Webinars
CVC@ONE webinars are free, but require registration. We hope you will join us for one or more this fall! If you can't make it, all of our webinars are available on-demand on our YouTube page.
Accessibility in Online Learning
You’re invited to attend an important webinar providing the latest updates on the revised Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) Title II regulations, effective April 24, 2026. This session will highlight key changes and how they impact faculty across California’s community colleges.
With a focus on accessibility and inclusion, we are committed to supporting faculty and staff in understanding these regulatory updates. This webinar will not only clarify compliance requirements but also showcase helpful strategies to make compliance easier and, most importantly, make our colleges and systems more equitable.
This webinar is hosted by the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office (Chancellor’s Office), in partnership with the California Virtual Campus Online Network of Educators (CVC@ONE) spring webinar series.
Elli Constantin, M.Ed., has dedicated her career to empowering students with disabilities, starting in K-12 education and advancing to higher education. She served for 13 years as a DSPS faculty member at Mission College, where she led UDL trainings and championed institutional accessibility. Now, as the Distance Education Director at Cypress College, Elli supports faculty in creating inclusive online learning environments. She also serves on the AI State Council and various regional and district AI committees. Passionate about nature, Elli enjoys camping, snorkeling, and cherishes her roles as a mom, wife, daughter, and pet parent.
AI as Academic Innovation: Your Opportunity to Lead
As generative AI challenges us to rethink many aspects of higher education, faculty, staff, and administrators are navigating new possibilities and new pressures in online teaching. This webinar will address how online education is at a challenging turning point and how, as educators, we can be part of the work to elevate educational quality, spark meaningful innovation, and strengthen our professional community. Panelists Fabiola Torres, Jim Julius, and Scotty James will discuss practical, human-centered ways to integrate AI and reframe RSI beyond compliance, focusing on strategies that support effective teaching amid increasing demands. Participants will also explore opportunities for continued collaboration and shared practices as institutions adapt to rapid changes in online learning. Join us on February 17 to connect, learn, and help shape the future of online education together.
Scotty James
Professor & Distance Education Coordinator, Santiago Canyon College and AI Fellow for the California Community College Chancellors Office
Scotty James is a Professor and Distance Education Coordinator at Santiago Canyon College, where he leads distance education strategy and teaches educational technology, AI for educators, and online instructional design. He began his career in disability support services, helping students use assistive and learning technologies—an experience that shaped his enduring focus on ADA accessibility and inclusive learning. Scotty holds an M.A. in Educational Technology and brings over 25 years of higher education experience, including 11 years of teaching.
Jim Julius
Faculty Coordinator of Online Education, MiraCosta College and Distance Education Lead, ASCCC OER Initiative
Jim Julius has been the faculty coordinator of online education at MiraCosta College since 2011. He collaborates with faculty, administrators, classified professionals, and students from across the college to help online education support MiraCosta’s mission of success, equity, and caring for students. Currently he also serves as the ASCCC OERI statewide lead for Distance Education and MiraCosta's Faculty ZTC Pathway Grant Coordinator. If you’d like him to talk about something other than online education, ask him about soccer or California native plants!
Fabiola Torres: is an Ethnic Studies professor and current AI Fellow with the California Community Colleges Chancellor’s Office. At Glendale Community College, she creates online classrooms rooted in equity, culture, and care. With M.A.s in Chicana/o Studies and Learning Technology, she co-founded GCC’s Ethnic Studies department and supports statewide efforts in AI literacy and faculty development. Her teaching and AI leadership are centered in joy, inclusion, and community, bridging ancestral knowledge with emerging tools to reimagine what education can be.
Beyond the Screen: Building Connection, Calm, and Community in Virtual Learning
Join us for an interactive session that goes beyond traditional academics to nurture the whole student in online learning environments. In this engaging webinar, you'll discover practical, evidence-based strategies to weave social-emotional learning, meditation and mindfulness into your virtual classroom—boosting both student retention and morale.
Jacqueline (Jackee) Penhos is a Lived Expert in Child Welfare, well-being educator, certified multi-modality healer, and Psychology Professor. Jackee is devoted to spiritual connection meant to aid in the healing of generational trauma by sharing tangible healing modalities that support radical self-acceptance.
