 Hello everyone, my name is Carl Blythe. I'm the Director of Coral that stands for the Center for OER in Language Learning. OER is a thing. It means Open Educational Resources. And we have our OER Hangout, what we're calling an OER Hangout, which are really just informal chat with various developers, designers, people who are using OER in creative and innovative ways. And we're really happy today because we've got two people who are doing interesting things with the Portuguese language. And our topic today is about increasing inclusive open educational resources for language learning. So what does that mean? Of course, they're going to be telling us that. We have Carlos Pio, a lecturer in foreign languages from the University of Pennsylvania and Eduardo Viana da Silva, a lecturer in Portuguese from UW University of Washington. And both of them have been creating OER for Portuguese teaching. But again, as I said, we're going to focus today on inclusion and inclusiveness, inclusivity. That can mean many, many different things to many people. So we're going to find out what they mean by inclusivity. The main point, of course, is bringing people into the language classroom and the language materials. People who are not necessarily represented or marginally represented and making them then focuses of lessons. After their presentations, they'll talk for about five, seven minutes. And then we will have a Q&A where people will be able to use the chat functions. I should also mention from the outset that Coral has just launched a new OER course and will bring you more information about that at the end. Okay, so with that, let's just go ahead and get started. Okay, so the textbook that we started creating here, it's called Bacipapu. And I think we are sharing the link, right, Sarah? UW.pressbooks.pub-bacipapu. Bacipapu means chit-chapped in Portuguese. So here's the material. I'm just going to go over our idea for making it inclusive in the sense that, first of all, it is an OER. So students don't have to spend what they were spending before on the textbook. It was around $180 to have access to the online homework. And I also had in mind and Carlos as well that we wanted to use this material with refugees, especially in Brazil, with this particular book because it's focused on Brazilian Portuguese. And then Carlos will work with his material in Portuguese from Portugal, but he wanted to have the material available to refugees as well. And there are a couple of places in Brazil that started using so they can make copies of whatever they need for the students. Students can also access the material from their phones and they don't have to pay anything for it. So I'm just going to focus on a couple of activities that we did. One is that we took a camera to Brazil and we recorded students at the university and we also recorded people that work, you know, in restaurants or in other jobs. And from those recordings, we created that we got those dialogues and from that we created activities for the textbook. So the idea is that instead of having us creating a dialogue and basing the textbook on a dialogue that we created, we are now basing it on something that people actually are the way that they speak, right? How they use the language. So if you look at this dialogue here, it means, onde você mora? It means like where do you live? You have three people talking about where they live and at the university, this is at the university setting because this unit is focused at the university. And then from their conversation, it came up a sequence of expressions like noça, like wow, atá, right? Atá, né, isn't it? So a lot of expressions that came out from their dialogue and also vocabulary. So from that, we do a comprehension exercise and then an activity to walk in class. And an activity before that the student will try to understand the expressions in pairs, then answer about themselves, you know, where do they live, with whom they live, if they are on campus or in another place. And then a typical activity to walk around the class and an interactive activity, right, in the classroom. That's based on the dialogue. So we let the dialogue dictate the sequence of activities. I thought that was particularly important because as I said, you know, the dialogues I created were not the same as the ones that I recorded in Brazil. For many reasons, one is that, you know, I've been living in the US for almost 20 years or 18 years and language change, right? The other one is also, there is an age gap as well. I don't talk in the same way that 18, 19 year old talks at the university. So that's one thing. The other thing we also did is to incorporate from the dialogues ideas for teaching culture. Let's put teaching in a lot of, you know, inverted commas here. One was that this dialogue here, students who are talking about asking for a right to go to the university. And I know this one, I was there, that there were students at the buzz stop. This is the university of Unespi, the state of Sao Paulo. They have several campus, but there is one that's in Araraquara. That's the inland, like three hours from the city of Sao Paulo, from the capital. And it is a smaller city, still a city, but much more smaller than, you know, let's say a big city. So students do take rides