Help Promote FOR-PD!

Interested in helping spread the good word on the FOR-PD project? We have come up with several items to help you help us!

There is a FOR-PD flyer [PDF: 2 pages / 948k] available for free at the FORPD eStore.

Share the FOR-PD promotional video with administration or faculty! The fifteen minute informational piece can be seen on the Florida Education Channel or viewed directly from their website (RealPlayer required).

What People Are Saying About FOR-PD!

Thoughts on the FOR-PD Facilitator Course:

Tim Harper, Seminole County:

"Please let all of your people know that the facilitator course has been one of the most beneficial courses I have taken online."

More Comments:

"This course does a very good job of providing the prospective facilitator with an overview of what the FOR-PD project is about, and hands-on practice on how a student and facilitator will interact in the online course environment."

"The content and presentation are terrific! Just the right amount of interactivity, too."

"The handbook, FAQ, and online discussion forum are more great tools! These facilitators are definitely going to be well equipped!"

"Great support tools available for facilitators! Should make them feel comforted!"

Thoughts on the FOR-PD Online Course

Chris Yahn, FOR-PD Facilitator and District Contact in Monroe County:

"Monroe County is one of the smaller districts, but we had 87 teachers who signed up immediately to take the FOR-PD reading class and we have a waiting list for our next class. What an opportunity for our teachers to get current research-based reading best practices in an online format, providing them with opportunities to learn...at their own time! Thanks to all the contributors who made this free training opportunity available to all Florida teachers. In just the first three days we've had over half of our teachers complete the first lesson."

Cyndy Simons, District Contact in Sarasota County:

"I can tell you at this point that our enrollment requests are phenomenal! We have over 100 in just two days of our online registration. Thanks so much for the guest account. The course is not only "charming", but absolutely filled with wonderfully organized content and activities... I am very much looking forward to working with our new facilitators and this wonderful course."

Kristina Gleaton, FOR-PD Participant from Pinellas County:

"I am taking the course right now and I love it. I have learned so much information. Thank you for offering it."

Pamela Pearson, FOR-PD Participant from Pinellas County:

"I recommend this class to everyone! I've been taking it this spring, it's a lot of work, but it's well worth it!"

Laurie Hays, FOR-PD Participant from St. Johns County:

"Thanks so much-this material is just unbelievably good. I have sent out an email to our Reading Cadre members at each school with the new sign-up information, and have asked the Cadre folks to really give the course a plug. I am just amazed at not only the content of the basic lessons, but the abundance of excellent resources as well. And I love the practice games as we prepare for quizzes-we need to let our students learn like this!"

FOR-PD participant from Pinellas County:

"AWESOME, AWESOME, and more AWESOME!!! I loved every bit of it. I would highly recommend it to anyone in the teaching profession.... from support staff all the way to administrators. I look forward to using and sharing the strategies I learned from this course. This is a wonderful class for anyone, but I recommend teachers who are not part of the "Reading First" Grant to take this class. The class offered a great deal of information and support in the classroom. Thank you for offering it. I would take it again."

Another FOR-PD participant from Pinellas County:

"Great Class!!! Very comprehensive course, which gave me many new methods and materials to use right away in my classroom. I would love a part two to this class. Great opportunity! I would welcome followup for this class.... or other opportunities like it. Thank you!"

And yet another FOR-PD participant from Pinellas County:

"This was an amazing course. There were so many resources; it's a shame that we can't have access to them once the course has been completed."

Wendy Bromberg, FOR-PD participant from Broward County:

"I just completed the online class with Claire as my instructor - it was my first online experience and if I knew she was doing another class I would jump right in - she is wonderful to work with and a great support system for those of us new to online classes. The class itself was very interesting and I am sure I will be using many of the techniques I learned in my reading workshops...Kudos to Ms. Claire!"

Beverly Buggle, FOR-PD participant from Pinellas County:

"I took the FOR-PD course this summer. What a great class! I told our coordinator at the County School Administration that I think every teacher in our district should take the course. I learned so much, and I am so grateful to you for all of your efforts. It's a mammoth project but so needed. I teach Title 1 1st grade, and I am using strategies I learned. I promised myself I would make changes in the way I did things, and I have. Two changes I've made include modeling reading more and doing more think-alouds. I also am implementing Lesson 14 - Leadership. I am coordinating the PTA Reflections Program at my school to encourage literacy. I'd love to go back and get my masters in Reading through UCF. Also, today I learned how to be a DIBELS administrator for the Reading First Grant at my school. I'm so glad I learned about DIBELS in FOR-PD. It's all coming together for me. Teaching reading is my passion, and I am committed to pursuing avenues to be the best I can be. Thank you again."

