Alumni+online+meetings+09-10


 * TIMAC Alumni Meetings**


 * In May 2009 (as in previous years, too) we discussed possibilities of staying in touch, and we decided to try to organize a number of online meetings where we would informally share our successes and challenges in technology integration.** toc


 * Instructions will be sent out on how to join a week before each meeting**.


 * These are the dates of the meetings:**

//Past//
 * Friday, January 29, 3-5 pm**
 * Wednesday, March 31, 10-11 am**
 * Wednesday, March 31, 4-5 pm**
 * Friday, April 30, 10-11 am**
 * Friday, April 30, 2-3 pm**
 * Friday, May 21, 4-5 pm**

= =

=Notes from past meetings:=

Friday, May 21, 2010 | 4-5 pm
Lynn Andres, Orange Grove Adult Ed, San Juan Unified School District Donna Edwards-Brown, Evans Adult School, LAUSD DACE Susan Gaer, Santa Ana Community College, Continuing Education School Tina Sander, Santa Cruz Adult School Rebecca Ring, Monterey Adult School Katalin Gyrindak, Mt. San Antonio Community College – not able to connect Branka Marceta, TIMAC



Lynn Andres
At Orange Grove AE, combined last year's cuts and the coming year's cuts resulted in 22 certificated AWD positions gone and services to 1362 AWD students lost. The only AWD program left in Sacramento area is Orange Grove. Lynn will have a job next year, but no summer school. San Juan USD will no longer run summer school. The ironic thing is that Orange Grove now has SmartBoards in all classrooms, tons of other technology (Elmo, electronic microscopes, etc) and they are now in danger of closing after next year. Next year 2 classrooms will be vacant due to teacher cuts.

Donna Edwards-Brown Donna started taking a credential course for CTE teaching. She'll gain the experience as a student in moodle. Currently some equipment and software breaking down. Genesis system for lab management needs fixing. Success: Donna appreciated receiving the open source disk during TIMAC 0809. She made copies for the whole class. They practiced downloading and installing programs. They work in moodle, and for that getting their e-mail address. It is very challenging to get Ss to understand user names and passwords, but very rewarding to see them understand the concept and use online services. School ends 6/18.

Susan Gaer
Susan teaching and coordinating summer school on last minute notice. The school lost their older adult program. Will be AV and EV coordinator for CATESOL 2011 in Long Beach. Success: Organized a laptop day with her class, downloaded open source software (Paint, Audacity, Open Office). 12 out of 16 students showed up w/ laptops and thumb drives. One student went out and bought a laptop as a result. http://susangaer.com/eslspring2010/ for student website intermediate level School ends 5/28.

Tina Sander
Santa Cruz AS will have some summer program, but entirely fee-based. Parent Ed teachers are fundraising and writing grants. In the summer Tina is teaching at Cabrillo, but not at Santa Cruz AS. Success: Teachers using school email more, unfortunately out of necessity to communicate about adult budget cuts. In the fall Tina is planning an Antarctica trip through iceaged.info as a polar trek teacher Tina and Susan are making plans about Susan’s students Video Conferencing with Tina while in Antarctica. http://www.polartrec.com/expeditions/antarctic-seafloor-ecology/journals School ends June 12.

Rebecca Ring
Monterey AS eliminated all but a few ESL and HSD/GED classes. As of June, she is unemployed and will be looking into tutoring opportunities in the Monterey area. Monterey AS still in limbo, could be completely gone. Other adult ed teachers looking to continue using their skills through tutoring. Success: Rebecca got teachers to use LED projectors, even the more resistant ones. School ends .June 4th

Friday, April 30, 2010 | 10-11 am, 2-3 pm
Peggy Pinto, Azusa Adult School Blair Roy, Garden Grove Adult School Susan Coulter, Baldwin Park Adult and Community Education Francisca Wentworth, Jefferson Adult Ed Katalin Gyurindak, Mt San Antonio Community College Branka Marceta, OTAN



Peggy Pinto
Co-teaching morning ABE class - direct instruction for math and some language arts. The other teacher does language arts. Students are working on Read On software program. Also use Marshal Adult School Reading Practice Web site and AAA math. Students don’t take books home, but use Algebra help Web sites. On the whole, ABE learners report having Internet access at home. Peggy also teaches a high school program in the evenings concurrent – independently. Two comprehensive high schools and two hour class each day one alternative. This year adult ed offered World History 1, US History 1, and then US History 2.

