[audio logo]

Announcer: OTAN, Outreach and Technical Assistance Network.

Michelle Dullea: Good morning. We're glad you're here today. My name is Michelle Dullea. I'm the resource teacher here at Sweetwater. And we're here today to talk about Learning Upgrade, a wonderful resource for your students. We've used it for years and years and years-- 12 years. We were in a pilot prep project [ INAUDIBLE ] CEO Vinod Lobo.

But to start, I'd like to introduce you to our panel members who will be sharing some of their experiences [ INAUDIBLE ] with their students. So we have Kevin Leonard. He is currently our job developer instructor. However, he has used Learning Upgrade for many years with ESL students.

And he is now our resident-- I call him our resident expert with Learning Upgrade. Whenever we have a new teacher come on board, we always have the ability to tap into a wealth of information now that we are working with [ INAUDIBLE ] students and teachers and answer [ AUDIO OUT ] reports, things like that. So he's our resident [ INAUDIBLE ]

Another resident expert is Steve Alvarado. He's our math instructor at Montgomery Adult School. He's been using [ INAUDIBLE ] long time, somewhere around there. So he's here to tell you about power of the resource for his students and sharing his personal experience using it [ INAUDIBLE ]

He is our resident math [ INAUDIBLE ] put it that way-- and many other things. And last but not least, I'd like to introduce our Learning Upgrade creator, founder, CEO. We're so honored to have him here.

We've worked with-- Vinod Lobo is our Learning Upgrade friend. And we've been in partnership for 12 years with Vinod. So he's been wonderful, a wonderful resource to us. And we're so glad he's here to talk to us today about Learning Upgrade.

Vinod Lobo: Great.

Speaker 1: [ INAUDIBLE ] Michelle, the online [ INAUDIBLE ] stand closer to the [ INAUDIBLE ]

Vinod Lobo: OK.

Michelle Dullea: OK.

Vinod Lobo: OK.

Michelle Dullea: Perfect.

Vinod Lobo: And I'm close right now. So hi, everyone out there.

So Learning Upgrade is based in San Diego. And the idea of using smartphones to help adult ed teachers to reach students and to get a lot faster, learn a lot more effectively started right here. We were part of the XPRIZE competition, and Sweetwater was our partner.

And all the pioneering work we did with smartphones and adult ed was all done here on this campus and in Sweetwater. So it feels like coming home to come over here and talk to all of these guys that I've worked with.

But I'm going to share my screen right now to just show you a little bit of what we did in the early days.

Michelle Dullea: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Vinod Lobo: There we go. All right. All right. Share sound. OK. All right.

So I'm going to show you a little video. The first work we ever did with a class anywhere in the world with smartphone was Lisa Scharmann's class. Was it [ INAUDIBLE ] or--

Michelle Dullea: It was an offsite campus.

Vinod Lobo: An offsite campus.

Michelle Dullea: Satellite.

Vinod Lobo: It was 20 adults at an elementary school whose kids were going to that elementary school. They were doing ESL with Lisa. So I want to show you a video of that very first class four years ago. So there. This right here.

[music playing]

Lisa Wilson-scharmann: Hi, my name is Lisa Scharmann, and I am an ESL instructor for Sweetwater Adult education in Chula Vista, California. I teach, at an elementary campus, parents of students that attend the elementary school. So after attending the Learning Upgrade workshop, I quickly went back to class and shared this app that I really liked and enjoyed when I went to the inservice.

I asked the students, if they had a smartphone, to get their phone out and download the app from the store. And it's free. So they were very excited about that.

And the lessons are high-interest lessons that have songs and music videos. They went home. And in the next few days, they were hooked and very excited about this program, so much so that when I would log in to check the reports on my students, they were logging hours like crazy.

Abril Parra: I am Abril Parra. And using Learning Update, sometimes I use it while I wait for my doctor's appointment, my dentist appointment. And sometimes I'm using it in the evening when my child's working on his homework.

And basically, I'm right now in the 51 exercise. And I really like it. I really think it helps you a lot.

For me, it helps me for the nouns because I was kind of having trouble with that. And I think it's very helpful. So, yes, right here is the login. And I just put my password. It's really easy. It's really short. Just log in, and just press right there.

The level that you're in-- right here.

App: Look at this passage. "And"--

Cinsia Gaytan: I might use it in other place with-- sitting in the bus. I'm learning. I'm studying on the bus. For me, it's very practical because I don't need books. I don't need pencils-- and only my phone, and I'm studying. It's very, very practical for me.

