October 2007

Info Update

In Focus

ABC's of Reading

Pertinent Participant Info

Chatterbox

 

  

Info Update

FOR-PD's Literacy Newsletter

FOR-PD's Literacy newsletter deals specifically with literacy and learning for K-12 teachers of Florida's public schools. As you read and review our newsletter you will find information on local, state, and federal literacy news, upcoming conferences, celebrations, sources of funding, resources on the World Wide Web, and resources you can use with your students. The participant section answers pertinent questions participants have about the course and provides helpful tips for successful completion. We hope that this newsletter will provide educators with useful information to support their literacy development and the work they do with Florida students.

We welcome your feedback on how we can better support you and help you grow professionally. Please feel free to contact us if you have any questions or comments.

Florida Online Reading Professional Development
12443 Research Parkway Suite 402
Orlando, FL 32826
866-227-7261
407-207-4965 (Fax)
forpd@mail.ucf.edu

 

Lessons Learned: New Teachers Talk About Their Jobs, Challenges and Long-Range Plans

A new report by Public Agenda and the National Comprehensive Center for Teacher Quality finds new teachers in middle and high school feel most vulnerable to challenging teaching conditions.

Compared to new teachers in elementary schools, high school and middle school teachers are much more concerned about administrative support, more frustrated by student motivation and behavior, less likely to see teaching as a lifelong career choice and less likely to believe that all students can achieve in school than new teachers in elementary schools.

 


Annotated Children's Choices for 2007

Each year 10,000 school children, ranging in age from 5 to 13, vote on the newly published children's and young adults' trade books that they like best. More than 460 books were evaluated and the annotated list is now available in the October 2007 issue of The Reading Teacher.

More than 630 books were evaluated by children for Children's Choices for 2007. The books to be tested were selected by publishers from the books they published in 2006 and were sent to five review teams located in different regions of the United States. Each team consisted of a children's literature specialist plus one or more classroom teachers who in turn worked with other classroom teachers, school librarians, and more than 2,000 children. Throughout the school year the books were in classrooms, being read to or by children.

Children's votes were tabulated in March, and the top 99 titles for 2007 were announced at the annual International Reading Association Convention in May. The review teams provided an annotation for each title on the list.

 


Looking Ahead: Children's Book Week

A celebration of the written word, Children's Book Week introduces young people to new authors and ideas in schools, libraries, homes, and bookstores. Through Children's Book Week, the Children's Book Council encourages young people and their caregivers to discover the complexity of the world beyond their own experience through books. Children's Book Week will be observed November 12-18, 2007.



FOR-PD Reading Strategy of the Month

This month's Reading Strategy of the Month focuses on how the use of Socratic Circles will increase the critical thinking and discussion in your classroom.

Try this strategy in your classroom and then email us and tell us how it worked (forpd@mail.ucf.edu). Also, don't forget to share the strategy with your colleagues.

Other FOR-PD strategies that you may want to look at :

FOR-PD's September 2006 Literacy Newsletter, In Focus Section: Developing Discussion
FOR-PD's April 2006 Reading Strategy of the Month: Visualization
FOR-PD's July 2006 Reading Strategy of the Month: Summarization
FOR-PD's February 2007 Reading Strategy of the Month: Reader Response

Each month we feature an effective reading strategy, explain the rationale behind the strategy, give directions on how to use the strategy with students, present ideas for adapting the strategy to different content areas, present ideas for assessing the strategy, and of course provide a printable PDF version of the strategy. Check out our Reading Strategy Archive to see past Reading Strategies of the Month.

 

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Books for Students

Llama Llama Mad at Mama
by Anna Dewdney
(Primary)

From the Publisher:

Yucky music, great big feet.

Ladies smelling way too sweet.

Look at knees and stand in line.

Llama Llama starts to whine.