Blair Roy
Did an OTAN face-to-face workshop on Promethean interactive whiteboard. Working on a Web site for ESL learners for the summer and beyond, www.eslamerica.us

Susan Coulter
BPACE - down to 49 teachers, did a rally last Friday. The mayor was there, with the support of the community, things have turned around, the superintendant is taking a second look at adult ed budget. There is a bill to follow at national level, []

Francisca Wentworth
There will be summer school - 4 weeks, at the main site. Presented a Smartboard workshop at CATESOL - how to use textbooks to create activities such as 5 minute vocabulary game anagrams, word matching, and the like. Attendee levels mixed. Some beginners some more experienced. Had one board, about 15 people. They seemed to like it. Had some hands-on practice. Got good evaluations. Moved school Web site to [|www.jeffersonadulted.net/]. Used Joomla as the platform and Bluehost for hosting. A learning curve.

Katalin Gyurindak
Summer session cut 65%. Regular semester 10% cut. Summer – closed Fri, Sat and Sun. Full timer teachers complete their 40 hours Mon-Thu. College looking into saving money on utilities. Part time teacher hours cut 65%, Affected everybody. Went to cue Teaching beg. Low. Teachers love Edmodo, like twitter, but for education. http://www.edmodo.com/ Had two wiki workshops by OTAN. Katalin now mentoring a colleague. Also used Wordle for class activities: used adjective, nouns, verbs, opposites. Created separate wordles. Took a sreenshoot of each wordle and pasted it into powerpoint. Students had to guess about the category.

Other resources: www.englishcentral.com www.lessonwriter.com http://www.voxopop.com/ http://www.wplrc.org/home.asp?id=3

From OTAN:
**http://adultedbudgetcuts.wikispaces.com/** **[]** **[]** **http://www.otan.us/digest/** **[]** **[]** **http://www.otan.us/browse/index.cfm?fuseaction=browse&catid=10722** **http://www.vocabsushi.com** **http://timac.wikispaces.com/Alumni+online+meetings+09-10**
 * ** Adult Education Budget Cuts – How are schools doing across the state **
 * **Digests**
 * **News items**
 * **Online and face to face workshops**
 * **Cool resources: Web-based Class Activities: Career Exploration and Information Sites**
 * **Cool resources : Vocabulary Sushi – real world contextual examples**
 * **Summary of our meetings**

Wednesday, March 31, 2010 | 10-11 am

 * Donna Edwards-Brown, Evans Adult School, LAUSD DACE**
 * Tina Sander, Santa Cruz Adult School**
 * Peggy Pinto, Azusa Adult School**
 * Cindy Wislofsky, San Diego Community College District, Continuing Education**
 * Marian Thacher, OTAN**
 * Penny Pearson, OTAN**
 * Branka Marceta, OTAN**

**Tina Sander**

 * School year ends. June 10. The administrator would want to run summer school but students need to pay $150+ for 4 weeks.**
 * Santa Cruz Adult School is not doing well. They are left with $170 thousand to run the school. No money for Parent Ed, HS diploma or ESL. It is a possibility that some teachers may retire, and thus provide some funds. Might be down to 3 teachers teaching 3 days a week. Priorities of the district (SC) are first parent ed, then GED and HSD, then ESL. The school recently moved sites, and at the new place there’s no tech support, no supplies. Lots of "volunteer" hours.**
 * This summer Tina may be joining an Antarctica research trip.**
 * In the context of the dialogue about alternatives for teachers who may be left with too few hours or no hours at all, Marian mentioned that she was reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad and that it has interesting ideas about potential for jobs and earning money!**
 * Tina recommended another good book for the times now - Atlas Shrugged.**

**Donna Edwards-Brown**

 * At Evans Adult, school year usually goes till the end of June, but they may be finishing a week early. There will be summer school.**
 * Donna has been teaching writing and computer class, and using moodle as a platform. The computer part of her class focuses on bringing up low level skills - setting up email**
 * finding directions, downloading programs, transferring photos on the computer. It’s been challenging and lots of fun. This trimester beginning next week, the focus will be on writing.**
 * Teachers hear conflicting things about future. There have been layoffs and re-hires. WIA money came in that had to be used up. There is still talk about summer school.**
 * The lab that Donna worked in needed to be upgraded and that was finally was done together with teacher management system - Genesis - being updated. Now teachers need training on how to do it.**