Herlinda Tafolla: [speaking spanish]

[music playing]

Vinod Lobo: OK, so if you didn't--

Speaker 1: We're getting some feedback from our distance audience that the further away we are from the camera, they actually can hear us better.

Vinod Lobo: OK, good.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Vinod Lobo: All right.

Speaker 1: OK.

Vinod Lobo: All right. We won't get too close then.

Speaker 1: [ INAUDIBLE ]

Vinod Lobo: Yeah. And for those of you who couldn't see the caption, she was saying that her son goes to the doctor a lot. And so she uses Learning Upgrade while waiting in the doctor's office, and she likes the music, and it's fun.

So what we found out in that first thing-- first usage is now going all over the world. 40 countries are using this smartphone model with WhatsApp groups and different things like that. But what we learned is we used to come here in the computer lab with Kevin and work with adult learners here on this campus.

And they used to do an average of 30 minutes a week. As soon as we introduced smartphones, it went up to two hours a week. So we got 4X time on task just by moving from the computers in the lab to smartphones.

But the really fascinating thing about Sweetwater was we did a data analysis in the first year and found out that 70% of time on task was between 8:00 at night and 2:00 in the morning, OK? Between 8:00 at night and 2:00 in the morning.

And we were all flabbergasted. What is going on? Well, get the kids dinner. Put the kids to bed. And then the time that normally would have been spent on YouTube videos or TikTok or social media is now spent on Learning Upgrade.

10 minutes? Oh, I'll just do one more lesson. I'll do one more lesson. So that's where we came up with the word "binge learning," like Netflix, but binge learning because of the music and fun and everything.

So what we found out in Sweetwater is they were doing two to four lessons a day two to six hours a week, finishing courses in three months that they used to take a year-- so every three months, one NRS level, which is astonishing when you think about the normal pace people do this.

And then we also found out that CASAS scores were going up in a short amount of time. Basically, seven-point, eight-point growth in students 210 or below in CASAS in 10 weeks because they were spending so much time on task on the phones in addition to the instruction.

So what I wanted to do-- I'll stop sharing this-- is go through our panel because everyone here has spent at least eight years working on Learning Upgrade and has seen the computer science in the old days and the smartphone science in the new days.

OK, so Michelle, do you want to come up here or--

Michelle Dullea: Yeah.

Vinod Lobo: OK, great. I'm going to have the three of you fully introduce yourselves and what you do here.

Speaker 1: We have a question online about do they get the presentation emailed to them or a link in the chat?

Vinod Lobo: Yeah.

Speaker 1: We'll do the email? Thank you.

Vinod Lobo: So go ahead and introduce yourselves.

Michelle Dullea: Right here.

Vinod Lobo: Sorry, Michelle.

Michelle Dullea: So I'm Michelle Dullea. I'm a resource teacher here at this site for Sweetwater. And I've been a resource teacher for about 11 or 12 years.

I was a former ESL teacher-- high school diploma, independent study, a little bit of ABE. So I have some experience in different program areas over the years prior to becoming a resource teacher. So I'm happy to be here with our friend Vinod.

We've loved working with Learning Upgrade. It's been a resource that we've had every year-- God bless you-- every year since we started 12 years ago, 11, 12 years ago. So it's been a long relationship and a positive one for our teachers, for our students.

And I'm going to-- looking forward to our resident math expert.

Steve Alvarado: Well, good morning. My name is Steve Alvarado. I'm the math teacher at Montgomery Adult School. Let's see. This is my 23rd year teaching and my eighth year teaching math exclusively.

So I like using Learning Upgrade in the classroom. I always call Learning Upgrade my teacher's assistant. So I will give the students a password. I'll explain to them that they're going to be probably wanting some headphones.

The first time that you hear Learning Upgrade, it's kind of a shock with the music and everything. And I'll just quote one of the most interesting comments I've heard about it from a student is that "the wonderfully annoying music is very helpful."

[laughter]

And they'll break into song, sometimes, the class, embarrassingly, because they have it in their head. So anyway, so I'll explain to them that the math is going to be-- that Learning Upgrade is my assistant and that they can definitely reinforce their math skills with the program.

I'll share a couple of stories. One is as I'm teaching algebra, for example, those students are trying to pass their GED test or HiSET test. One of the areas that I found that Learning Upgrade does a much better job than I do with explaining is on what is a function.

And so on the GED test, the questions can be presented in a table. They can be presented in coordinate pairs. It can be presented in a graph.

