About Us

Learn More About OTAN

Here is some information to orient you to our work at OTAN and the OTAN.us website.

Sections
Create an Account | Trainings | Teaching Tools and Resources | News Items and Social Media | Video Presentations and YouTube Channel | Special Programs and Events

Create an OTAN Account

We encourage all adult educators to create an account on the OTAN website. Creating an account is the easiest way to stay connected to the latest developments throughout the school year and it's free!

To create or update an OTAN account, first go to the OTAN website. At the top right of the page, click on the Join OTAN menu then click Membership.

On the next page, create your OTAN account by clicking on Register as a new user to begin or enter your email address to log in and update your account. (If you have any issues creating or logging into your account, please email us at support@otan.us for assistance.)

On the next page, you can enter or update your contact and agency information on the membership form. Within the form, indicate your preferences for receiving OTAN Publications and Notifications. By selecting Professional Development under OTAN Notifications, you will receive email notices when there is an open training in your region, even if it is not at your agency.

Make sure to save your changes once you have entered all your information.

Once you create an account, you can enter your email address at the Membership page to log in and adjust your preferences at any time.

You're all set to stay in touch with OTAN! Look for email notices, Digests, and Newsletters throughout the school year and we look forward to staying in touch! (And encourage a colleague to create an OTAN account as well!)

OTAN Trainings

OTAN offers trainings on a variety of educational technology topics in both face-to-face and online formats throughout the school year. The workshops fit a wide variety of skill levels and can even be customized to meet the respective needs of a program or site. All workshops are free for California adult educators and staff, hosted by WIOA-funded agencies.

To learn more about OTAN trainings, click on the Training menu at the top of the OTAN website.

Click on What's Here to learn more about the trainings that OTAN provides and training requirements, or view our Face-to-Face and Online workshops and other offerings for ideas for trainings to have at your agency.

Another way to learn about trainings from OTAN, CASAS, CALPRO, and other agencies is to visit the California Adult Education Professional Development Training Calendar from the same Training menu. Use your OTAN account email address (or create an account as a new user) to register for open trainings that are listed on the calendar.

One additional training opportunity to be aware of is our monthly OTAN Tech Talk, a quick look at a technology tool, technique, or tip specifically designed for busy adult education teachers. On the second Friday of each month, a new topic will be covered during a one-hour webinar where participants get information and a chance to get individual questions answered. You can listen to previous OTAN Tech Talk recordings on our OTAN Tech Talks Video Presentations page or our OTAN Tech Talks YouTube playlist. Register for upcoming OTAN Tech Talks on the California Adult Education Professional Development Training Calendar.

If you have questions about any workshop or would like to schedule a training, you can call our office at (916) 228-2580 or email us at support@otan.us. We update and add training titles throughout the year, so make sure to check the Training pages and Training Calendar regularly.

Please join us at an OTAN Training, and invite your colleagues as well! We look forward to seeing you online or face-to-face!

OTAN Teaching Tools and Resources

OTAN has a number of teaching tools and resources that teachers can utilize in their instruction. Here are some resources that you should consider throughout the school year (and click on the Resources menu at the top of the OTAN website to access):

• Accessibility Resources - This resource page includes OTAN-developed resources as well as resources you can use to learn more about accessibility and create your own accessible content.

• Digital Learning Guidance - A practical resource for the many individuals who support adult learners and their digital learning including classroom teachers, classified and support staff, counselors and transition specialists, and school administrators.

• Curriculum Offers - Free or reduced-cost special offers for online curriculum licenses and professional development resources that OTAN has negotiated on behalf of the state. The curriculum offers cover ESL, ABE, ASE, and HSE program areas, divided between offers for Teachers and for Students.

• California Distance Learning Cooperative - A Canvas project to help districts provide equitable access to distance, blended, and in-person learning through the Canvas Learning Management System (LMS). Canvas LMS makes it easy for adult education providers to find, build, and share great content, scaling delivery to learners on any device, in 33 languages, and in alignment with WCAG 2.0 AA and US Section 508 standards.

• California EL Civics Exchange - A repository for original EL Civics instructional materials created by California WIOA EL Civics agencies. These materials can be used to teach EL Civics content to English language learners.

• Teaching with Technology - A resource that teachers can use to locate lesson plan topics and ideas that integrate specific websites and other tech tools. You can filter your search by level, subject, and standards.

