weeklong course ready for online learning. Finally, the digital literacy support staff, where teachers tasked with providing one-on-one support for students if they needed additional training. They could on call provide immediate help for students needing Zoom or log-in assistance.

Students could come on campus during their Zoom days for one-on-one assistance with logging in or within class technology questions. So students would, during their Zoom classes, log into-- or come on campus so they could log into the Zoom class with the digital literacy support staff person side by side with them, helping them, stepping them through teacher made worksheets, stepping them through Jamboard activities, stepping them through screen sharing activities. So all of those activities that they had to do live in Zoom, they could actually have one-on-one support through the digital literacy support staff. Take it away.

Jill Moreci: So connection is key for our students to onboard to our hybrid program. So as Lars was describing, we have the boot camp in a four-day format. So I'm going to take us through some examples of our CACE Connect Bootcamp.

First of all, we house the lessons in a Canvas classroom. And so I'm going to take us into this. Are you ready? Ready, set, connect. Here we go. All right, so we'll look at the teacher view. OK, so what I did was I divided the four days into categories, into this menu here. I put welcome first. And the rest are alphabetical. But you can do it-- if you were to design this, you could do it any way you would like.

So we have the welcome. We have a lesson on the students' accounts because that takes some time to get them familiar with their laptops and their school accounts, how to log in their special passwords and so on and so forth. So that's a special lesson. Boot camp here. This is an outline of our week, basically. So if a teacher were to just want to take a peek, what am I doing tonight? Then they could scroll down to day one, day two, and just get an overview quickly of what's up for the day.

The other things on the menu would be the email-- or I'm sorry, coaches if you need to contact your digital literacy coaches right away. They could just log. Who were they? When are they working? Just quickly pop into that button. And then we have a special email lesson for day four where our students introduce themselves to their teachers. Also, this is the-- well, we'll go back to that. But laptops and teachers and Zoom-- this is a teacher resource section specifically for orientation. We'll come back to that.

So here's at a glance the Quick Reference Guide. So this is the boot camp overview. Day one is welcome and accounts. So we're going to jump into the welcome lesson so you can get an idea. So this would be day one of our boot camp, where we welcome our new students.

This lesson introduces our new students to Campbell Adult and Community Education. Students will log into their school laptops and their new accounts. And they will learn about CACE, make introductions, and talk about their goals. So our evening is about two hours every night. I do the night. Lars was in the day. The daytime is two hours as well.

So I've embedded a Google Doc into Canvas. So I can update it. I can make changes very easily. I found using Google Docs to be much easier than the Canvas interface. It was a little-- it wasn't as easy for me. So I just use the Google Doc.

So welcome to day one. So anyone can step in to this lesson plan and follow the steps. And our students will be on their way. So for what we did at CACE, first, we welcome our new students. I also had one or two teacher aides assisting for the orientation. And that's very helpful.

So item number two, students check in with their teacher, the teacher's assistant, and they take out a Chromebook laptop. Then the teacher's assistant distributes all their new account information. And they begin to log on with their new school Gmail and password. So that takes some time.

Once they log on to their account, since it is a Google account, we have them look for the waffle, the apps-- this waffle here. And we have them find their Gmail account. So once they identify that-- it's also a separate link. We point those things out. But I do like them to zero in on the app. What are they looking for? Gmail.

So once they find their Gmail, they open it. And they read an email from me, the teacher, where I invite them to join the orientation class on a Google Classroom that I set up just for orientation. So then they have to go back to the apps and notice that Google Classroom also has a separate icon. So when we jump into the Google Classroom-- we'll just do this quickly so you can get an idea. Come back, classroom-- doesn't want to cooperate. There we go.

So I'm going to scroll down to the beginning. This was our last orientation. So in our orientation, we have all the levels-- levels 1 through 4. So I like to keep everyone as busy as possible while the assistant teachers are helping the students log in. So I have them say hello. So they get used to the Google Classroom streams, like Facebook, I tell them.

And then I tell them to click on the link here. And I set up a Quizlet Study Set so they can review the vocabulary words pertaining to our school, just the things that will be talked about in our slide presentation later on in the evening. So they are introduced to some of these words. And they are also becoming familiar with the Quizlet app. How many of you use Quizlet already? Probably everybody.