**Cindy Wislofsky**

 * SDCCD school year ends June 9. There will be 6 week summer school. They are operating on very limited supply budget. There is no sub policy in place. If teachers are absent - notices posted on door that class is cancelled. If teachers is absent longer, 4th day the sub is approved. There have been no new hires this year, no new classes open.**
 * There are large number of students on waiting lists.**
 * Cindy is continuing to offer professional development for staff. Some teachers are still learning district e-mail. Cindy modeling what to do in the lab for some of the teachers who are going for the first time and that’s been exciting. They had workshops about Web pages and Spelling Citi. They used Quia for basic Web pages.**
 * Marian noted that the tech tips Cindy sends out have been great.**

**Peggy Pinto**

 * Azusa adult school year ends June 18th. They don't know yet about summer school. In June they will lose a vice principal.**
 * Peggy's hours cut at minimum of 8 hrs a week, She is not coordinating this year, but teaching ABE and some CBET, and some HS. She does not know what her jobs for September may be. It has been hard to keep morale up.**
 * As alternatives – Azusa students may be going to fee based classes or local community colleges.**
 * Peggy will be going to CCAE in May, but no other conferences.**

**for writing**

 * http://writingfix.com/index.htm**
 * www.wordle.net (create 'word clouds')**
 * http://www.scribd.com/about**
 * http://www.readwritethink.org/ ReadWriteThink by Thinkfinity**

**for publishing:**

 * [|www.instantpublisher.com] - fee based though**
 * [] - Issuu publishes online**
 * [] - free self-publishing **

**Wednesday, March 31, 2010 | 4-5 pm**

 * Blair Roy, Garden Grove Adult School **
 * Vicki Jones, Simi Valley Adult School and Career Institute **
 * Diana Batista, Simi Valley Adult School and Career Institute **
 * Leila Rosemberg, Culver City Adult School **
 * Penny Pearson, OTAN **
 * Branka Marceta, OTAN **



**Diana Batista & Vicki Jones**

 * At Simi Valley they did give 9 teachers in Non academic or CTE classes RIFF notices. Diana Batista, as an assistant principal, declared all of her programs as Academic or CTE and they have not heard anything negative yet, regarding ESL. **
 * Conejo Adult School -their neighbor- reported they were closing but now they have posted a full schedule. **
 * Simi Valley enrollment is up, and so are their grant pay points. **
 * They just ordered new computers for a Language Lab. **
 * They are also applying for another grant for Citizenship to try to prepare in case of an amnesty. **
 * They are opening a test prep class with a media library. It is geared to any adult preparing for tests- including TOEFL, GED, AAv- that military 1 and some state certification licenses. **
 * Blair will hold a face to face workshop at Simi Valley about interactive whiteboards. **
 * Simi Valley school year ends June 12 and they plan a summer program from July 6 - August 14 **
 * Diana will be attending CASAS Summer Institute. **

**Leila Rosemberg**
**Culver City Adult school year ends June 16. There will be no summer school.**
 * At Culver City k-12 is losing money because they can't serve LAUSD students anymore and they will most likely be looking for money in adult ed. **
 * Staff at the adult school will have a meeting on April 8 to talk about this issue since there may be a possibility of adult education disappearing b/c of the gradual cuts over time. Leila compared the situation to a frog being cooked gradually over time and not noticing. **
 * Culver City AS got new computer lab used for CASAS e-testing, among other things. For professional development teachers are looking at developing Web sites for Math and Writing for GED, creating a wiki with resources for English Composition. Leila is looking at creating a blog with shared resources for all teachers. **
 * Leila's GED classroom is full, but summer school is closed. She is looking for resources to recommend to her GED learners. **
 * Some suggestions: **
 * **http://www.passGED.com**
 * **http://www.studyisland.com/GED**
 * **http://paxen.com GED Prep Xcelerator by Paxen Learning**

**Blair Roy**

 * Garden Grove Adult School ends June 17th and no summer school at Blair’s campus. There may be classes at the other large campus but not sure yet. There will be a staff meeting in next week, and they’ll maybe know more then. **
 * Blair and a fellow-teacher are putting together a website open to all for esl mainly – http://eslamerica.us/. The main concept that they are going with is what you see you can also listen to. They just added ted.com as one of the recommended Web site. Blair commented that the interactive text is awesome for students and scripts...amazing what they have put together. Right now we are pulling together websites as we try to build our own content. They would love other teachers feedback. **