And so I always redirect students who are getting ready to take the test to log into your Learning Upgrade, and I believe it's lesson 35 in the--

Vinod Lobo: You've got it memorized.

Steve Alvarado: It's my teacher's assistant. And so the nice thing about the 10 minutes or so of this lesson is that it very clearly, better than I can, show what is a function. Because of the animation, the music, and the different variations between the table and the graphs or the ordered pairs, a student can really get a better grasp on how to identify what is a function versus what is not a function versus what I would do in the classroom.

So that's the one lesson that stands that really, really helps me reinforce the skills. So with Learning Upgrade, the student is able to work on rigor. They're able to work on these individual skills that will-- they make my job a lot easier because as I am presenting my learning intentions in class, and I'm helping them with preparing for whatever test that they're going to take, many of the questions are multilayered. And Learning Upgrade does a very, very nice job of actually teaching them the individual skills that help them have better success on the test.

One thing that I always share with my class is that I can teach you pretty much anything in math. But the one thing that I've never been able to figure out is how to teach you your multiplication tables. If somehow I could get the monopoly on that, I think I would hit the lottery.

So I have this one individual that I can remember, a 40-something-year-old woman who was coming to my night class, and she struggled in math. And one of the areas that I realized is that her multiplication skills were poor.

And so again, I told her that the only way I've learned to teach you your multiplication skills is you really have to come up with note cards or some type of system to just memorize patterns to learn your multiplication tables.

So she was frustrated because she was trying to get a job advancement, and she needed her GED. So I put her on, I want to say, like, level 3, level 4 multiplication, which, again, it's a very low level, and this is a 40-something-year-old person. So it can be very humbling.

So she started learning her multiplication tables on her own. And about three or four weeks later, she comes into my class at night, and she says, hey, I just want to share with you that I've been successful. Oh, wow. I'm thinking that she's able to answer a couple of questions.

And she was able to show me that she knows her kitchen tables from one through nine. What pill did you take? And she said it was Learning Upgrade.

So she was able to learn her multiplication tables, which then unlocked her brain for fractions and just functions and patterns and things like that. But I think more importantly than that is that it gave her confidence. And it gave her the knowledge that, you know what, I've overcome a fear that I had probably in elementary school.

And then she later went on, a couple months later, to take her last test, and she graduated. And then she went on to bigger and better things. But Learning Upgrade was definitely able to help her, and help me as a teacher, to overcome that foundation that was essential that without that, nothing else was going to make sense, or it was going to make sense, but it was going to take her three or four times the time because the numbers were not going to make any sense. So those are a couple of stories.

Vinod Lobo: I think, Steve, one neat thing about that story is, again, roll back to five years earlier with the computer labs and all that, and without ever being able to go home and bang on her smartphone and figure those tables out. There's an embarrassment factor.

Are you going to sit in a computer lab and do 2 times 2 is 4 with other people sitting right behind? At home, curled up in bed, and, of course, after your kids are far away and you're curled up in bed and privately working on your times tables, I think that's part of the attraction of smartphones.

A, you can work at home. And we know for equity, a lot of low-income people do not have computers and Wi-Fi at home, right? 30% of the population, the only internet they have is from their phone. So that's one thing.

But the other thing people sometimes don't think about is the privacy. Being able to curl up in your bed and do ABCs, 1, 2, 3's, basic, basic stuff-- and usually, what stops you in a GED, from what I've heard from all the instructors, it's not the GED work, right?

It's the six, seven years of math you need before GED to do basics-- so it's fractions, and it's negative numbers, and it's multiplication tables, right?

Kevin, you've been sort of at the forefront of training teachers in doing this smartphone onboarding.

Kevin Leonard: Yes.

Vinod Lobo: There's a real art and magic to getting adults to use their smartphone and to get onboarded and get going. So can you talk about that?

Kevin Leonard: Yeah. So I've been teaching for 27 years GED distance learning, citizenship for 10 years on Saturday mornings, ESL, high-school subjects, independent studies. I also have administrative access, which means I train the teachers who need new training-- simple things like I forgot my password-- teach them how to enroll students in Learning Upgrade, how to assign the courses, basically any kind of support they need with learning upgrade.

I was the distance learning teacher at Montgomery Adult School. And at that time, teachers would rotate their classes into our distance learning lab. And there were multiple programs that the students could use, and they would use the Learning Upgrade.

One of the problems was, back then, in addition to what Vinod just mentioned, was we had Wi-Fi issues. So you'd be sitting there, and the computer would go through updates or no Wi-Fi, and it was terrible. And the students would get frustrated-- so another plus for trying to onboard the usage on the cell phones.