Does any child like to go shopping? Not Llama Llama! But Mama can’t leave Llama at home, so off they go to Shop-O-Rama. Lots of aisles. Long lines. Mama is too busy to notice that Llama Llama is getting m-a-d! And before he knows it, he’s having a full-out tantrum! Mama quickly calms him down, but she also realizes that they need to make shopping more fun for both of them. Parents and children are sure to recognize themselves in this fun-to-read follow-up to the popular Llama Llama Red Pajama.

 

Diary of a Fly
Doreen Cronin
(Primary)

From the Publisher: This is the diary...of a fly. A fly who, when she's not landing on your head or swimming in your soup, is trying to escape her 327 brothers and sisters who are driving her crazy!

Even though she's little -- just like her best friends Worm and Spider -- Fly wants to be a superhero. And why not? She walks on walls, sees in all directions at once, and can already fly!

Doreen Cronin and Harry Bliss, the team behind the New York Times bestsellers Diary of a Worm and Diary of a Spider, reach hilarious heights with their story of a little fly who's not afraid to dream big. Really big.

 

The Down-to-Earth Guide to Global Warming
Laurie David and Cambria Gordon
(Intermediate)

From the Publisher: Irreverent and entertaining, Down to Earth is filled with fact about global warming and its disastrous consequences, loads of photos and illustrations, as well as suggestions for how kids can help combat global warming in their homes, schools, and communities. Engagingly designed, Down to Earth will educate and empower, leaving readers with the knowledge they need to understand this problem and a sense of hope to inspire them into action.

 

 

 

Math Doesn't Suck: How to Survive Middle-School Math Without Losing Your Mind or Breaking a Nail
by Danica McKellar
(Intermediate-Middle School)


From the Publisher: As the math education crisis in this country continues to make headlines, research continues to prove that it is in middle school when math scores begin to drop—especially for girls—in large part due to the relentless social conditioning that tells girls they “can’t do” math, and that math is “uncool.” Young girls today need strong female role models to embrace the idea that it’s okay to be smart—in fact, it’s sexy to be smart!

It’s Danica McKellar’s mission to be this role model, and demonstrate on a large scale that math doesn’t suck. In this fun and accessible guide, McKellar—dubbed a “math superstar” by The New York Times—gives girls and their parents the tools they need to master the math concepts that confuse middle-schoolers most, including fractions, percentages, pre-algebra, and more. The book features hip, real-world examples, step-by-step instruction, and engaging stories of Danica’s own childhood struggles in math (and stardom). In addition, borrowing from the style of today’s teen magazines, it even includes a Math Horoscope section, Math Personality Quizzes, and Real-Life Testimonials—ultimately revealing why math is easier and cooler than readers think.

 

 

What-the-Dickens: The Story of a Rogue Tooth Fairy
by Gregory Maguire
(High school-Adult)

From the Publisher: From the author of the best-selling WICKED, a transporting tale-within-a-tale about the strange world of skibbereen — aka tooth fairies — and the universal need to believe.

A terrible storm is raging, and ten-year-old Dinah is huddled by candlelight with her brother, sister, and cousin Gage, who is telling a very unusual tale. It’s the story of What-the-Dickens, a newly hatched orphan creature who finds he has an attraction to teeth, a crush on a cat named McCavity, and a penchant for getting into trouble. One day he happens upon a feisty girl skibberee who is working as an Agent of Change — trading coins for teeth — and learns that there is a dutiful tribe of skibbereen (call them tooth fairies) to which he hopes to belong. As his tale of discovery unfolds, however, both What-the-Dickens and Dinah come to see that the world is both richer and less sure than they ever imagined.



 

Professional Book Recommendations


Inside Words
Tools for Teaching Academic Vocabulary, Grades 4-12
by Janet Allen

Book Description: We've learned a lot in recent years about the important role vocabulary plays in making meaning, yet many teachers still struggle with vocabulary instruction that goes beyond weekly word lists. Effective vocabulary instruction is particularly vital in the content areas, where the specialized language used by "insiders" often creates a barrier to understanding for those new to the subjects. In Inside Words, Janet Allen merges recent research and key content-area teaching strategies to show teachers how to help students understand the academic vocabulary found in textbooks, tests, articles, and other informational texts.