I just want to take a peek at the group and say hello for a minute. I can't really see anyone. There you are. Can you all raise your hand if you use Quizlet? It's been around a while now. But I love it. 1, 2, 3. Yeah, any chance I get, it's Quizlet time. So they keep busy. And they go through these activities while the students are coming in to the classroom.

Let me see if I can go back to the stream. So the students are saying hello, hello. And then I want them to say where they're from. So we keep the conversation going a little bit more. And I have this on the projector. So I'm thinking classroom community right away. So where's Jiyoung? Jiyoung, she's from South Korea. Look. So immediately, we're identifying each other, where we're from, and becoming familiar with the student population. And there are many different countries joining us. OK, let me move up.

Another thing I have them do-- now, if the-- I don't want the upper levels or any of the students that are more comfortable with tech-- I do actually want everyone to do the digital literacy survey. I have to quick pop in my name here, I think. Oh, no, it's already done. The survey helps me glance at the charts on this Google form. And I can see how comfortable they are with technology.

So I got this from, I think, a school in Pennsylvania. And it was on an open-ended resource from CATESOL. So I said, hey, this is awesome. I'm going to pop this into orientation. So anything like this where you can assess your students quickly-- and they're using technology. And everything's working together at the same time. People are keeping busy. Others are being helped during orientation. And at the end, I have a good idea of what's going on with our students and their skill level.

So I find out if they're using a computer, a tablet, an iPhone, and what kind of computers they're using or-- this is key here-- I don't have a computer. So during orientation, on night one or day one, it's important to find out who needs a computer. And we offer computers to our students for $50 deposit. And we also work with the library as well. And they help students with Chromebooks or laptops. Do we have any questions so far? Take a little pause.

So far so good? OK, so this gives you an idea of one of the first things we do. Going back to the orientation again. Let's see. This is a different situation. This goes on to night two. So let me jump back over to our list of things to do here. So here's the vocabulary. That's already on the orientation. So a teacher walking into this, following directions, would set up a quick Google Classroom and invite the new students into the classroom.

And then we have our welcome presentation. And this is where we introduce the students to the school. It's a brief presentation. And I won't go through it. But as you see, we have the slide deck here where we welcome the students to CACE. We talk about our different classes that we offer, talk about COVID, the pandemic rules, other classes, and just the basics of the school. Welcome to CACE.

So that gives us an idea of the first part lesson A. Lesson B, after we take a short break, we focus on the student accounts. And we look at the keyboard. And we identify the Shift key and the mouse and scrolling two fingers, and how to click on the tabs, go back and forth, and what does toggle mean. So we have time to work on that and get the students comfortable on the laptops. And then we log out for the night and say goodbye.

OK, all righty, so that gives us a good idea. Where am? I let me go back to this one. Ready, Set, Connect! So that's night one or day one of CACE Connect. The other ones would include a Zoom lesson where we identify the Zoom features. And we focus on preparing the students for Zoom.

And then on the third night, we actually send the students home. And we Zoom. So night three is really key because that tells me who's going to need extra help on night four or day four. So we Zoom. And we have a special lesson on Zoom. And we just carry on with a regular ESL lesson multilevel. And we have a video that's really special that we show about grandpa. You may have seen it, where grandpa is learning how to use English. And then he makes this trip to meet someone special.

OK, so we watched that video. And then we come back into the classroom on day four where we do troubleshooting in the classroom. I had trouble with this. The volume is a big one. They don't know-- sometimes there they have unmuted the buttons. And yet, we still can't hear them. And sometimes they just have the volume off itself. So we try to identify those details that are giving them trouble and resolve as many issues as we can.

And then that's it. They're ready to go, ready to Zoom. And once they connect and step into the classroom, the teacher may continue with Google Classroom. Or their new teacher may be on Canvas. So they make those connections into the new learning management systems.

So in the hybrid format, we're two days online and two days in the classroom. So I teach out of Canvas. I use Canvas. So I stay in Canvas all week, whether I'm online or in the classroom. So the students have a home base. And they can see all the work that I give them and the details. If they miss class, they know how to catch up. So I really enjoy working with Canvas. And we look forward to next year when everyone comes aboard working with Canvas. Any questions so far? OK.