from the buzz stop. They ask for a ride and it's a common practice that someone that works at the university would give them a ride or another student or a staff or faculty. And they normally ask for rides in groups of two or three. So I noticed that. And they also talked about asking for a ride or taking the Uber to go to the university. Pedir Carona is right. So then we created a little box here, a little reading about this, you know, explaining that, you know, some people in Brazil, in smaller university settings or in smaller cities, they tend to ask for rides and or, you know, sometimes they feel safe doing that because they are in a more recluded area, etc. And then we compare with the experience in the US and do a pre-reading activity as well. So those are like a couple of examples. Another one is that we didn't ask the students when they did the dialogue or not just the students, other people as well, we didn't ask them to read a dialogue that we wrote. We just gave them a prompt and said, you know, talk about this. And then they thought a little bit and then they came up with the language, right? So I thought that was much more natural than us telling them exactly what to do. And that reflected on the grammar. So I'm trying to look here for a conjugation table. Because what we did is that instead of using the traditional conjugation of El Tueli and Os Vos Elis, we eliminated the Vos, like the Vú form. We kept the two. The Vos form, it's so old that it's, you know, it's biblical and archaic, so it's not in any textbooks. But we included Agenci. That means we, like we folks, we people in Brazil, and it's much more common than us. But you don't see that in textbooks. You don't see Agenci, at least I haven't seen a textbook of Portuguese as a foreign language, as a second language that incorporates Agenci in the conjugation charts. I've seen notes mentioning that, you know, Agenci is used, but I haven't seen being incorporated all the time. So what happens is that students in my class, at the UDUB, they tend to use Agenci. Because I just mentioned to them so many times, and they see all the time, that Nos becomes a, goes to a second plan, right? So they sound more natural in that way for the Brazilian context, which is different than the Portuguese context. I think that's like a short version of what I had to say. And there is like more things on the homework side that we can talk during the discussion as well. There is a platform on Canvas that we are now working to pass that to Blackboard and possibly Moodle. That would be the homework for the textbook. Okay. Thank you very much, Eduardo. And so let's pass things over to Carlos. So I'm going to talk about, to show some examples and strategies and suggestions that may not be original. And you may even use them in your classroom. But the need for them depends on the specific goals of the class you are teaching, the level of the language you are teaching, and the kind of cultural ideas you want to teach. Therefore, my starting point and my goal, our goal, is the Portuguese language classes. Our suggestions are specific to our classes, but they can be easily adapted to other contexts. And finally, I just wanted to say that gender and sexuality themselves, like these strategies and pronouns and words, are subject to change and should be used as a guide, which is open to more suggestions. So I'm going to address inclusion in terms of gender, sexuality, religion, and ethnicity. The first example, I'm going to give you five examples. Okay. So the first one is the, I wanted to say that this is a good tip, which is in order to not make assumptions about people's gender and sexuality, one should learn basic vocabulary, which is related to a specific community. For instance, words for the color of the skin versus the color of an object are important. Be words for important traditions and holidays for other religions or for other cultural associations or groups, and see vocabulary specific to the queer, non-confirming, and trans terminology. For instance, the practice of gender neutral pronouns is really highly important and also announced especially for gender-marked languages as Spanish and Portuguese. The second thing that I wanted to say is that become familiar with support services at your own school of interest to students like the Casa Latina, the Muslim Students Association, Black Alumni Society, Indigenous Students Association, LGBTQ Center, etc. The second strategy that I wanted to show is in the beginning of each semester, of each term, I, on the first or second half, second class of each semester, right after the discussion of the goals and the presentation of the class, and after going over the syllabus, I always give the students for them to fill out at home. It's a small six-question survey about themselves. So it's, well, Benvindo Cruz, Portuguese. Welcome to the Portuguese course, the Portuguese class. What is your name? What do you study? What are some of your interests? Why are you studying Portuguese? There's a typo. Why are you studying Portuguese? Why no A? And then the two, I guess, the two more important questions for the scope of our presentation, which is which name and pronouns should be used as a typo to I apologize. When I am addressing you in terms of name and