I show how students download the program on their phones, show the teachers, show the teachers how to use the programs, get them acclimated to the program, and promote the vid usage also so they get in the habit of using it. One of our teachers would say she would just have her students use Learning Upgrade for about the first 10 minutes of class every day.

And so all the students came to class and then go ahead and start with whatever her daily learning targets were for that particular day, whatever her lessons were for that day, had them use the Learning Upgrade, which is good because it helps the students get a little more acclimated to the program.

Looking at Learning Upgrade, in addition to the ESL and the math, I mean, there's financial literacy. There's digital literacy. The teacher you just saw in the video, Lisa, she happens to be at this campus.

I was just talking to her two days ago. She is the digital literacy teacher for Chula Vista Adult School. Each of our four adult schools have a digital literacy teacher from 1:00 to 2:00 every afternoon Monday through Thursday.

She just used the email lesson in the digital literacy course, and she's going to explore about more of what the students need to do. And what's great about it is they don't have to go in order. The teacher can decide, what do I want to cover today? What do the students want to do?

Maybe I'll ask the students, hey, look at the activities. What do you want to learn today? What do you want me to cover today?

We've had teachers who have used the reading and comprehension and maybe the higher level, level 5, or the main idea, just going over the main idea where the students don't necessarily have to use the program that particular day. But the teacher can cover that activity, and the students can kind of go over it with that teacher.

As a job developer, I visit each of our four schools. A different day of the week, I'm in a different school. We have four adult schools, and I'm collaborating with our CTE teachers.

And there's actually a course now, after visiting the classes, that I'm going to promote where our CTE students, and anyone else who's interested, can do that course for getting ready for a job. There's resume writing, all kinds of things, just exactly what I do every day of the week.

So we hear the word "diversity." There's a lot of diversity in Learning Upgrade for all the students at each of our four schools.

Speaker 1: Kevin, can we have a teacher account in order to explore Learning Update?

Vinod Lobo: Yes. So I'm going to go over it a little bit later. But anyone who goes to learningupgrade.com and clicks Pilot Request at the top can-- if you go to learningupgrade.com and click Pilot Request and fill in that form, make sure you click on OTAN at the bottom so you get an OTAN pilot because OTAN is actually tracking all the California pilots of OTAN members.

And OTAN, on their website, has a curriculum partners site. So you can go on and search for all OTAN curriculum offers and get it that way. Or you can go to learningupgrade.com and click Pilot and do it that way.

You'll get a three-month pilot for an unlimited number of students, and also the teacher account to do the teacher lessons that Kevin was talking about on your smart board. So if you want to do lessons for the whole class, too, you'll get all that.

Speaker 1: There's a bunch of questions. Do you want to go now, or do you want to wait till the end, or how do you want to--

Vinod Lobo: Go ahead.

Speaker 1: --take questions? OK. The next one is, "What does Learning Upgrade log look like on the smartphone?"

Vinod Lobo: Learning Upgrade--

Speaker 1: "What does the Learning Upgrade log look like on the smartphone?"

Vinod Lobo: Login or--

Speaker 1: Maybe that's what she means.

Speaker 2: Logo.

Speaker 1: Oh, logo?

Vinod Lobo: Logo? Oh, it's a black arrow.

Michelle Dullea: So they download the right app.

Speaker 1: Oh, it teaches [ INAUDIBLE ] logo.

Vinod Lobo: Yeah, it's black with a white arrow.

Speaker 1: OK, black circle.

Vinod Lobo: Black circle, white arrow. That's [ INAUDIBLE ]

Speaker 1: Next one is "Does this program have anything for EL Civics?"

Vinod Lobo: Yes. So in digital literacy, there's a lot of sort of civics. But in the new citizenship course, there's a lot more. So if she's talking about the civics for the citizenship test, that's in the citizenship course. And if she's talking about general civics, then we have it in the GED reading course and also the [ INAUDIBLE ] table [ INAUDIBLE ]

Speaker 1: OK, and then next Thursday. It's accessible also on a computer and a tablet, not just the phone, right?

Vinod Lobo: Right. So you can use it on a web browser, on a Chromebook or Mac or PC. You can use it as an app on an Android or iPad. And then you can use it as an app on an iPhone or Android phone. Yeah.

And people go back and forth. Sometimes they use it in a computer lab in the morning and a phone at night. And I don't know if you guys have looked at that data.