**Alternatives for teaches**

 * While talking about alternatives for teachers who may have hours cut severely or may be laid off, Penny Pearson noted that many teachers are starting to free-lance online as tutors and more. There are many references of overseas CBO's and institutions that want native English speakers to teach via online resources. hese just a few examples from searching "online teachers needed" through google search: **
 * **Teach online: www.gatherplace.net**
 * **teaching jobs www.teacherjobs.com (across the US)**
 * **ESL Teachers needed online (Asia) www.eslhq.com**
 * **Online ESL: www.esljobsworld.com/esl-jobs/online.html**
 * **online teachers needed: www.eslcafe.com/joblist/index.cgi?read=20997**
 * **Also, paid links on the search: Online Teaching jobs www.tutorjobsonline.com**
 * **ESL EFL Job opportunities http://esl.about.com/od/esleflteachingemployment/ESL_EFL_Job_Opportunities_and_English_Employment_Sites_and_Resources.htm**

**From OTAN:**

 * **Adult Education Budget Cuts – How are schools doing across the state- http://adultedbudgetcuts.wikispaces.com/**
 * **Digests**
 * **News items**
 * **Online and face to face workshops**
 * **Cool resources: Web-based Class Activities: Educational Video and Social Networking Sites-** **http://www.otan.us/browse/index.cfm?fuseaction=browse&catid=10722**
 * **Cool resources: Voxopop -** **[]**
 * **Cool resources: Gaming in Adult Ed Classroom-** **[| http://sites.google.com/site/gamingintheadultedclassroom/courses]**
 * **Cool resources: ted.com**
 * **Hans Rosling []**
 * **Ken Robinson []**

Friday, January 29, 2010 | 3-4 pm

 * Thanks for meeting online on January 29 2010 from 3-4 pm, for our first TIMAC alumni meeting. Present were: **


 * Blair Roy, // Garden Grove Adult Education //**
 * Branka Marceta, // OTAN //**
 * Francisca Wentworth, // Jefferson UHSD, Adult School //**
 * Jim Brice, // San Diego Community College //**
 * Martha Rankin, // Newport-Mesa USD, Adult School //**
 * Martha Robles, // Cerritos College //**
 * Penny Pearson, // OTAN //**
 * Rebecca D’Harlingue, // Castro Valley Adult School //**
 * Susan Coulter, // Baldwin Park Adult and Community Education //**
 * Susan Gaer, // Santa Ana Community College, School of Continuation //**
 * Susan Guzzetta, // Fresno Adult School //**




 * It was fun and exciting to get together and talk via the text chat and via the microphone for some. **


 * We talked about the general budget situation at each program, the changes being implemented currently, the fee structure that some agencies are implementing, and the ensuing student contracts that define what adult learners are getting as a result of paying fees. Issues that arise are what to do with the seat for a learner who paid but stopped attending and whether paying learners have a guaranteed seat in the computer lab. We agreed that we would share examples of our student contracts on the TIMAC wiki. **


 * Some participants used Voice Over the Internet Protocol feature to talk about their current status and projects, and others used the chat with text feature. **

Here’s a sampling of the sessions’ chat.**

Martha Robles
· I have been teaching an online virtual class for a local McDonald's franchise--good methodology and lessons, but a little too long b/c student are disappearing. · Because I use technology especially the internet, I have just launched my very own website: []. I hope to model it after the site: www.manythings.org. The focus is to generate tons of activities, link sites, and especially audio/video with experts sharing and talking about their welding, auto repair, machine tool, etc. Please check it out and let me know what you think.

Martha Rankin
· collaborating with OTAN for f2f trainings: []

· site council adopted mission that includes 21st century skills []

· Fair assessment. Two posts on it from our blog: [] and []

· Our CASAS and promotional data seems to suggest that our managed-enrollment students our outperforming our open enrollment: []

Susan Coulter
· both Azusa and Baldwin Park using ReadOn program []

· ABE Vocabulary practice []

Francisca Wentworth
· we have a new website now [] · We have just updated our course outlines to inlcude Foundation (SCANS) skills. · Text to speech tool http://www.ispeech.org/

· Web sites to create puzzles and word searches [] · create a cloze exercise in minutes [] · ABE Vocabulary practice []

Blair Roy
· I tried the new add your own sentences in Spellingcity today. []

Rebecca D'Harlingue
· worth a look for vocab from a text you paste in. You can sort by most to least common words, GSL and AWL words, there are images and a visual thesaurus. []

Susan Gaer
· my class website is high intermediate [] · google docs experiment with a text-to-speech feature, more about that at another time in the future

Thank you all for sharing and see you next time. ~Branka