pronouns, and would you like to add additional information about yourself? This is a good way to break the ice between myself and the students and to, so that I don't make assumptions about the students' gender or sexuality, or also not to out students that are still in the closet. Third strategy, I think that when it comes to describe one's physical and psychological traits, I do not correct anymore the gender agreement in the classroom or in the homework, so that I do not make assumptions about the students' sexual or gender identities. I do, however, make sure that the students understand that Portuguese is a Roman language which traditionally has two markers for the binary gender, O for the masculine and A for the feminine, and that in a more traditional environment and setting, those two forms are accepted as the norm, especially in professional settings. So I let the students choose from either binary masculine or feminine or gender non-confirming pronouns, for instance, using among an X marker, more open, or an E, more neutral, like menin or touch. This is a common practice in Latin America, and this is a common practice, for instance, in my department here at Hispanic and Portuguese Studies at Penn, that some of us do not correct the gender agreement when we are talking about the students. I only correct the gender agreement for inanimate objects. For instance, instead of saying carro amarelo, amarelo is masculine because of carro, versus carro amarelo. This is my third tip. Fourth, I've been, Eduardo and I have been using the inspired in the United States, the Black History Month. We've been using the month of the history of the Afro-Busofon history, so we collect a lot of people that have been important throughout the Portuguese-speaking countries, a milcar cabral from which was an important political leader that fought for the independence in Guinea-Bissau and Cavalier, Rico D'Alaçã from Brazil, a queer artist, Sumeli Carneiro, she's a feminist from Brazil, Gianni Escobar, she's the Brazilian woman ahead of the Black lesbian movement in Portugal. Mama Luba is a social activist, a political activist for the rights of the Afro-Portuguese in Portugal. Paulina Shizyan, she's a writer from Mozambique, and then Blayer Drij, who is a singer from, that was born in Brazil, lives in Portugal. When I create these small cultural activities, they're really good for the students so that the students may relate themselves to and try to find a role model for them in the Lusofon world. Other ideas are like, for instance, the Lusofon LGBTQ History Month, the Lusofon Women History Month, the Indigenous People History Month in Brazil, the immigrants for immigrants in the Lusofon countries History Month, and also the significant part of the population of the Portuguese population is Roma, Romani, commonly known as the Gypsies, so I sometimes organize weeks or a month dedicated to festivities, celebrations or traditions, or holidays, not holidays, but traditions for the Romani Portuguese History Month. Finally, I just want to show the last activity that I usually use in class, which I use for the physical description, which is you, I'm going to translate the prompt, you get to a new Lusofon country and you want to meet new people. So choose an app like OkCupid, Grindr, Herb, Bicrush, et cetera, and create a profile about you, talking about your physical description, psychological description, two of your likes, what are you studying, and the kind of person that you're looking for. This is really good because this allows students to describe themselves without me giving prompts to them. The array of answers is really, really amazing because they always choose words that are not the most politically correct words, so it's really, really interesting. The last thing that I wanted to say is we use these strategies in order not to make assumptions about the students and to leave it open for them to talk about themselves with no pressure or stress. The goals of these strategies are not, for instance, the outing of one's gender or sexuality. It's all about creating an environment in which students feel safe and to which they connect. It's all about, so it is then important that the creation of real life situations and relatable, meaningful input which increases the level of realness in the classroom and by which a real and emotional connection between instructions, language, and students is established. Thank you. Thank you both very much. And so now we have time to answer questions that might have risen people. I want you to go ahead and type your queries, your comments in the chat function and we'll make sure that they get read and answered. So I wanted to, I'll get things rolling, I guess a little bit and just say that I appreciated what you were saying, Carlos, there at the end about creating safe environments and also the goal of not making assumptions. So giving people space to make choices for themselves but also giving them the resources to make those choices. Just as you were saying, all these different kinds of apps, they might not know about them. So that was my question. So you start, you give them the apps or you lead them to the apps and then that's your job is to set it up and then they can choose from among those apps and that gives