But when you pull up the time on task for student, it'll say, oh, at 8:00 and 9:00, they played this lesson, got this score on their Android phone. And then, at 10:00 in the morning, they played on a Windows computer.

And I like that because then you can track, oh, they're using a smartphone at night and computer lab in the day. It's nice to track that time.

Speaker 1: There's the next question right there on the board. "What is the website to access it on the computer?"

Vinod Lobo: Oh, learningupgrade.com. Learningupgrade.com.

Speaker 1: Thank you.

Vinod Lobo: OK. Michelle?

Michelle Dullea: Yeah?

Vinod Lobo: So now you worked a lot with Sweetwater generally at the district level.

Michelle Dullea: Yeah.

Vinod Lobo: What do you think when you're thinking about smartphones, and how does it fit in with an overall adult ed program? How do you think-- and I don't just mean smartphones, but a learning platform that has data sharing and Excel spreadsheets on the back and all that. But what does the smartphone bring to a program like Sweetwater adult ed?

Michelle Dullea: It brings quite a bit because not every program has that feature, first of all. And that data piece is so important to be able to access as a teacher and for admin or anybody who wants to know how the program is making an impact.

And it does because as Vinod spotlighted the evening times, you can see that. As a teacher, you don't necessarily know that they're doing that unless you go into the program, log into the data, and be able to see that they're spending that additional time away from class improving-- helping improve their learning. So I'm not sure if I'm answering your question.

Vinod Lobo: Yeah, no, absolutely.

Michelle Dullea: But that data piece is really important for a teacher to look at daily. And there are reports in there where you see the time on task. You see how many certificates they've completed. They have the bronze, the silver, and the gold.

And it's highly motivating for the student to be able to go through those lessons to reach those certificates. And we celebrate that with them. If they reach the bronze level, we'll celebrate it.

A lot of teachers will put up the certificate in their classrooms displaying that the student has done that. And as Vinod said, when they're very tired, working late at night, having that motivation of one more lesson, one more lesson, it's pushing them through, giving them what they need, building their confidence level, as you discussed, and just overall learning experience.

Kevin Leonard: I just wanted to add about the certificate, even distance learning, I used to-- some of them, when they would finish at that particular time, when they got to number 60 in the final challenge, I would print the certificates for them, having the colored printer, and present it to them right there in front of their classmates.

And it was kind of a motivating factor, you know? It's like, OK, give me the next one. What's the next course? It wasn't a competition type of thing, although you can do that, too, but just that sense of accomplishment and making them feel good.

Vinod Lobo: When you hand out a certificate, everyone else in the class says, I want that certificate, right?

Kevin Leonard: Yeah.

Vinod Lobo: And I used to think, when I first started out, we do a lot of K-12 work, but I used to think, oh, the adults are not interested in the certificates. And now I've realized it's more than ever.

And we have Hanin here, who just came back from Africa. We did a launch in Liberia. And she's on a WhatsApp group with a bunch of adult students in Africa. And one just texted out their certificate on the WhatsApp group after only one week on the program.

What does that do to the other 50 students in that WhatsApp group? They're motivated. They're, oh, wow. Someone's already got a certificate, and I'm only on lesson 10? Oh, I better get going.

Speaker 1: I have a couple more questions.

Vinod Lobo: OK.

Speaker 1: What's available for a career soft-skills class?

Vinod Lobo: OK. Wow. Are these planted questions?

Speaker 1: I'm just reading them as they come. And then we have a hand and then another question.

[interposing voices]

Speaker 3: --Dr. Burke as well.

Vinod Lobo: Dr. Burke, OK. Let's talk about work life skills. We worked for two years on a work life skills course that came out in December. It covers everything from teamwork and communication to resume writing to diversity to things like conflict resolution, being on time, dressing appropriately, everything.

And New Readers Press created a book that goes with it. So there's a workbook that goes with it. We're hoping to-- a lot of people are using it already. But we're hoping a lot more people use it, especially in job transition and getting people ready for work, things like that.

Speaker 1: And then we have Dr. Burke with his hand raised if he wants to-- unmute he can ask.

Vinod Lobo: Oh, Dr. Burke? You can [ INAUDIBLE ]

Speaker 4: Good morning. Sorry, I'm out ill but happy to be here virtually. I just wanted to add, too, when you asked Michelle that question, from my perspective, which is very much a district level, division director's perspective, one of the things I really, really appreciate is the consistency of performance.