Each instructional tool is listed alphabetically along with its purpose: building background knowledge; teaching words that are critical to comprehension; providing support during reading and writing; developing a conceptual framework; and assessing students' understanding of words and concepts.

Inside Words builds on Janet's previous books Words, Words, Words and Tools for Teaching Content Literacy, to provide a much-needed middle and secondary school resource for teaching vocabulary, not only in the language arts, but in all of the content areas.


Reading for Academic Success, Grades 2-6
Differentiated Strategies for Struggling, Average, and Advanced Readers
by Richard W. Strong, Harvey F. Silver, and Matthew J. Perini

From the Publisher: Give your elementary school students the tools to become thoughtful, high-achieving readers!

Strong reading skills are critical for students as they progress through the grade levels and face the reading challenges of the 21st century. Using research-based, differentiated strategies, Richard W. Strong, Harvey F. Silver, and Matthew J. Perini show how you can teach average or low-performing readers to become A+ readers who can comprehend, analyze, and summarize different kinds of texts.

Starting with a concise overview of recent research on successful readers, the authors explore seven key areas and corresponding strategies to help all readers achieve at high levels: identifying the main idea, reading fluency, vocabulary, inferential reading, questioning techniques, informal writing, and reading styles.

Complementing the best-selling Reading for Academic Success for grades 7–12, this hands-on guide features:

Practical applications that can be used across content areas and to support individual learning styles

  • The five common characteristics of A+ readers and special tips for nurturing those abilities in all students
  • Recommendations and tools for helping English Language Learners and students with special needs
  • Examples of student work and reproducible graphic organizers

    Expressly designed for elementary school teachers, Reading for Academic Success, Grades 2–6, offers proven methods that can produce significant gains for all students and far-reaching results for your school!

 

October Text Set

As described in the February 2006 FOR-PD Reading Strategy of the Month, text sets are a collection of books related to a common element, topic, theme, or type of text. They provide readers with a medley of text and other materials, including non-fiction, websites, photos, pictures, primary source documents, and fiction, that will support the growing need for students to obtain quality information from a variety of sources.

This month Nancy Case and Jean Salamon will be sharing with us some wonderful books focusing on the Fractured Fairy Tales. Below is a sampling of texts to use in the elementary-high school classroom. Remember, before making any book or resource available be sure to check out if it is appropriate for your students.

FOR-PD is looking for ideas for future text sets. If you have an idea, please feel free to email us at forpd@mail.ucf.edu

"Fractured Fairy Tales" Text Set

Books and Resources for Elementary Students

The Jolly Postman by Janet and Allen Ahlberg. A tale about a postman delivering letters to well-known fairy tale characters.

Peeping Beauty by Mary Jane Auch. Poulette the dancing hen falls into the clutches of a hungry fox, who exploits her desire to become a great ballerina.

The Princess and the Pizza by Mary Jane Auch. An out-of-work princess applies to become the bride of Prince Drupert, but first she must pass several tests, including a cooking contest.

Princess Prunella and the Purple Peanut by Margaret Atwood. Prunella, a proud, prissy princess, plans to marry a pinheaded prince who will pamper her--until a wise old woman's spell puts a purple peanut on the princess's pretty nose. 

Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. A young boy and his mother bake a gingerbread baby that escapes from their oven and leads a crowd on a chase similar to the one in the familiar tale about a not-so-clever gingerbread man.

Jim and the Beanstalk by Jim Briggs. Jim meets a sad and aging giant who complains that some boy once climbed up the beanstalk and robbed his father. Jim tries to improve the giant's lot.