them the vocabulary. And the safe space. The thing is that the first time that I show the exercise, I go through the exercise and I always sense a bit of a shyness and tension. So as a strategy, they will have to write their answers, they have to create a profile through an educational blogging like Canvas, like Blackboard on Moodle and a one-on-one answer between me and themselves so that there's no altering difference and that they feel safe. And then in the classroom, if I ask for volunteers, they will, if they want, they will talk about themselves. Right, nice. And I also just wanted to, I see that we have a couple of people writing in the chat, that's good. I also, Eduardo's comment at the very beginning, OER is inclusive because of its low cost. In other words, I think that bears repeating the whole point of OER is to give people access to information and to text materials that they normally wouldn't have. And I think that people are not often aware that some of our students simply are not able to afford the textbooks and therefore they go without. So I guess the first rule of inclusion was kind of what he was talking about is if you don't have access, it can't be inclusive. So thank you, Eduardo, for opening with that. I think that's really an important kind of important point in our discussion about OER and that makes a lot of sense. So I find that sometimes the students come to me and mention that they register for the class because they didn't have to pay for the textbook. When you are fighting for students sometimes in some language groups, especially Portuguese is one of them, that the enrollments are down. When you have students register into your class because they have to comply with the language requirement and they don't have to pay for the textbook, might not be your dream student, but it is a student that might fall in love with the language and might continue taking it. So it's a strategy on that end as well. I just wanted to mention what Carlos was saying of being inclusive and giving alternatives for students to talk about how they express themselves, how they see their gender. One thing that I've done with the classes is having, and I can share the screen on that, it's having a discussion board where they can go. So for example here, I have a discussion board that's based on the exercise on the topic for the unit, and this one is about where they live because that was the example that I was showing before. But I find that sometimes that's the first step for students to feel comfortable. It's in the online environment that they are already very familiar with, and sometimes in class they don't want to take a lot of chances, but sometimes if they start here and they have a reaffirmation from somebody saying, you know, oh, I see you or recognize you, then they feel more comfortable in the classroom as well. So just another approach to the same thing that Carlos was saying. In this case, you can see that, you know, this is like a first quarter class and students are, you know, they say like, I live in a house. This person says, you know, I live with my son. The other one replies, or I also live in a house. Another reply, I live in a house as well. And the conversation goes on and on. And it creates a conversation outside the classroom, right? And I've seen students say, no, I live with my boyfriend, I live with my girlfriend. And sometimes even assumptions that you make as an instructor that, you know, you shouldn't, but we all make, I think we start to realize, oh, okay, this girl lives with another girl. And, you know, it's, and I just learned that through the through the chat room. And otherwise, I wouldn't know that, right? So yeah, so there are things that even as an instructor, it helps you to get to know your students better. As far as incorporating the students, actually someone else I had a question in the chat, Eric Dodson asked, have you done any activities that involve incorporating student work into the OER, opening up materials creation, for example? Well, getting the suggestions from the students. Yeah, students creating some of the materials. I haven't done exactly that, but they have past service to students seeing what's the topics that they would like to see on the on the textbook. And I have created the material in Brazil with Brazilians, not of the students, but I can see an advantage to having some activities in the classroom, in the in the textbook that have them represented. What do you think, Carlos? Yes, I was thinking part of the book that of Eduardo's book is that part of the project is that we should have always feedback continuous feedback from students and instructors, but especially for students so that you know what's going on, what are the trends, what's the buzz, new words that are happening, and new, you know, new stuff that is happening, ideas, whatever. But we haven't, I have never in a classroom, no, I've never done that. Yeah, I think it's a good idea, but it's a challenge. It's a good idea. Yeah, I just wanted to say that this is an idea that the idea of student generated content that can be added on to an OER or partnering with students would make a lot of sense in the in along these for this topic for inclusivity, because clearly, I mean, you guys are trying to be aware of