I have never heard of one time where teachers came to me and said, there's this problem with Learning Upgrade, and we've been using it for six years. And I used it in Cajon Valley, another district, two years prior. So I've been with Learning Upgrade on some level for eight years and have never heard one problem. That is outstanding.

The other thing I would like to give kudos to you about is your consistency-- I mean your availability, Vinod. I don't know anyone else at your level of organization as invested in talking directly with the practitioners the way that you do. You invest your time in us. You invest your time and students and, obviously, in your product. And your accessibility is incredible. So thank you very much.

Vinod Lobo: Thank you. I mean, we're based here in San Diego. And I've sat in Dr. Burke's office with these guys many times. And we'd just say, OK, how are we going to solve this problem, or how are we going to roll this out?

And when we came with this crazy idea that we were going to teach on smartphones, Dr. Burke and these guys were open to it. At the time, no one-- no one was thinking smartphones in adult ed. I mean, what?

You can fit paragraphs and things on a phone? I mean, everyone was so skeptical about, you can learn algebra on a phone? That's ridiculous, right?

And these guys were actually open to let's try some crazy stuff down here. And a lot of other people in San Diego were not. So it's been really fun.

But this stuff is not easy. You have to be willing to fail a little bit. You have to be willing to go on an adventure. And I remember in Lisa's class, we enrolled-- the first day, they said, everyone pull out your phones. Everyone pull out your phones, and we're going to load Learning Upgrade on it.

Guess what the first roadblock we ran into? No one had thought about this. First roadblock-- oh, I don't know my Google Play password. My spouse knows it, or my child knows it.

It turns out very few adults know their password for installing an app on their phone. So guess what our new best practices was right after that, right after Lisa Scharmann's class? We said to everyone, tomorrow, we are going to onboard you on Learning Upgrade. So tonight, will you please go home and install Learning Upgrade and whoever has the password, and come in tomorrow with it ready to go?

See, we didn't know that. We didn't know people don't know their passwords, right? Little things like that. And then Lisa told me right after that, well, two people were not able to participate because they didn't have smartphones.

And this was four or five years ago. And the funny thing that happened is four weeks later, I came to campus to make that video that you just saw. And she pulls me aside, and she says, you know those two? They got smartphones.

She's just smiling at me. They got smartphones. In other words, they're not going to be the only two people in the class without that. They figured it out. They've got smartphones now. So that just shows you kind of the motivation not to be the one left out.

I want to turn to outcomes because we spent a lot of time with Steve on the GED side helping people get their diplomas. And as you all know, what's the number one reason people don't get a GED? It's math, right? I think 80% or 90% of the failure is math.

And Steve's job is to get them to pass math. I know you had some stories.

Steve Alvarado: Yeah, definitely. So [ INAUDIBLE ] years ago, I had a student that-- I inherited a student who had passed everything except for math. And this person had come to me and had already taken and failed the math GED three or four times.

So we were trying to figure out a way to not repeat the same mistakes and see what was not clicking. And so as I assessed him, as I was up on the board, teaching math, I realized that he was completely disconnected. During the time that I would let the students work individually or in small groups, he would stare at his paper.

And a couple of times, I would try to approach him and said, do you need any help? No, no. I'm just going to wait for you to explain. And so a couple of weeks later, nothing is sinking.

And so I came to Vinod and the team, and they gave me some ideas. So I put him on Learning Upgrade, gave him some homework assignments, and said, you know what? I want you to work on these things.

And I guess one of the missing pieces was that interaction with the app. He worked better with the music, with the animation, with the structure. And I started noticing that he was working a lot outside the classroom. So although his although his behavior, or his learning, or lack of in my class hadn't changed-- he was just watching me teach and was hoping that he was retaining it, I was seeing that he was actually putting in the time at home on the Learning Upgrade app.

And then, sure enough, I gave him a couple assessments, and, wow, your skills have really improved, so much to where he finally-- his goal was to go to community college, get his GED, of course. And a few months later, he is telling me, I just signed up for the math GED test.

Wow, OK. Let's see what happens. And then he passed. And then he enrolled in community college. And then, again, he went on to the next part of his academic goals.

So it definitely helped bridge the gaps that I was unable to connect with him during class. And he was able to find the resources that he needed to successfully learn what he needed to pass the test and graduate.

Vinod Lobo: I remember talking to him because we made a video. Is it the one-- yeah, I remember talking to him. And he said a lot of his work was all night.

He had a day job, and he used to work, like, we're talking 1:00, 2:00, 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, on math. And I think his thing was doing hundreds of problems. Like you said, he had to put the work in.