Fanny's Dream by Buehner. Fanny Agnes is a sturdy farm girl who dreams of marrying a prince, but when her fairy godmother doesn't show up, she decides on a local farmer instead.

The Principal’s New Clothes by Calemson. In this version of the Andersen tale the vain principal of P.S. 88 is persuaded by two tailors that they will make him an amazing, one-of-a-kind suit that will be visible only to intelligent people who are good at their jobs.

Prince Cinders by Babette Cole. A fairy grants a small, skinny prince a change in appearance and the chance to go to the Palace Disco.

Goldilocks Returns by Lisa Campbell Ernst. Thirty years after Goldilocks first met the three bears, she returns to fix up their cottage and soothe her guilty conscience.

The Very Smart Pea and the Princess-to-be by Mini Grey. The pea gives its own version of what happened in the fairy tale, "The Princess and the Pea," from the time of its birth in the Palace Garden until it helps arrange a royal marriage.

Cinder-Elly by Frances Minters. In this rap version of the traditional fairy tale, the overworked younger sister gets to go to a basketball game and meets a star player, Prince Charming.

The Frog Prince Continued by Jon Scienska. After the frog turns into a prince, he and the Princess do not live happily ever after and the Prince decides to look for a witch to help him remedy the situation.

The Stinky Cheese Man and other Fairly Stupid Tales by Jon Scienska. Silly retellings of fairy tales, whose humour would probably be appreciated by parents and older siblings!

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs by Jon Scienska. The wolf gives his own outlandish version of what really happened when he tangled with the three little pigs.

Sleeping Ugly by Jane Yolen. Princess Miserella, a beautiful but mean-spirited girl, Plain Jane, and a fairy all fall victim to a sleeping spell, and when Prince Jojo comes along, a youngest son with no money or property, he makes a surprising but wise choice of who to kiss first.

Books and Resources for Middle/High School Students

Beauty and the Beast by Nancy Willard. A retelling, set in the early 1900's in New York City, of the traditional tale in which a kind and beautiful young woman, through her great capacity to love, releases a handsome young man from the spell which has made him into an ugly beast.

Truly Grim Tales by Priscilla Galloway. A guilt-ridden prince with a foot fetish seeking his glass-slippered dance partner and a beauty contest winner as Snow White's murderous stepmother are featured in two of the original "grim" plots in this young adult collection loosely based on eight traditional fairy tales.

Fractured Fairy Tales told by A.J. Jacobs. Collection of humorous stories in which traditional fairy tales are transformed into wacky parables filled with puns, wit and irony, and twisted to have silly and unexpected endings.

A Wolf at the Door: and other Retold Fairy Tales edited by Ellen Datlow and Terri Windling. Presents thirteen short fantasy stories based on classic fairy tales, written by a variety of authors including Jane Yolen, Neil Gaiman, Tanith Lee, and others.

Politically Correct Bedtime Stories by Garner.  A 'must' for anyone who longs to read of the "Three co-dependent goats Gruff".

The Princess Bride by William Goldman. If you've only seen the movie, now read the book. Young adult up, and truly delightful.

Princess Hynchatti and Some Other Surprises by Tanith Lee. A Young Adult collection of fractured fairy tales about some unusual princes and princesses.

Book of Enchantments by Wrede. This new collection of Young Adult tales includes 11 tales, including a wonderful recipe for "Quick After-Battle Triple Chocolate Cake" and a story resolving what to do with the 'Frying Pan of Doom'.

Briar Rose by Jane Yolen. In this retelling of "Sleeping Beauty," a young woman learns that her grandmother had a secret past tied to the Holocaust.

Don't Bet on the Prince by Jack Zipes. A set of contemporary feminist fairy tales for Young Adults up.

Websites

Fractured Fairy Tales from the Rocky and Bullwinkle Show - http://g.s.scandoo.com/search?hl=en&meta=on&q=fractured+fairy+tales,  Contains text of stories.