Susan Dalrymple, FOR-PD participant from Monroe County:

"Just wanted to share with you the fact that I used the ABC Brainstorming Strategy with our reading story this morning. The kids loved it! I loved it! I had active learners sharing in a cooperative setting, on task, engaged, and focused! YEAH! I suggested that our Social Studies teacher use the reading strategy of 10 Most Important Words as a test review for her first observation. I just love new ideas that work. "S"

FOR-PD participant from Lake County:

"I just wanted you to know how much participating in the FOR-PD course has meant to me. Not only did I learn vast amounts of information, I was given many resources to use in my upcoming year as a Literacy Coach for Lake County. I printed out all the lessons and bookmarked the resource page so I would have immediate access to all of the valuable data the course provided. The lessons were easy to navigate and complete, and all instruction was explicit and clear. A few links did not work; I would say under 5%. The PDF files were easy for me to download and print. In fact, I have saved many of the Adobe files to use in my staff trainings throughout the year. One of the best things about the course is its easy accessibility for me. I live about 40 miles from UCF and commuting to and from school to get a class for reading endorsement is very difficult for me. Having a class on-line solved the problem for me. I would sign up for another class in a heartbeat."

Comment on Lesson 11 from a FOR-PD participant:

"I wanted to compliment you on the clarity of Lesson 11, Literacy Instruction and Non-Native Speakers. I have taken three of the six courses for the ESOL endorsement and I have yet to have the material presented as clearly as this write-up. Perhaps you should pass this lesson onto the ESOL team. They could definitely make use of it! Thanks for bringing quite a bit material together for me!” Karen Zaremba, Spanish teacher and FOR-PD participant from Sarasota County:
"I really love this course. It has made a big change in my life. Because of it, I have joined the literacy committee at our school."

Barbara McG, Business Ed Teacher and FOR-PD participant from Pinellas County:

"I'm sorry it's (the FOR-PD course) over! I enjoyed it very much and learned quite a bit. As you know Business Teacher's teach Business English, and subjects of that nature, but I knew very little about the reading aspect. I would recommend FOR-PD to anyone.”

Vicky Ambler, a FOR-PD facilitator and reading coach in Orange County:

"I just wanted to let you know how much I am enjoying this facilitator position. I am so glad I got involved with FORPD. I am really internalizing the content of these lessons, and have felt an increased sense of confidence in my role as reading coach for Orange County schools. All of the students in my online class are doing a superb job with their discussions. I am sharing ideas with teachers at my school from their postings. This experience has raised my motivation level as an educator. I thought I would be plowing through discussions as they piled up on the board. But, I find myself coming home each day and looking forward to seeing who has posted and I am staying right on top of them. Please consider assigning another group of students to me anytime you have enough for another class. I am "addicted' to this :)!!!!!"

From a UCF student who recently completed the FOR-PD course for graduate credit:

"Dr. Zygouris-Coe, I want to thank you so much for the FOR-PD course. It was wonderfully designed. It should win all kinds of awards for exemplary literacy online curriculum. If I had any power along those lines, you'd win hands down.

"I've just finished IDL 6543, the [UCF] course teaching us how to use WebCT to convert our face-to-face classes to online. Taking this class concurrently was one of the best ideas I've ever had. This gave me an idea of just how much work and how much creativity went into the design of this curriculum. Therefore, this is not meant is flattery. It is meant as: Whoa! This course is outstanding in every way. It is meant as sincere a compliment as I can proffer.

"I know, I know. I took the survey at the end. Somehow just marking everything "Excellent" didn't convey what I really felt about the whole of the course.

"Thank you so much for such quality work."

Libby Kuleski, FOR-PD facilitator from Flagler County, reported on FOR-PD at a school board meeting, and 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."