Lars Guntvedt: That's interesting. Jill, you were talking how you work in Canvas throughout the entire four days. I'm actually doing a little bit different. When I do in-class sessions, I'm working more directly paper, pencil works on the in-class sessions. And I leave my Canvas-- I actually have Google-- one group in Canvas and one group in Google Classroom--

Jill Moreci: Wow.

Lars Guntvedt: --because they started in Google Classroom. And I just didn't want to force them to go into another LMS. So interesting. Obviously, we're different teachers. We're working different models. I actually have paper, pencil the days that we are in physical class. And when we're in online, that's where I integrate the Google Classroom material for my one-- for one class, my morning class, or the Canvas material for the evening class.

Jill Moreci: Nice.

Archana Nekkar: Yeah.

Lars Guntvedt: Let's see.

Archana Nekkar: We have a question.

Lars Guntvedt: Can you read the question, please?

Archana Nekkar: Yes. So, "Did CACE use Google Classroom and/or Canvas pre-pandemic teaching?" So.

Jill Moreci: I was in a blended learning class for quite a few years. I was always interested in online teaching and learning. So I took a seminar or two on Google Classroom. So I implemented it early on and used the interface with our students. I would pop up the vocabulary, just the small things like you see. I did not use it extensively. But I kept it as a daily tool for continuity. So.

Lars Guntvedt: Yeah, most of the teachers-- most of the teachers pre-pandemic were not using either Canvas or-- nobody was using Canvas. Some teachers were using Google Classroom. I was using Google Classroom a little bit for just trying to begin getting students used to online learning. But it wasn't-- back in those days, we were not really pushing hard on online learning.

And basically, our use of Canvas came about through the DLAC process. The first DLAC is a two-year process. And Archana, Jill, and I were working through DLAC. Our first year project was to pilot Canvas in our school. And so we actually, over the course of the year, learned about Canvas. And that's kind of like the subject of our second presentation tomorrow, which I recommend all of you to attend.

And that's kind of like the process of how that DLAC group supported everybody in their DLAC projects. And Canvas was our project. And we needed the-- we used the strength of the DLAC group to help us navigate the starting and the initial education on how do I-- how do I create something in Canvas for my class. And that was really what we did with our first program-- our first year program with DLAC is piloting Canvas.

Now, we have not only ourselves working in Canvas, there's a couple of other teachers, two or three teachers that are working in Canvas. And most everyone else is working in Google Classroom. But we are transitioning-- CACE is transitioning right now to be a fully Canvas school. And probably everyone will be-- 90% of the teachers will be running in Canvas in the next school year. But we don't know exactly what's going to happen. But that's the trend within CACE. Much of the initial fear, uncertainty-- now, there's enough teachers with comfort levels in Canvas that we can smoothly transition the whole team into Canvas.

Jill Moreci: Absolutely, yes.

Archana Nekkar: So--

Lars Guntvedt: Any other questions?

Archana Nekkar: Yes, there was a question on, what kind of training the teachers receive to be able to teach hybrid classes? So--

Jill Moreci: Very good question

Lars Guntvedt: Yeah, that's a really good question, isn't it?

[laughter]

Jackie Strobel: Hi, this is Jackie Strobel. If I may, I would like to share some information about that.

Jill Moreci: Sure.

Lars Guntvedt: Sure, yeah.

Jackie Strobel: I teach at Saddleback and Orange Coast on the credit side. And I'm also at Santiago Canyon College on the noncredit side. And that world, the Canvas is available to the instructors. Of course, the college is the one who is paying. But in each of these colleges, they do provide Canvas training, where they have actually certificates where an individual can attend that training for-- sometimes I think it's four months or six months. It's self-paced.

But it's structured in that there's assignments that are due each week. And they're very robust training because they provide all the bells and whistles that you need to understand Canvas, to understand how to build a solid online class, how to make navigation easy. And so usually, these colleges are very-- I don't know the word is. But, for example, when I obtained my certificate from Saddleback, Santiago would not accept it. So I had to do the training in Santiago to get certified.

Jill Moreci: Wow.

Jackie Strobel: And the same thing. So each college is very-- I don't know what word to use.

Lars Guntvedt: [inaudible].

Jackie Strobel: No, but in other words, they want you to attend their training within that college. And I will say that it's been very beneficial because I learned a lot. And you learn a lot. However, the California Community College, they do have what is called a ONET training, which is available for anyone to participate in to actually go through that training.