including these different different groups that may be marginalized or underrepresented in materials, but it's hard to know how to present a community that you're not really that familiar with. So you don't have to be that familiar, you let them talk about themselves. And that's, that would be a really interesting, I guess, way to to handle some of these issues, especially for inclusivity. But yeah, I mean, so you haven't done it yet, but you could put it on your radar and think about it for the future. Yeah, for me, you know, always called my attention, the textbooks for Portuguese was that they represent the ones that focus on Brazil, white Brazilians that the university level, right? And Brazil, according to the last census, 53% mixed race. So sometimes it lacks that, right? I would say most of the time. So one thing we try to do is to get the accent from the northeast of Brazil, that's the area that has more people of color, Afro-Brazilians, right away in the textbook on the chapter two. So starting on chapter two, we got someone from a city in Olinda, recording some of the lists of words and things of that nature. So that helps. I think also from seeing people of color in the textbook is also another thing that helps. So it's more closer to reality in that sense. And the variants, right Carlos, the way we talk in the northeast is not the same way that people talk in Sao Paulo or Rio, which tend to take over most of the textbooks, you know, the way that people talk in Sao Paulo and Rio, just like as an additional comment. And especially because our classrooms are totally diverse. So I want that diversity, I want my students to connect to those realities, either Guinea-Bissau, either Rio de Janeiro, either English more, but I want to see themselves over there or people like me or people like us. So there's another comment. This one is for a question from Adriana about, let's see, the access to the videos and the dialogues that you've used in your materials. Are these open to the public? So we had a conversation before, and I can show one of the videos here. So what we did is that so far, what we were able to do, because that's another thing to say as well. When you create, well, this is like a three people project, right? It's me, work of Brazilian Portuguese, Carlos, work of Portuguese from Portugal, and we have one person at our language learning center here at the University of Washington that's helping us. So we have limitation on time and resources. So I have the videos, I haven't uploaded them yet. I just constructed the dialogues based on the videos. And the reason I haven't uploaded them, and you talked about this before, let me share the screen here. It's because they look like they're homemade in some ways. So let me see, you know, it's really hard people look, they talk, look into the camera. So that's one of the videos. Can you see it? Yes. This is the one that we're talking about, the place where they live, let's see if you can hear it too. They always look at the camera, which doesn't look very natural. But there is that sense of being quirky and real. And we were talking about that before with Carlos that, you know, it feels very real because it is, right? It's not high, a high produced stage done by a publishing house. It's just Carlos was holding the camera there. And you just told them, you know, talk about the place where you live. Or for instance, make plans for tonight, in which you have to use the verb to go I mean, in Portuguese, the verb ir plus infinitive. So they actually, in that precise moment, the students pull off a situation, a two minutes and 30 seconds situation in which they were making plans for that same evening. It was really, really real. So that was really interesting. I think we will upload the videos as we go. I would say over the summer, another year, the material will have more visual stuff there. For now, it just has recordings online. So if you go online, you can listen to the recordings to some of the things, not all. Thank you. And we have some other questions about the resources from Anita. So she was wondering how long have you used this book in your classes? Have you found it more successful than previous texts in helping develop proficiency in Portuguese? And have you only developed one level at this point? Let me take that one, Carlos, because have you used it as much? Yes, in one of the classes, which is Portuguese one here at Penn, which is the first year of Portuguese. So we have used at the University of Washington for the first two quarters of Portuguese so far. And I think the way it works for me, it is that the activities are built in. So we wrote in a way that if you have a new instructor teaching the class, you can just follow the book. They don't have to have a lesson plan or just have to follow the activities. Everything is there. So in that sense, it's easier. It's more interactive as well. So less grammar content there and more of activities, pretty much a sequence of classroom activities one after another. It's not a grammar book. For the grammar book, we use one resource that actually Sarah recommended to us. That was the Portuguese part of Principiante, the University of Wisconsin. That's like a full book of all the grammar there. So we use that as a resource. And