She serves as an Associate Psychology Professor and Mindfulness Counselor at Southwestern College (SWC), as well as an Equity Trainer for San Diego State University (SDSU). Passionate about mental health and wellness, Jackee shares techniques in mindfulness, meditation, and diversity, equity, and inclusion—both in the classroom and beyond. Throughout San Diego, she volunteers as an educator and serves as the voice of daily meditation on social media.
As a seasoned educator, holistic practitioner, and Founder of Hugs & Bags—A Love Movement Non-Profit Organization—Jackee leads transformative conversations and offers education in spiritual psychology, meditation, energy healing, and metaphysical practices, with a focus on serving diverse cultural communities.
RSI and You: Tips for Simplifying Contact with Your Students
Online teaching can be both rewarding and challenging. This webinar focuses on simplifying RSI practices to improve the experience for both students and instructors.
Designed for faculty balancing multiple courses and campuses, this session explores practical ways to manage new RSI requirements, create a welcoming online course environment, and establish meaningful student/instructor connections. Participants will learn how to leverage existing Canvas tools, Zoom, and AI-supported strategies to support consistent, sustainable, and human-centered contact.
Sabrina Roberts is a communications studies instructor and CVC course facilitator with over a decade of teaching experience, with eight years of online instruction experience. Currently, she teaches for Chaffey College, Citrus College and Riverside Community College districts; also, she has facilitated professional development courses for the CSU Online Course Services department.
Outside of her academic discipline, she is interested in expanding online education and learning how artificial intelligence impacts the future of higher education. Her work bridges instructional design strategy with real classroom realities, helping educators move from overwhelm to alignment. She is also the founder of Upbeat Vision Consulting, providing career strategy support, online course design consulting, and innovative teaching practices for educators and professionals. When not in the classroom, Sabrina can be found gardening, learning how to become a gamer with her new PlayStation 5, and taking care of her three adorable cats.
Generative AI Meets Active Learning
Explore how Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) can support the design of interactive, student-centered learning activities. This session presents practical strategies for using GenAI tools, such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and Copilot, to design discussions, case studies, and simulations that enhance engagement and deepen learning. Participants will examine how prompt-writing techniques and intentional use of GenAI can strengthen active learning, promote critical thinking, and create more meaningful learning experiences for their students. This webinar will include hands-on opportunities to experiment with GenAI tools and redesign learning activities.
Dr. Gloria Washington is an instructional designer at the University of South Carolina’s Center for Teaching Excellence, where she draws on over 27 years of experience in higher education to support faculty in designing effective, engaging, and inclusive learning experiences. She specializes in the pedagogical integration of technology to enhance teaching and learning. As the author of the blog, Pedagogy Before Technology, she explores strategies for meaningful and intentional use of emerging technologies in education. She is the immediate past president of the Association for Distance Education and Independent Learning (ADEIL) and serves as an associate editor for the International Journal of Innovative Teaching and Learning in Higher Education. She has certifications in Blackboard and Quality Matters, and holds a Doctor of Education, a Master of Arts in Education, and a Master of Business Administration. Her approach to instructional design prioritizes pedagogy first, ensuring that technology serves as a tool to enhance, rather than drive, the learning experience.
Building Online Community and Connections through Regular and Substantive Interaction (RSI)
Building community and connections are the cornerstones of RSI. These deep connections make teaching and learning so much more fruitful, personal, and engaging! We will learn about different methods of creating these bonds and how they work to allow students to be their whole selves. We will also learn how to support and facilitate our students' learning in this growing digital landscape through the lens of RSI and community. Come prepared to see examples and ask questions as we gather together build our own community!
Crystala Button (she/her) is a former secondary English/ESL teacher and PK-12 Instructional Coach. She now works at Diablo Valley College (DVC) as an Instructional Designer and Adjunct Instructor. Her focus on online accessibility and equitable course design allow her to support instructors as they create innovative and inclusive learning spaces in all modalities. She finds teaching to be an awesome adventure, helping her put her work’s focus into practice and reminding her that there is always something to learn, even if you are the teacher! She urges you to join her in learning more about how we can work towards equitable student success through authentic learning, digital innovation, and course design.
Plug and Play Adoptable Courses
This webinar focuses on the new CVC @ONE Plug and Play Adoptable Courses. In this session, you will learn what Plug and Play courses are, how you can adopt one, and which courses are developed or in development. Come learn more about adoptable courses that will serve to assist you in creating an excellent experience for your students!