And if you'd like, I can provide a link in the chat--

Jill Moreci: [inaudible].

Jackie Strobel: --that actually provides some resources and training that is available. Some of them are free. Some of them are with the cost. But there is training available.

Jill Moreci: Yes, absolutely.

Archana Nekkar: Yeah, thank you for that.

Jill Moreci: Thank you so much. I'm going to quick add to that as well, Archana. When we began our journey into Canvas, we were also fortunate because our high school district we are part of, they were already on Canvas. And we had assistants-- very helpful. The tech folks over there were able to help us. And also, OTAN was very helpful. We would contact our coach, Francisca, who's here. We need training on Canvas. And she would set up training with one of the specialists at OTAN.

So that was the benefit or a huge perk in being part of the DLAC program was we have these amazing resources. Even within our group, we had a coaching group. Some of the teams were already familiar with Canvas. And they shared some best practices and tips and tools. And we made a lot of shortcuts. So that's why I hesitated at first, like, where do we begin? It was like a smorgasbord for us.

But this, with the community colleges, it sounds excellent. They're well planned. They've been doing Canvas for a long time. And it sounds like they've got it down. And I agree that-- or I believe that we do need a more-- we need a method or a certain approach for adult education. Because I found that-- and I'll share my Canvas in a moment. But I found that our needs were different than a college setup. So I experimented in a different way with Canvas.

Lars Guntvedt: Part of what we were doing too is we were-- like Jill was saying, we were experimenting with Canvas implementation. YouTube videos were-- the problem is there's so much variety of information that you could learn from. Sometimes it's a dearth of-- it's too much information to be able to manipulate and know what is the right thing to do.

What I ended up doing is working a lot with-- just experimenting and slowly building things. And like we mentioned, we created a pilot program at the very end of last year-- end of last school year where we created a small unit and piloted it out with our existing classes and tried to figure out, OK, what is the sections that are working? What are the sections that are not working?

Some of the technical stuff behind at least populating our classes, much of that was already taken care of because the high school that our district is-- the school district that we're connected with had already integrated the ASEP roster and connected it with our Canvas module. So all of those-- we simply had to populate the student ID numbers. And it came in directly into our Canvas roster.

So that was a very lucky thing we did not have to individually enter student data into our classrooms. So that was a very, very seamless transfer of that. But that was done because our high schools had already converted their whole system into using Canvas. So all of that-- all of that legwork had already been done by the high school. There was another question.

Jill Moreci: There are a couple from Lynne here, just--

Lars Guntvedt: OK.

Archana Nekkar: So I want to add something to what Lynne asked about training. So I think DLAC came at a great time for us because OTAN helps all schools with integrating technology with hybrid education and all of that. And our administrators jumped at it, put in our application. So please attend if possible tomorrow session at 1:00 PM, where we will be talking about coach and collaborate with Francisca and two of our other partner agencies whom we are partnering in DLAC.

All the collaborations that we did, that also helped us to kind of like experiment and figure out what to do, how to approach hybrid learning besides, of course, the support we got from our school and the PDs that we all attended. So Lynne has another question on, how many students in your classes?

Lars Guntvedt: Well, because of the-- because of the ongoing enrollment that we've been-- was saying that much of our enrollment this last year has been practically a monthly enrollment, my numbers for my evening class are-- well, for both classes, my numbers are probably over 30 students per class. So I have a full-- I have full classes. Both my morning and my evening class, there are over 30 students on the roster.

Jill Moreci: Mine are about 20 students in the mornings, level 5. And I have a-- we have a full-- we had to expand our Flex Distance Learning Program. We use Burlington. And all those classes have waiting lists by student appointment only. So that's going pretty well as--

Lars Guntvedt: Yeah, the really neat thing-- the really neat thing about the-- and one of the things that worked really, really well-- I spoke about the digital literacy support staff idea, really allowed students to, even if they were-- even after the boot camp process, if they were uncomfortable about a particular facet with online learning or technology in general, that support staff was available-- that support staff was available to deal with those students on a one-to-one basis.

And that was critical to be able to go face-to-face, one-on-one on the days that they were physically in school and resolve problems. We'd have students bring their laptops to school to show them how to do things physically on their own laptops. So that program worked out really, really well to integrate that technology part and the technology support, so.