you just pointed out the grammar bits by bits, a little bit on the textbook. So it has been successful. I've been using for a year and a half now. Students haven't spent any money. So far, I have printed the textbook myself, not myself, but the partner. And just put in a binder and give to them. But I think starting the fall, we'll have like a link on Lulu Express. That's cheaper. And you can print like two Lulu Express and into the cost, like, depending on how you do the binding, maybe $6, $7 for 150 pages or 200 pages, less than that $10. So that's that will probably be what you're going to be doing in the future. And have you noticed any difference in the student proficiency using this one compared to the other books or I don't know if you really like. I just wanted to say that the book that we were using here for Portuguese one was a book that I feel that was very scattered all around. And there was no flowing between the different chapters. So we, I think if Bartol managed to find that flow that it was talking about, so huge sequence. So the results in the class are much more continuous. I find that, you know, what I was doing before is that I'm using material, let's say I have a traditional textbook, and then I'm supplementing things in class, like most of us do, right? Most language teachers end up supplementing and saying, you know, actually in Brazil we use a gente, not nos, going back to that same example. And then you're writing on the board or putting notes on canvas. Well, now I don't have to do that because the notes textbooks built around that, right? So the natural language in that sense is coming out more frequently than before, because it is the textbook, it's it's pretty natural for the most part. So to say yes, in that sense. That's great. And Anita also asked, do you know when the European Portuguese one will be available? I don't know when, but I'm going to start to work on it on the summer, this coming summer. So, and of course, I already have, which is very helpful, the structure of Eduardo. So it helps a lot. But a year and a half, I would say something like that. Okay. Thanks. And then we also had another comment from Anita. She really appreciates the suggestion on how you grade one's physical traits when it comes to gender. And they're dealing a lot with that in Spanish classes. Thank you. Yes. That was really hard to do. But I think it's much more safe. And there's no fear about pronouns. And then we also we have a question about printing the text. So you already talked a little bit about that. But how has the formatting with press books worked for you going from online to paper copies? So I can show on the press book site itself. Let me do that. So when you go to the website, there is an option there to print. So let's see. So when you go to the main screen, you're going to have here on the side download this book. And then you can choose print PDF. Right. So that's going to generate it's going to get the last PDF format of the textbook. And then, you know, you can just print whatever pages you want or chapters. You can start just trying it out. Sure. Let's see if I find it. I'll probably have to find it by myself here and then open this again. But you're going to have like an option of printing the PDF pages that you want. Let's try this again. See open file. Oh, it's here. It's downloading still. And then it could just pay print at the department or students can print if they want. Some people use tablets in class or the computer, the device. It doesn't quite work for me. I'm more old school. I want students to have the paper to write their notes, but that might be something that, you know, I have to change in the future too because some students they prefer to use a device. So they can use their device. So walking around the classroom with a computer in your hand so students don't have an iPad can be another challenge. So I'm going down here, the pages. There you go. So that's the first page, right, the beginning introduction to Portuguese. And so our Eric was also wondering, are you happy with this option as far as the formatting? Like, are there any weird page breaks or page numbering issues? There are weird page breaks. Yes. Okay. Not the page numbers, but you see here conversa dois and starts the next page. That's not how we want it. But, you know, there are limitations too. Because to use this system, you have to know HTML well, and I don't. So I'm like, copying and pasting stuff, programming and going to the language learning center, bothering people, coming back to the textbook. So it's not the best way out. But the text is here. You know, it's not bad. Yeah, it looks pretty good. It's an OER. I put on the syllabus. It's on a pilot project, but you're not paying anything for it. So, you know, that's how I look at it. And Orlando was also asking about formatting. He was wondering with OER, how do you decide what photos you can include? So, I'm not sure that's referring to the licenses or just in general choosing photos? That's like all three contents that you can use. You don't have to pay for it. It's really, really good because there's a lot of images. They're all CC by all pictures that we take, right? Are the unsplashed ones, do they have culturally specific ones to present in our Portuguese