Fairy Fractured Tales - http://www.ucalgary.ca/~dKBrown/fft.html, has bibliography of fractured fairy tales.

Activities for Fractured Fairy Tales from Read Write Think - http://www.readwritethink.org/student_mat/student_material.asp?id=62

Fractured Fairy Tales with John Scienska - http://teacher.scholastic.com/writewit/mff/fractured_fairy.htm

Fractured Fairy Tales by Marilyn Kinsela – Explains what it is and how to make one.  http://www.marilynkinsella.org/Workshop%20papers/fractured_fairy_tales.htm

Nancy Case is married with two children and two grandchildren. She is currently the Media Supervisor for Alachua County Schools and a professional storyteller. She has previously worked as a middle school media specialist for many years in both Pasco and Alachua counties. She is proud of her role in story telling and was a former president of the Florida Storytelling Association. She has facilitated sixteen FOR-PD classes to date and loves to read, travel and create stories for telling.

Jean Salamon has been in the education field for 32 years. She has had experience as a Kindergarten teacher, second grade teacher, third grade teacher and as a Parent Involvement/Learning Resource Specialist for the Title 1 program. She has been the Educational Library Media Specialist for the past 7 years at Astatula Elementary School for the Arts in Lake County, Florida and is Nationally Board Certified in Library Media PreK-Young Adult. She has been facilitating FOR-PD since Jan. 2003. She also teaches Early Literacy classes for UCF at the South Lake Campus in Clermont. She lives with her husband (also a teacher) in Tavares, FL. She has two daughters and two granddaughters. In her spare time she likes to spend time with her family, read, walk and go out to eat.

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Fall 2007 Course Information

For those of you beginning the FOR-PD course this fall, we want to welcome you to our online course! For learners to succeed in an online course, they must be able to devote time to studying, collaborate with others, and complete assignments. The FOR-PD course is no different. We expect participants to participate in the online environment, communicate with facilitators and peers, and manage time wisely.

The FOR-PD course consists of 14 lessons that are usually completed over a 14-week period. However, due to changes in school starting dates, our fall 2007 courses will run for 12 weeks instead of the typical 14 weeks. Each lesson consists of online text, online resources, a discussion assignment, a lesson quiz, and an online literacy log (except lessons 2 and 12). Maintaining the suggested pace will improve the online experience for everyone. You will benefit from the discussions with your peers and pacing yourself will help balance your workload. Please visit our FOR-PD Lesson Schedule for more details on what will be due each week.

Each course is led by an online literacy facilitator. Our facilitators are highly skilled in working in an online environment and have expert literacy knowledge. The facilitator assigned to your section is there to support both your learning and progression through the course as well as provide you with feedback on your assignments. While facilitator effectiveness is strongly related to participant success, it does not guarantee it. As the participant, you have the responsibility of making sure you are successful in this online endeavor.

If any participant falls behind by seven or more lessons, the facilitator will notify the participant and the FOR-PD office. The participant will be denied access to the course and given the option to enroll in FOR-PD in a future semester. Clearly the participants have missed much learning in the course, the interaction of the course, and they have also missed a great deal of the communication within the discussion board. (The seven-week denied access is for non-community college and non-university participants.)

FOR-PD has developed a document entitled, "FOR-PD Participant Expectations", which is available to each of you. This document was designed to ensure that participants are successful in completing the 14-week course. Please take time to review this expectations document.

 

 

Spring 2008 Course Registration Information

Registration for the spring 2008 semester begins on Monday, November, 5, 2007 at 9 am EST and ends on Monday, December 31, 2007 at 5 pm EST. For up to date information on registration, please visit our website at http://forpd.ucf.edu.

Spring courses will begin on January 22, 2008 and continue through April 28, 2008.

 

Common Course Questions and Answers

Below are some of the most common questions that often come up during the first few weeks of class. Take a look to see if these answer any of your own questions.

How can I attach a file to my discussion message?