• Web-Based Class Activities - Monthly technology-based activities organized around instructional themes and topics as well as edtech tools, with ideas on how to get started and how to use them in the classroom.

• Lesson Plan Builder - A tool for adult educators to develop detailed lesson plans to share with their peers.

Please let us know if you have any questions about these teaching tools and resources. We look forward to providing you with additional resources throughout the school year!

OTAN News Items and Social Media

In addition to having an OTAN account and receiving periodic emails and communications from OTAN, two of the best ways to stay connected to OTAN throughout the school year are to follow our Adult Education News and subscribe to our social media sites.

A new News item is posted on the main page of our website three times a week (generally Monday, Wednesday, and Friday). We try to post information about OTAN events and services as well as issues of interest to the field regarding technology and tech integration. You can browse our past news items by selecting Adult Education News under the Stay Connected menu.

We are also active on social media. Please consider subscribing to one or more of our social media sites to stay connected:

• Twitter: twitter.com/otan or @OTAN

• Facebook: facebook.com/otanservesadulteducation or @otanservesadulteducation

• LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/otan_2

• YouTube: youtube.com/otanservesadulteducation

You can also connect to our social media from the OTAN website. Click on the Stay Connected menu at the top of the OTAN website and select Social Media or look for the social media icons in the footer of the homepage.

Social media is a great way to learn more about what OTAN is working on and contribute to your own professional development. Please follow or subscribe to our sites and add your voice to social media conversations with your fellow adult education colleagues.

Stay connected to OTAN! We look forward to hearing from you online!

OTAN Video Presentations and YouTube Channel

OTAN has long utilized video to provide information and training, as well as highlight important activities in adult education. Moving forward, we hope to provide even more timely information for the field through video posted in two locations: in the Video Presentations section of our website and on our YouTube channel.

The videos that are organized in the Video Presentations section of our website are fully remediated for accessibility, which means that each video has a searchable transcript, downloadable transcript files, and a file optimized for a screen reader. Make sure to scroll down the entire page to locate these features. These videos will also be listed on our YouTube channel; however, our YouTube videos are not fully remediated.

We have organized our videos into playlists that mirror each other in the Video Presentations section and the YouTube channel. Current playlists include Teaching and Working Online, Equity and Inclusion, Using Video, Digital Tools, Devices, and more! You can also watch recordings of our monthly OTAN Tech Talks, videos from our annual Technology and Distance Learning Symposium (or TDLS), and reports from our Digital Leadership Academy (or DLAC) teams.

Please consider subscribing to our YouTube channel to receive notifications when the latest OTAN videos become available. You can connect to our channel (and all our social media sites) from the OTAN website. Click on the Stay Connected menu at the top of the OTAN website and select Social Media or look for the social media icons in the footer of the homepage.

Stay connected to OTAN! We will also let you know about new video content via Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. We look forward to providing you with exciting edtech content throughout the school year!

OTAN Special Programs and Events

OTAN organizes a number of special programs and events throughout the school year of interest to the adult education field.

The Technology and Distance Learning Symposium (TDLS) is OTAN’s annual conference with dynamic, hands-on presentations and lively discussions that show participants how to integrate technology to enhance the learner experience, extend the classroom to learners through blended and distance learning, and help adult education programs be more effective and efficient. TDLS is ideal for teachers, coordinators, administrators, and support staff at California adult education providers.

We post news items and social media about the Call for Proposals and registration deadlines throughout the fall and winter, so be on the lookout for those announcements!

OTAN invites nominations of adult education learners who are successful as a result of the education received at California adult education agencies for the California Adult Education Students Succeed program. This is a great way to recognize the hard work that an outstanding student has completed in the pursuit of their personal, academic, and professional goals and aspirations. Visit the Adult Education Students Succeed website for more information. From the home page, you can read stories and watch videos from previous years by clicking on the Students tab. You can also explore stories from specific adult education agencies and programs by clicking on the Schools and Programs tabs. The nomination period will open at the start of January and remain open until April 15.

The two-year Digital Leadership Academy (DLAC) assists agencies in meeting their technology integration, distance learning, or blended teaching goals. The program is designed to be flexible in how agencies can best use the resources offered by OTAN to support their agency goals. A DLAC project is generally aligned to an agency’s continuous improvement goals as described in its WIOA Title II grant application. If you would like to learn more about what current and previous participating agencies have been working on, visit the DLAC Video Presentations webpage.