Facilitator Comments on FOR-PD:

"The FOR-PD year experience was like the unfolding of a flower. With each new course section facilitation I experienced something new either through the participants, the content or my own reflections happened! Now that the flower has opened, the participants can go out like seeds to teach and touch students lives through the knowledge and skills they have gleaned."
Iveta Maska - Pasco County

"Working as a FOR-PD facilitator this year has given me many delights. It is such a pleasure to see the spark and excitement that teachers get when they learn useful and usable information. As I read through our online discussions, I got a clear sense that teachers wanted to learn these important strategies and techniques so that they could help their students grow as readers. In many ways we grew together by sharing our experiences and reflections on teaching. It was a very powerful year for literacy in Florida."
Lourdes Smith - UCF

"I was honored to be selected as a facilitator and am ecstatic to be a part of such a professional, effective, thorough initiative to provide top quality, researched based instruction for classroom teachers, administrators, and district personnel. I have loved communicating with educational professionals from across the state and districts both huge and tiny. I have learned much from the participants and have made several friends. In addition, I feel I have become not only a more effective teacher but also a more patient one as well."
Claire Osetek - Seminole County

"My base of knowledge expanded dramatically with each experience facilitaing three sections for FOR-PD during the first year. In addition to keeping up with the newest trends in literacy instruction, I found myself challenged with all those techno-hurdles. I began a new section as of Jan 2004, more confident in my ability to help others meet the same challenges with success."
Sue Dyess - Santa Rosa County

Joanna Durst, former FOR-PD participant & now FOR-PD facilitator, "Being involved in in-services like Seminole County's "By the Benchmark" enables me to refresh my own teaching expectations and strategies. It also allows me to communicate and share ideas with colleagues as well. For these same reasons I was attracted to FOR-PD's online opportunity. The online class became a creative outlet for me to think, share, and communicate within a very positive arena."

Hope Shirey (Palm Beach) shared with us her suggestion for chats with her participants. "In the beginning of the course, my students found weekly chat sessions very helpful. I picked a date, chat room and time to meet and notified the participants. This tool turned into a discussion of ideas related to the lessons and ways to use the materials or links. Some participants used this time to discuss with other participants or the instructor parts of the lessons that were not clear. I did notice that towards the end of the session, though this tool was not used by the participants."

What a wonderful opportunity this has been for me. Every time I get online with this course, I learn something new. I have learned from the course and from the participants. I have made valuable contacts within the district. I was amazed at the expertise within our county. This course has proved to be a resource that I can use with the teachers at my school. I have so many websites that I want to share with them. There aren't enough PDDs (Professional Development Days). I hope to use a PDD to give them a taste of the course, just enough to wet their appetites. Thank you so much for this opportunity.
Linda Janney (Palm Beach County)

Barbara Cavanagh (Monroe County) encourages the sharing of ideas:

"I especially like the idea of sharing strategies from this course with teachers by utilizing them in our own trainings and workshops. The more we share ideas that we have learned here, the broader our reach will be in helping all teachers develop effective strategies for their classrooms."

Iveta Maska, Pasco County, writes to us,

"Wow, what an adventure facilitating over seas! Sitting in picturesque cafes, sipping incredibly delicious coffee, and hoping that the keyboard on my PC would write in English made my Czech trip more exciting then usual this past summer. Internet cyber cafes abound in many of the major cities in the Czech Republic. Most feature PC's that are language interchangeable and have internet capabilities. I was facilitating 23 participants in the FOR-PD on-line summer course and not one was lost in the great Atlantic divide. On one occasion I had the treat of not being able to convert the discussions into English, so I winged it in Czech! The participants were not privy to my language swapping because they received everything in English! If you plan on travel facilitating just make sure you have a favorite coffee flavor and a sense of humor!”

"I must say that for the first time I felt like I was a part of something worth while and that my opinion really did matter. I really liked the fact they were open to our suggestions and really listened to our concerns. More than that, it was refreshing to be a part of a group that didn't just sit around and whine... everyone there really was there for the benefit of the course."

"As with any new project, successful leaders value the venting as really constructive suggestions for improvements, from the practitioners, and use it to improve their product and/or service. FOR-PD has made a great investment in their first couple of rounds of facilitators, and they are savvy enough to realize that our feedback is critical to the continued success of this course. Based upon their validation of our experiences, successes, and concerns, something that is already great is being made even better!"

"One thing that I took away was the idea that our input was desired and worthwhile. In looking at the direction that FOR-PD is going tells me that they are striving to keep improving the course for the participants, which in turn is going to benefit students, which is the business that we are all ultimately in. I was so psyched that I was volunteering to jump right into the fray."

Susan Horton (Highlands) writes:

"It is to the credit of FOR-PD that there is SO much material to be offered. No one could possibly read everything in the course time frame, so it is also available on the FOR-PD site after the course. I have taken 4 on-line courses and have never seen such wonderful resources! FOR-PD has done an excellent job of compiling these. They get my THANKS for keeping the resources accessible after the course ends."

Volusia County is using the FORPD course to fulfill competency #2 for reading endorsement. We've had a lot of success with getting teachers to take the online course; it's going great! Thanks.
Kelly A. Holter- Volusia County