culture? That's the thing that sometimes they don't. So I think you're having a picture that you take might be better. Because they look, sometimes they look too Americanized to me. You know, like too perfect, too clean, too hygienic, too everything over the top. So, not very much like my country. And Jamila also, so she didn't have a question, but she had a really good tip that there's an online professional development training called Gender Identity in the World Language Classroom. So there's a link in the comments for anyone who's interested. Yes, thank you so much. I appreciate that. And then we have a question from Barbara. I'm new to OER creation. Pressbooks looks interesting. Are there costs involved? Are there any alternatives? The university pays for it, for the license. And then they decide, you know, how long they want to do it. Are you aware of another platform that you can use to develop textbooks? Well, I think as far as pressbooks also, if you have your own server, I think you can use it for free maybe, but that's pretty much why we use pressbooks, just because we have with the University of Washington, and they were giving a grant if you'd use it. So we took that money from the grant, bought a camera and went to Brazil and recorded, you know, the dialogues. That was, you know, $2,000, $3,000. I think that's how much the camera caught with all the stuff around. And it's kind of like part of the summer recording people. But it works well. It's just that you need to have someone in IT that will be in charge of it. So we got another grant from a Title VI Center at the UDEP to, you know, do the outline and make it look more like a book. So we used that money for that. Now that I'm continuing with other chapters, I need more help. If anybody wants to help, that's online. Thank you. But it is just the challenge of doing things on your, you know, like this, right? It's a textbook that you're doing with just a couple of people, three people. It can be challenging. And Barbara also, well, at Coral, we use Google Docs a lot too. And Natalie can speak more to that. She designs all of our textbooks. But Google Docs works are also Microsoft Word. Yeah, I've heard that option as well of using Google Docs for the textbook. And I just thought I want to have it, you know, attached to the university. But otherwise I think it would be a very good solution too. Yeah, I just wanted to mention that the advantage, of course, of Google Docs is that other people can edit it. So it's one, another thing to think about as you're on your OER journey, creating materials, you're thinking more about creating materials that other people can add onto or other people can adapt easily. And at Coral, we started out making materials and many of our original materials were not really editable. But in our kind of later generations of our more modern materials, we're trying to make them as easy to edit for other people so that if they, they like the image that we've chosen, but they have a better image of their own students that they want to put in. And more and more people, you know, they don't want something complicated, they just want to be able to drop it in and go. So yeah, Google Docs has been an interesting platform that we really hadn't thought about it at first. But anyhow, the point is all of this is constantly evolving. And so just want you to know that we're appreciative of what you've done because you've done a huge amount of work and you're sharing it back with the Portuguese teaching community. And that's wonderful. Thank you for your generosity. Your help, Sarah, because she has helped us from the beginning, beginning courses and ideas and suggestions. We even had the publication about the textbook that went from a lead from Sarah, you know, you could publish. And that helps a lot because it helps to validate your work, right? Because after a while, we were like, well, because I see a lot of people, I'm very pragmatic, you know, you have, I want to get things rolling and working. Because it's so much work and it can be frustrating at times. It's easy to lose, you know, track of what you're doing. Yeah, thank you so much, Carlos, for the input and for the comments. And I wanted to give thanks to Sarah. I think Sarah, apart from being an excellent professional and human being, she is the resource from the beginning. Oh, thank you. I'm glad that helped. Yeah, that's great to hear. I'm glad that we're having an impact on the community. And also the material from UT Austin, right, with everything that you have for Portuguese, Lingua da Gente, Clica Brasil, and sometimes the challenge is how to incorporate in the classroom, right? So we know we have the materials, but they are not the textbook. And most likely, they're so attached to the textbooks that some are in addiction, right? The textbook dictates everything. So the way I've been doing was not to have have a textbook to go class. So we use the textbook, incorporate, you know, quizzes with Lingua da Gente at the Canvas webpage that we use in my university. But for that, you know, it takes some, I was fortunate to have some financial sources for that. So it could pay people to help me create the quizzes. So in that way, my institution are doing the Lingua da Gente and the quizzes to make