He had to just do hundreds and hundreds of problems, and then, boom. But he got-- I remember on the HiSET he got 2, 5, 5. And so he was getting discouraged because he needed an 8.

So when you get 2, 5, and 5, and you're pretty far, then you're getting ready to just-- I'm going to give up, right? And then he's like-- suddenly he got a 10 on the next step. So he went from 5 to 10. Question?

Speaker 5: So what I'm hearing from you is that this effectively addresses one of the toughest things for teachers to do is to differentiate instruction, allow students to learn in the ways that they can learn best, and to be able to individuate, to be able to do this on demand wherever they are. And that's just meeting such a critical need. And I love the fact that you've built it from the phone up-- so amazing.

Vinod Lobo: It's really hard if you do everything web-based. It's really hard on the phone. All of you have done web-based online learning on the phone. It's a disaster.

Everything scrolls off, and nothing fits, or it's tiny text or something. Because we were part of this XPRIZE competition and we had to create an app-- thank God-- and it had to work on very low-end Android phones. So we went out to Walmart, and we bought all the $50 phones.

And all our lessons had to work on a $50 phone. And that was a great discipline because now that we're in Africa, you can't tell someone, no, you need a Samsung Galaxy or an iPhone, you know? And so now this is paying off.

But the fact of the matter is smartphones-- we're in a two-tier society, like it or not. There's one group of people using $800,000 iPhones. And there's another group of people using $50 Walmart prepaid phones. And the two don't know it-- don't know, you know?

And they're all Android phones, almost all of them. And they're passed from person to person. They're often refurbished.

And if you don't work on those, you just cut out-- if you don't work on those low-end Android phones, you just cut out most of the low-income population.

Speaker 5: My question is-- and I don't think I've heard this presented yet. What kinds of accessibility features do you have to augment your diversity and inclusion and equity?

Vinod Lobo: Yeah, well, we've had to recently do a lot on this. And I think some of you might have seen some of this. But we just had to go through 2,500 videos with closed captioning in English, Spanish, and Arabic. We've had to change the way we do the lessons. We've had to do a lot because, obviously, you want to be available to everyone.

And from the beginning, we were appealing always to a diverse group. And I think it's because of the music and the video and the format. But in terms of accessibility, some of it works great just because of the phone and touchscreen, all that.

But other things, like closed captioning or colorblindness work, we've had to do a lot of hard work. You can imagine, with all the crazy animation and all we do, we've had to do a lot of hard work. And there's still a long way to go. You're never there with accessibility. It's a journey.

But it's starting-- I feel like we're going in the right direction. And we've also-- and I think Kevin and Steve will have seen this. But what's pretty obvious in adult ed that people don't talk about a lot is that special needs is a pretty high percentage.

And you need to be able to address dyslexia, learning difficulties, and autism and various things that are going to stop you from learning-- and dyscalculia on the math side. And we've spent years on that. How do you overcome that? With music, with animation, with games, with voice, always talking. Don't just put text up. Just talk.

We record 10,000 pieces of dialogue per course. So it's a conversation. So I think special needs is another sort of thing that people don't talk a lot about in adult ed.

Speaker 1: I have one more question on the chat. Do you have as part of your presentation to do a demonstration of the app?

Vinod Lobo: We don't here. But if you go to learningupgrade.com, there's a bunch of videos there. But the best demonstration is hit Pilot Request, and we send you a pilot. We send you a pilot, and then you can immediately start banging on the lessons.

And I think what every teacher has always done is put themselves as one of the students and start playing the lessons or do the teacher whiteboard. And then you can play it. If you do the teacher whiteboard, you can jump around, play any lesson you want.

Speaker 6: How's it going? I actually saw you speak at the CCA in San Diego some years ago. And we did a pilot. And actually, I'll say, as an instructor, the [ INAUDIBLE ] really the value.

I mean, there's a lot of good stuff in there. But [ INAUDIBLE ] value. You guys were talking about this. But it really does-- especially when they're coming in low CASAS, I would just require them to download the Learning Upgrade app.

Can you talk about-- because with the pandemic, we kind of lost track of it. You and I had emailed a couple of times. And when you talk about cost structure in terms of how many licenses, we had an email going. And you had a certain number.

Vinod Lobo: Yeah, you can-- I mean, what you guys can do, just email me. I mean, Learning Upgrade just costs X per student.

Speaker 5: It's per student. So it's not like you buy 100 or whatever number.

Vinod Lobo: It's just per student. And there's no training. Everything's included. But it's just cost per student, and it's lower than anything else that you can buy.