Archana Nekkar: So there's a question about integrating Burlington English in Canvas. So we have about a little over 10 minutes still if you want to share your Canvas and, you know?

Jill Moreci: OK, I don't integrate Burlington in my level 5. I'm using Future Advanced. However, I think Elizabeth responded and said that Burlington is working on shells. Elizabeth, do you want to share a little bit about Burlington? We heard a little bit yesterday as well that they have some [inaudible]--

Elizabeth Bales: Sure.

Jill Moreci: --changes.

Elizabeth Bales: I actually had the chance to meet with a Burlington rep a couple of--

Jill Moreci: Nice.

Elizabeth Bales: --weeks ago. And she mentioned that they're working on what she calls shells. Basically, they're going to try and integrate different LMS products with Burlington so that we don't have to do this whole, I'm in Google Classroom. And here's the assignment. So go open up Burlington in a different window. And then you have to come back here and do Mark As Done. I guess their plan is to be able to have Burlington open directly from inside the LMS so that students-- it's a more seamless process for students. And they don't have to go back and forth so much. That's my understanding, anyway.

Lars Guntvedt: Yeah, it's kind of weird to have-- it's kind of weird to have a balance of different LMSes. And that's one of the things that we noticed with the ASE, Achana, that when we're looking at having--

Archana Nekkar: AZTech.

Lars Guntvedt: Exactly, when we're working AZTech as a separate system and having students going into, for example, CK-12, as a separate system and having them use Canvas as an alternate, all of these different bits and pieces did not really kind of like gel well. So it's hard to look at Canvas necessarily as a be all and end all kind of a thing, especially for adult ed, where you have to be very nimble. You have to be nimble to solve students and to address students exactly where they are and help them with their own individual needs.

Jill Moreci: Exactly.

Lars Guntvedt: Well, any other questions? Those are good. I like that.

Archana Nekkar: So, Jill, were you going to share your screen again for just a second? We've got just a few minutes here.

Jill Moreci: OK, let's see. Am I sharing it? Looks like I'm sharing already.

Lars Guntvedt: Yeah.

Jill Moreci: OK, share again. All right, so let me share my Canvas classroom for a moment. I have to get out of this dashboard into another. There it is. OK, to share-- sorry. So I look at Canvas like a choice board for my students. Am I sharing now? Yes.

Lars Guntvedt: Yeah.

Archana Nekkar: Yes.

Jill Moreci: Let me move this out of the way. There we go. OK, so what was it-- and I've been modifying this since we started with the pilot. I've changed out the buttons a couple of times. But what I found works are these eight buttons for now.

Number one, if my student can log on to Canvas, they can find that Zoom link. I don't have to keep emailing. Once they're in the into Canvas, they can click and get to the Zoom class. Same thing with emailing me. So these are two important buttons.

This is an old one. Oops, I'm in the wrong one. [laughs] I changed these buttons already. Oh, boy. Sorry. I used to have this week. That didn't work. I've got a million of these. So here we go. There's CACE Connect. OK, so here's my current one.

So then I have Student Conferences. So they add their names. And we have teacher-student support time. So we meet. We dedicate the last half an hour of the day to meeting with our students individually. So they put in their names. And we keep track of our schedule that way. So that works nicely. Another thing we do is keep track of the calendar. So what holidays are coming, what tests are coming up, and EL Civics, so on.

So the main Canvasy things are Today's Lesson-- so I'm ignoring these links. So if you're a college person, you're probably appalled. Oh, what are you doing? I moved the links here onto this interface. So today's lesson would be the Google Doc that I update. So maybe they'll be-- whatever we're doing, this is sparse because I was busy this week.

So, for example, here's the future advanced activities that they need to go to. So I do a basic outline of the day. And the students follow along. And then if they miss class, they can go back. Oh, they did a pass perfect lesson. And they can update themselves. And let's see. I got things in my way here. Go back home.

So today's lesson changes every day. And then Discussion. That's just like normal Canvas online teaching and learning. You just put in a good discussion question, have them write paragraphs or whatever level. You can work on their writing. They're responding to each other and learning from each other. And it's topical.

