This is no April Fool's prank...! We know how much facilitators are contributing in time and talent to their participants, and we also appreciate the time you are taking to share comments and ideas with us and with other facilitators in the For Facilitators Only discussions. We have decided to raise the FOR-PD Facilitator Remuneration to $1,000 per section. We know it isn't enough, but we hope you will accept it in the spirit in which it is offered! The updated version of the facilitator's manual will reflect this change, as will the sample invoice included therein (and online).

Join us for an exclusive online chat with Dr. Donald Bear, renowned co-author of the best-selling book Words Their Way: Word Study for Phonics, Vocabulary, and Spelling Instruction. The chat is scheduled for Monday, April 14th, at 7:30 pm in the General Chat for All Courses chat room. We hope to "see" you online!

"Reading is the path to success in school and life. When children learn to love books, they learn to love learning."

--Laura W. Bush, First Lady

Libby Kuleski, FOR-PD facilitator from Flagler County, has recently reported on FOR-PD at a school board meeting, and at our request, she sent the following report!

"Flagler County School Board Quite Impressed with the Opportunity FOR-PD Offers Educators For the March meeting of the Flagler County School Board, during the regular professional development section of the agenda, Dr. Phyllis Edwards, Assistant Superintendent of Instruction and Accountability for Flagler County, asked Diane Dyer, Writing Resource Teacher and Libby Kuleski, Reading Resource Teacher and FOR-PD facilitator, to present to the board members information about a new exciting delivery method for professional development for teachers -- the Florida Online Reading Professional Development course.

"The board members were impressed with the goal of FOR-PD to use technology to provide a quality, research-based reading methods course for all Florida educators and with the opportunity it offers for every educator to learn reading strategies that will meaningfully engage students in the reading process. They learned that we have a total of 46 participants from Flagler (plus 4 from NEFEC and 10 from Putnam County) involved in this project. The participants include elementary, middle, and high school teachers, as well as curriculum coordinators, reading coaches, literacy coordinators, speech teachers, adult education personnel, district staff, NEFEC trainers, and even a principal too.

"The board members were interested in the use of technology by the teachers to learn and to collaborate with other on-line participants. One board member, Dr. Jim Gaines, was interested in the possibilities of expanding on-line communications for county professionals via the use of chat rooms and discussion boards. Another board member, Colleen Conklin, a former teacher, was interested in perusing the content of the course to learn more about this exciting professional development opportunity."

Thanks for sharing, Libby! Good work!

Did you notice that one of Flagler's school board members wanted to see more about the content of the course? There are several ways for people to do that. We have added a lesson-by-lesson description of the content to the FOR-PD webpage:

http://www.itrc.ucf.edu/courseinfo/course_outline.html

We hope to add a whole lesson linked to that page soon (without the discussion or quiz links, of course.)

We also have a special FOR-PD Preview Course in which we can "enroll" people to look at all the lessons and features. For this Preview Course, we will need to send them a username and password and directions for accessing the course. If anyone you know needs access to the Preview Course, please contact Dr. Vicky Zygouris-Coe at vzygouri@mail.ucf.edu. Do NOT give them your username or password! This helps us keep a record of who has looked at the course so we can solicit feedback.

(Would you believe people who have never looked at the course seem to have opinions about it?! Yes, you probably would!)

Certificates have generated a great deal of chatter in the FOR-PD Facilitators Only discussions. If you'd like to provide certificates to your participants, we have made a template available as an Acrobat Reader (pdf) file. You can enter the name of the participant, the date, and your name and district and PRINT the certificate. You cannot save it or send it via email.

The certificate is currently available as an attachment in the MAIN board of the Facilitators Only discussions. Remember, issuing certificates is NOT a requirement for facilitators. Your participants should be reminded to print their scores at the end of the course and save them as proof of completion. We will send a file of all scores to the district office when you tell us the course has ended, and that should be all they need to get their points. Graduate credit earning participants will receive their grades from their state university and/or can request a transcript from that University.