Speaker 5: And then so just a question on that cost per student-- so let's say we have an account, and then every time we add a student, we're getting going, as we lose--

Vinod Lobo: Usually, you buy a certain amount of licenses, and then--

Speaker 5: And then, OK, I want 50 of these things.

Vinod Lobo: Yeah.

Speaker 5: And then, all right, hey, can I get five more, that kind of thing.

Vinod Lobo: Yeah.

Speaker 5: OK. Sure.

Vinod Lobo: Yeah. And like I say, we're local, and we're kind of from California. And we're not-- I think these guys know it's more of a partnership to try to help people. So we're not really strict on all that stuff. If she needs five more, you get five more. We don't--

Speaker 5: Yeah.

Vinod Lobo: [ INAUDIBLE ] and I and Drew are the team that works with all of you in California. And everyone's just trying to roll their sleeves up and help people learn, help people make up a great team. That's what we're trying to do.

I'll tell you, these guys here-- what I told them right before we went on today is that we are helping people in Africa learn to read. And there's 300,000 people in San Diego County that read third-grade level or below. So I told them that we all just need to work harder and be more creative.

If we can help people in Africa, then we can help people in Los Angeles, right, and in the Bay Area and here in our hometown in San Diego. It takes some work, you know? It takes a partnership. Everyone has to roll up their sleeves and figure out smartphones and adult ed. And everyone has to just work together.

It's not easy to change. It's not easy to try something new. If you've always taught the same way and you're threatened by smartphones and technology and mobile, it's not easy.

But all I can say is these guys have done it. And Sweetwater is sort of the lead on this whole thing. And I just feel like there's so many more people we need to help on GED, on ESL, on job training, that it's like, how do we scale up?

I know we're out of time. It's just-- what we're always wondering is how do we scale up.

Steve Alvarado: I just want to spotlight-- we've been talking about how it helps the student. But sometimes we also have to turn the other side and say, well, how does that help a teacher?

Vinod Lobo: Yeah.

Steve Alvarado: So I want to just spotlight some things that this program helps with with teachers. So if you're a distance learning teacher, like I am, and you're trying to figure out how to account for maybe attendance or how much work have they done, if you're a program that has to monitor the hours of instruction or hours of work for TOPS and things like that, Learning Upgrade has all sorts of graphics and all sorts of accounting pieces that will allow the teacher or the program that you work for to track how many hours a student's working.

So as a distance learning teacher, when TOPS comes, and, of course, I'm trying to figure out how many hours of instruction that I'm actually going to put in, I can go into Learning Upgrade, and I can see how many hours that they have actually been working and then can use that.

I've had a couple of students in the past-- things that you don't think about. A student comes to me. They're on probation, and they have some strict requirements through their probation or parole officer. And they're concerned because they've got to meet 20 hours a week of instruction, and we're going on spring break. And they're afraid that may lead to them going back to where they came from, which is not so Learning Upgrade-friendly.

So the Wi-Fi system might not work as well. Yeah, yeah, so the creative way to work around that is that if you have a registrar or whoever is in charge of filling out these forms that they need to submit to their worker, you can definitely use Learning Upgrade as a means to track that they've actually worked for this amount of hours.

Or if you are on public assistance, and the social worker is requiring that you have X amount, but we're about to go on winter break for four weeks, how am I going to get my benefits? So you can come up with a goal.

And you can say, OK, I need you to work X amount, and I'm going to be able to track it. And Learning Upgrade allows for those pieces, those individual cases that may not be like everybody else's. But if you need some accountability, if you need to track progress, if you need to track hours of work, the system is built in Learning Upgrade to allow for the teacher and the administration to actually--

Vinod Lobo: That's great.

Steve Alvarado: --count that.

Vinod Lobo: That's a good way to close. What Sweetwater and other schools do is when they enroll students, they use a spreadsheet that has their student ID for Sweetwater along with their names. Then when we export those-- when the teachers export those spreadsheets, or the administration, they join them with your TOPS and other data. And then you can have data that's joined to your other, and you can filter in. And we're getting better at that kind of integration.

We're out of time. I want to thank Michelle, Steve, and Kevin for coming here on a Saturday and sharing their time and thank everyone online for joining and all those really good questions and Dr. Burke, who I really didn't expect to join. Fantastic.

Michelle Dullea: And thank you, Vinod, for being here. And as you said, it's a team effort. You've always been in there rolling up your sleeves along with us. So we appreciate you. Thank you.