Vocabulary, again, my love, Quizlet. So I try to stay with the academic word list. I look at future, what's coming up. And, actually, this time we've just moved into EL Civic. So we're working on getting a job. So we're working on all these different words here for getting a job, getting ready for EL Civics. And then they have their weekly test.

And then I like to keep a Library now. And so because my students are moms in the morning, working with their kids, I have linked up getepic.com to the book. So this is from last month with presidents, Black History Month, and Martin Luther King. So we have these books here that we were reading through. And the students are all enrolled into the getepic.com classroom as well. So I can see how their progress is.

And what's nice-- I didn't get to see a-- are you familiar with Getepic? I'm not signed in. Sorry. Oopsie. It's awesome. The books are-- you turn the pages digitally. Sometimes there's quizzes at the end. And they're geared toward K through 12. But, again, it's very enjoyable for the students to just catch up on history or topical, whatever's happening with holidays. It's really good. I highly recommend getepic.com. OK, any questions about that so far? I can't see anyone. OK.

Archana Nekkar: Jill, what is the cost? Because it's not free, right?

Jill Moreci: It's free!

Archana Nekkar: Oh, it is free?

Jill Moreci: Yeah.

Archana Nekkar: I thought it wasn't, though.

Jill Moreci: Let me see if I can log on better so I can actually show you the app. So I need to log in. So as a teacher, educator-- let me see what I'm doing. OK, I guess I'll continue with Google. Usually, I'm logged in. So I don't know what's going on.

OK, so I have my own library. Now, I opened up Martin Luther King Jr. And it's nice because you just turn the page. And I can put them in a breakout rooms. And they read together. Or if I'm in the classroom, I project it on the screen. Or I assign it for homework, maybe a chapter. And it's awesome.

So My Library, I start to put things together some of my favorites from childhood-- Laura Ingalls. We had the Christmas. We did Thanksgiving, Squanto, Thanksgiving Day. It's just nice to bring in the culture. And they can share with their kids. They also have books on many countries as well. So you can explore the different subjects. There's so much as you can see. And it's free. So I link it up to Canvas, my Canvas Library, and I change out the books from there.

Lars Guntvedt: So your library is housed in Epic? Or your library is housed in Canvas?

Jill Moreci: Well, its base is Canvas.

Lars Guntvedt: Canvas.

Jill Moreci: But I just link. I just--

Lars Guntvedt: OK, so you just link it. Those are direct links to the Epic page. Interesting. OK, good.

Jill Moreci: So the students just go there. And then I can see on my Getepic Student Roster how the students are doing who's reading and who's engaged. And I can add to the library. And they can add to their own libraries. So it's great. I highly recommend this.

Lars Guntvedt: Very good.

Archana Nekkar: We have about two minutes, if there are any other questions. People have other questions? Got two more minutes.

Lars Guntvedt: Especially if there's any questions about the creation of the CACE Connect. That whole idea of CACE Connect, I think everyone is-- is also the culling together of all of these different bits and pieces that we experienced during the orientation process. Even that four-day process that's been established, it was hodgepodged at the beginning. OK, how is this going to look?

And over the successive iterations, it's gotten to have this specific format that has worked-- that has been working well. So Jill is codifying a lot of this together and making it more and more cohesive through our CACE Connect portal. So slowly, these pieces are getting put together. And I mean, it's a work in progress. It definitely is. But it began as that hodgepodge kind of, gosh, what are we going to do kind of a thing.

Archana Nekkar: There is a last question. Are you planning to continue-- there's one minute more-- one more minute, Francisca.

Speaker 2: Yeah, go ahead. Go ahead answer the question.

Archana Nekkar: About post-pandemic, what's the plan, whether we're going to go hybrid?

Lars Guntvedt: Oh.

Speaker 2: And the presentation link, someone can do that well.

Lars Guntvedt: Yeah, oh, post pandemic, that's a very good question. I don't really know. That is in the hands of other powers.

Speaker 2: [inaudible] who's here.

Lars Guntvedt: I say that with such mystery because our director is here as well, so. [laughs] It's all in her hands.

Jill Moreci: But we know technology is here to stay. And most likely, we will remain in the hybrid format as well. We do offer some online classes specifically. And some teachers are ready to go back into the classroom more than just two days a week. So we just want to close with this quote. "Technology will not replace great teachers." Keep that in mind. But technology in the hands of great teachers can be transformational. [chuckles]