To attach a file to your discussion message, you will need to click on the Browse button in the Attachments section while in Compose Message mode. After finding the file on your computer you wish to attach, you will need to click on the Attach File button. It’s very important that you complete this step; otherwise the file will not actually be attached to the message. There is a mini-tutorial included in Lesson 1 in the “Discussions” section that details the steps for attaching a file and includes screen shots. You can also view the discussion tutorial in the Tutorials section of the course.

I have come across some links in the course that are inactive or do not work. What should I do?

A lot of the resources used throughout the course come from outside organizations. If these organizations choose to modify their webpage and/or move content around, it is possible that the link provided in the course will become outdated. If you run into this problem, first check the Resources page within each lesson. The Resources page is a list of all the links used throughout the lesson and can be found on the last page of each lesson. It will contain the most up to date resource information and links. If the link is still inactive on the resources page, then please notify our FOR-PD Help Desk. The Help Desk will notify our Reading Specialist, who will look into updating the link or finding a new resource to replace it.

I took the quiz for lesson 4, but the lesson 5 quiz is still not available. What is the problem?

The quizzes are conditional, so each quiz must be taken and passed (80% score) before the next one will become available. In most cases, the problem is that your quiz was not graded. You will need to contact your facilitator so that he/she can force-grade your quiz.

In the future, to ensure that your quiz is properly submitted and graded, please follow the following quiz procedure:

Make sure that you click on the "Save Answer" button after each question and then click on "Finish" at the bottom of the entire quiz. This way each answer is submitted and the entire quiz is submitted. Please also be sure that you wait for the confirmation screen that says "Quiz Submitted" after clicking on Finish; this way the quiz will be properly processed and will be graded. Once the quiz is graded, the next quiz will become available. If you do not see a message stating "Quiz Submitted", your quiz has not been graded and the next quiz will not be available.

I would like to register to take the course. When is the next registration period?

Registration for the spring 2008 semester begins on Monday, November, 5, 2007 at 9 am EST and ends on Monday, December 31, 2007 at 5 pm EST. For up to date information on registration, please visit our website at http://forpd.ucf.edu.

 

 

Tech Tips: Spotlight on Attaching Files

Some of the FOR-PD lessons require that you attach a file to your discussion posting. In addition, you may wish to send a file to your facilitator or other course participants via email. Attaching a file to a message or email is not exclusive to the FOR-PD course and is very common throughout the internet, businesses, and in education. It is a very efficient method for sharing content with others.

The process of attaching a file is fairly common amongst various applications and software programs. Below are the steps for attaching a file to an email message using Microsoft Outlook.

In order to attach a file to your email, discussion message, etc. within the FOR-PD course, you can follow these same instructions. The steps might vary a bit, but the general concept is the same. For detailed instructions on attaching a file using the tools in the course (including course screenshots), please view the tutorials within the course and Lesson 1.

Please see the the FOR-PD PDF for step-by-step instructions on how to add an attachment.

 

FOR-PD Help Desk

Feeling frustrated? Can't figure it out? Don't forget the FOR-PD Help Desk is available. Help Desk hours are:

Monday through Friday 9:00 AM - 4:00 PM EST and 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM EST
Saturday 10:00 AM - 3:00 PM EST

The phone number is 1-866-863-READ (7323) toll free, Florida calls only. For non-Florida calls only 407-249-4702. Technical support is also available through AOL Instant Messenger, screen name "forpdhelp".

If you need technical support beyond that which your facilitator or school technology coordinator can offer, please contact the FOR-PD Technical Support Help Desk. Please fill out the Tech Help Form or call the Help Desk. Describe your problem as completely as possible and leave your name and return phone number, and someone will get back to you.

Chat Live with the Help Desk using the Chatango feature on our website. http://www.forpd.ucf.edu/about/technicalsupport.html.