sure that they are doing the Lingua da Gente, right? So, and Clica Brasil is part of another class. It's not the only material, but it's part of the material material. And that might be the case for a textbook like this, too. Maybe first four chapters or maybe two chapters in the middle and something else, right? Can I reply to one of the comments? So one of the comments from Eric Dotson, he says that regarding inclusivity in the classroom, have you had to take a stand? And so in terms of respecting people of color and peer folks and have you deployed that in your teaching? Yes, every semester I have more conservative students that ask me, why do we have to address these issues? And I wanted to say that formally and in terms of policies, one of the things that it's written on the syllabus is that our department as any other department thrives for inclusivity. And we have to stress this. Also, sometimes when I am talking about African movies and they're very they're very, how should I say this, they're very simply done. So it's not a Hollywood entertainment production. And the students, the more conservative students are like, this feels so boring or this is so long or this is so slow. Like, yes, but not everything is a business. You have to understand that these scenes and the specific kind of these culture are important for minorities or cultures, whatever. But if I have to make a stand, yes, many times. Of course, I try not to be aggressive. But sometimes you have to and it's like, we have to talk about these issues because we thrive for equality. But more than equalities for social recognition, acknowledging the differences in community and community communities. And so, yes, I just want to say. It might be the case that when we think of these writing materials, in our case, we are both white people in our countries at least, right? So there is a lack of representation on the writers as well. It would be great, I think, as you were mentioning about doing editing. I think to have a person of color, a person from Africa, or an immigrant in Portugal, or a person of color in Brazil, also being part of the production of the materials, like being one of the authors, right? And that's something that we can make an open invitation here. You know, you are a person of color, and if you work with Portuguese, please contact me or Carlos, and we'll be very happy to work with you. And perhaps, you know, here we can have another version of this material, or a combination of things, reading with a person of color as well. When you look at the authors, they are mostly Brazilians, I would say, in the US, and mostly white people, for the most part. Thank you. And we'll share your email addresses at the end too, so people can contact you. Thank you so much. Please do. So I see that we are coming up on the hour, and I just wanted to thank our two speakers today. Thank you for a really rich and interesting conversation about inclusivity and materials. Carlos, I especially appreciated what you were saying there at the end. Sometimes you do need to take the stand, and I think since inclusivity is part of our values, that you need to be explicit about those values and how those values are played out in classrooms and in materials, but to do it in a way that, of course, is respectful. So I thought that was really well said. So I want to end by telling everybody that we do at Coral, we have something called the Learn Community, that's L-O-E-R-N. And so this is a community of people like Eduardo and like Carlos, who themselves have developed materials and then share those materials back with the community, and themselves become a resource to teach others or to, just as they're doing right now, to share their experiences. It really is about sharing not only your materials, but your experiences about creating materials. Other people want to do this, and other people want to find out why press books, how did you start, what kind of licenses, etc, etc. So it goes on and on. So please go to the Coral website and look up our Learn Community, because they're people, just like our speakers here today, that really want to help you and learn more. I mentioned at the beginning that we have an OER course that really walks people through the ins and outs of OER, and there's a lot to learn, even if you've put together something as, you know, like the textbook that we're hearing about today in Portuguese, but there's always more to learn about the OER world, because it's really growing fast. And finally, let me mention that we have other hangouts coming up this semester in March 4th at 6 p.m. for Open Ed Week. We're going to have stories about OER adoption and adaptation. In March 12th, we'll have another webinar on inclusivity, same topic, but this time from the perspective of K through 12th, some of these issues have to be handled quite differently. For example, I was thinking maybe that activity with the various apps may not be appropriate for, you know, an eighth grader, but those are the kinds of things that, what does it mean to be inclusive in public schools in a very different setting? So, again, a big thanks to our two talkers, our speakers today. It's really terrific, and thank you for taking the OER Hangout and see you back here in a couple of weeks. Bye, guys.