 

Use the SORT buttons in the grade book to sort by LAST NAME, but also to sort by grade. That will put all the people who have not finished a quiz or assignment together, and all the people who have finished will be grouped by grade as well.

Use the SUBMISSIONS button to see who has completed a quiz, how many times they took it, how long it took each time, etc. If you see any listed as IN PROGRESS and the time seems unusually long (say 48 hours or more!!) you might want to remind them they need to push the FINISHED button to submit for grading. (Or you can do it for them: select their quiz by clicking in the checkbox next to it, click on the "grade" radio button, and then click on update.)

Never lend books, for no one ever returns them; the only books I have in my library are books that other people have lent me.

-- Anatole France

• Jane Moore (Seminole) who is the first to facilitate an accelerated version of the course (2 lessons a week) and Sherri Robinson (Sumter) who also is facilitating an 8-week version of the course. Both still take time to participate in the FOR FACILITATORS ONLY discussions.
• Seminole County. They now have 12 sections of the course in progress.
• Julie Burnett (Heartland) for going above and beyond the call of duty to save the whole course for many participants-and for FOR-PD!
  

A number of participants in my section have fallen behind on their assignments due to other obligations and have asked me if I can extend the end of class for a few weeks. Can I do that?

Sincerely, Miss I.M. So-Kind

 

Dear Miss So-Kind,

I can certainly sympathize with your students, and I truly appreciate the fact that you are willing as facilitator to extend the dates of your section.

However, by allowing some sections to go beyond the established start and end dates, I'm afraid we will set a bad precedent. A lot of issues begin to come up when we look at extending the dates of the course beyond the 14 weeks originally agreed upon. For instance, what if a district is running more than one section and not every facilitator in that district wanted to extend the dates? Some participants in that district would get extra time and some would not...that extra time could make the difference between completing the course and receiving the 60 inservice points or not and receiving 0 points. I can see that causing some resentment among participants and potential friction among our facilitators. Something we certainly don't want to happen!

I wish we could accommodate everyone, but by allowing some sections to run longer than 14 weeks, while holding others to a firm timeline, we are not being fair or meeting our obligation to all of our participants, facilitators, and districts.

We would certainly welcome anyone who is unable to finish the class in the allotted time to retake the class during a time that is more convenient for them. Please let them know that should they decide to retake the course at a later date, they would have to retake all tests and repost all discussions as we can't transfer grades from one section to another. We are beginning to receive registrations from districts for summer sections. Perhaps that would be a better time for those participants who are unable to complete the course at this time?

Love, Felicity

FOR-PD is presenting at the annual conference of the International Reading Association meeting in Orlando in May. Come meet Dr. Vicky Zygouris-Coe and some of your fellow facilitators. Informal gathering for coffee (if there's a spot available to purchase it!) and conversation immediately after the presentation.

The Florida Online Reading Professional Development Project
Date/Time: Tuesday May 06, 12:15 PM - 01:15 PM
Location: Orange County Convention Center - 312A

Presenters: Vicky Zygouris-Coe, Georgina Long, University of Central Florida
Description: Learn about the mission of this model in supporting the Florida Department of Education in its statewide implementation of an online reading professional development system.

Meeting Type: Technology Sessions
Audience: Intended for all interested conferees
Level(s): All School (learners 5 to 18 years)
Topic(s): Literacy policy; Administration, supervision, professional development

Send us your success stories and good ideas you've tried. We'd also love to hear any stories about how teachers are using FOR-PD content and strategies in their classrooms. Do you have any "funny" stories from your FOR-PD classes? Send your contributions to fff@orion.itrc.ucf.edu.

Ms. Georgina Long has been appointed Interim Director of the FOR-PD Project.

Return to FOR-PD Home Page
Last updated April 8, 2003
Contact us at forpd@mail.ucf.edu

A project of the Instructional Technology Resource Center at the University of Central Florida.
Funded by the Florida Department of Education and Just Read Florida!