Don't forget to check out the Tutorials and Troubleshooting Guide. Both of these resources provide a wealth of information on the tools used in the course and specific technology problems past participants have had along with solutions to these problems.

 

 

 

Holidays, Happenings, & Events

FOR-PD Fall Course September 24-December 17, 2007
Teen Read Week
"LOL@Your Library "		 October 14-20, 2007
The Florida Council of Teachers of English
Hilton Orlando/Altamonte Springs		 October 18-20, 2007
Florida Association of Science Teachers
Double Tree Hotel - Orlando, Florida 		October 25-27, 2007
13th Annual Sloan-C International Conference on Online Learning
Caribe Royale, Orlando, FL		 November 7-9, 2007
American Education Week 2007
Great Public Schools: A Basic Right and Our Responsibility		 November 11–17, 2007
Children's Book Week
Rise Up Reading 		November 12-18, 2007
The National Council of Teachers of English Annual Convention
New York, New York 		November 15-18, 2007
I Love To Write Day! November 15, 2007

American Reading Forum
Sanibel Island, FL

December 5-8, 2007

 

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Chat Corner

FOR-PD Literacy Blog

FOR-PD has launched the "FOR-PD Literacy Blog". This blog is provided to all those interested in literacy and literacy research. Throughout the semester the FOR-PD Reading Specialist will be posting thoughts, ideas, and follow-up for the lessons provided within the FOR-PD course. She will post reading news, new research, and literacy links that you may want to visit and share with others.

You can read the blog by visiting the blog site at http://forpd.ucf.edu/literacyblog/. In order to make comments to a posting you must become a registered user. To register, please visit http://forpd.ucf.edu/literacyblog/wp-login.php?action=register and type in a user name and email address. Once this has been completed, a password will be emailed to you. (You can also subscribe via your e-mail address on our literacy blog site.)

 



Online Chats

Content Chats

WHEN: Thursday, November 8, 2007
TIME: 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
WHERE: General Chat for all courses
WHO: Current Participants & Facilitators
TOPIC: Building Literacy Through Classroom Discussion

GUESTS: Mary Adler and Eija Rougle, authors of Building Literacy Through Classroom Discussion: Research-Based Strategies for Developing Critical Readers and Thoughtful Writers in Middle School, will share thoughts and ideas on how to develop discussion in the classroom while encouraging and building literacy skills.

Read a review of this book at http://edrev.asu.edu/brief/june06.html#1

 

 

 






Tech/Course Chats

WHEN: Tuesday, November 13, 2007
TIME: 7:00pm - 8:00pm EST
WHERE: General Chat for all courses
WHO: Current Participants
TOPIC: Tech and Course Support


 

 

 

 


All chats are logged and posted on our web site (Chat Transcripts). Before joining one of our chats make sure you know the Chat Protocol.


Chat Protocol: Please be aware that FOR-PD uses a moderated discussion format. A moderator will keep the chat on topic and recognize question/statement requests by participants. The person who has the floor can field questions and statements from other participants, but they hold the floor until they are done. When they are done, the moderator will recognize another participant who requests the floor.

In order to make the chat flow smoothly, please use the following chat symbols and guidelines:

!The exclamation point is like raising your hand, you want to be recognized to make a statement.

  #Use the pound sign to let everyone know you are done asking a question or making a statement.

  ....  This lets everyone know you have more to say.

Guidelines
  1. When entering the chat, don't say hello to each other. Most chat systems inform everyone in the chat room that someone has entered the room. This will cut down on chat-message run-on.
    Unless you have the floor, don't say anything; rather, ask to be recognized by the person who does have the floor by posting an !. This is unobtrusive and will let everyone know that you have a statement or question to make.
    When you are done talking, end your last sentence with a # symbol.
  2. If you specifically want to ask a question of someone or address them, type their name followed by a semicolon and then the message.

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Last updated on October 17, 2007
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A project funded by the Florida Department of Education and Just Read Florida! housed at the University of Central Florida.