Xochitl Tirado serves as a Faculty Mentor at CVC@ONE and the Distance Education Coordinator at Imperial Valley College. With over 25 years of experience in education across higher education and K–12 settings, she brings a strong foundation in teaching, instructional design, and faculty development. At Imperial Valley College, she leads the college’s efforts to ensure quality and compliance in online learning, overseeing faculty training, online course design, and distance education policy. In her role with CVC@ONE, Xochitl supports colleges statewide as a POCR faculty mentor, guiding faculty through the Peer Online Course Review process and promoting best practices in online teaching.
Maria Elena Fernandez serves as a Faculty Mentor at CVC@One. She is the Distance Education and Instructional Design Coordinator at College of the Siskiyous, where she leads strategic initiatives in online education, supports faculty development, and advances quality in instructional design. She brings strong skills in curriculum design, digital learning design, faculty training, and instructional innovation—developed over more than 30 years in the California Community College system—to her role as a POCR Faculty Mentor with CVC@ONE.
A Template for Disciplinary Reflection in the AI Age
Does the rise of AI tools change how we teach? Does it change what we teach? How, in other words, should we think about the discipline-specific skills and knowledge that we share with students in the age of AI?
AI raises many practical questions about our day-to-day teaching, but it also presents an opportunity to rethink more fundamental aspects of our disciplines. This presentation argues that departments across the California community colleges would benefit from focused discussion about such questions, and that the answers will almost certainly be different for different departments. What are the core skills and concepts that each discipline needs to defend against the temptations of AI shortcuts? What new skills might we adopt? What old skills might we deemphasize? What do we want to keep, and what do we want to change? And how might targeted use of AI tools help students learn our core skills and values more effectively?
The presentation will describe the experience of one department (English at Saddleback College) reflecting on these questions and will share some of the conclusions we have drawn so far. Most importantly, it will share templates that other disciplines and departments can use to organize their own versions of this conversation.
Spencer Robins is an English instructor at Saddleback College in South Orange County, where he co-chairs taskforces on AI response for the English Department and the School of Humanities and Social Sciences. He has almost two decades of teaching experience in California community college, university, and K-12 classrooms. He has led numerous professional development workshops on inquiry-focused pedagogy, and has lead several research projects in interdisciplinary literary studies.
Building It Together: What’s Shaping the Next CVC Course Design Rubric
The CVC Course Design Rubric is being revised, and this webinar offers an overview look at the work behind that effort. Designed for all California community college faculty, this session focuses on how the rubric is being shaped, not a walkthrough of the draft itself.
Presenters will share what has been learned through statewide listening sessions, faculty conversations, and the POCR pilot, where reviewers applied draft criteria to real online courses. These activities have surfaced valuable insights about clarity, usability, and how the rubric functions in practice for both course authors and reviewers.
Whether you are deeply involved in online course design or just beginning to explore online teaching, this session will help you understand how faculty feedback is influencing the next version of the rubric and what to expect as the work moves toward a public release at the Online Teaching Conference in June 2026.
Xochitl Tirado serves as a Faculty Mentor at CVC@ONE and the Distance Education Coordinator at Imperial Valley College. With over 25 years of experience in education across higher education and K–12 settings, she brings a strong foundation in teaching, instructional design, and faculty development. At Imperial Valley College, she leads the college’s efforts to ensure quality and compliance in online learning, overseeing faculty training, online course design, and distance education policy. In her role with CVC@ONE, Xochitl supports colleges statewide as a POCR faculty mentor, guiding faculty through the Peer Online Course Review process and promoting best practices in online teaching. Liesl Boswell, M.Ed. is a learning design and accessibility leader with over a decade of experience supporting effective, inclusive, and equitable course design in higher education. Her work spans the California Community Colleges, CSU system, and private institutions, with a focus on accessibility, educational technology, and OER. Liesl has led major grant-funded initiatives, developed scalable faculty resources, and partnered closely with STEM faculty to create accessible hybrid learning experiences.
Maria Elena Fernandez serves as a Faculty Mentor at CVC@One. She is the Distance Education and Instructional Design Coordinator at College of the Siskiyous, where she leads strategic initiatives in online education, supports faculty development, and advances quality in instructional design. She brings strong skills in curriculum design, digital learning design, faculty training, and instructional innovation—developed over more than 30 years in the California Community College system—to her role as a POCR Faculty Mentor with CVC@ONE.
