Just Read, Florida!
| HOME | HELP DESK | eSTORE | CONTACT | SITE MAP

FOR-PD Update

January 2005

Latest FOR-PD Numbers

  • 6905 students
  • 488 sections
  • 64 participating districts
  • 5 participating universities


FOR-PD Spring 2005 Sections

Happy New Year!  We hope that you all had a restful holiday. FOR-PD continues to successfully serve educators in Florida. We are excited for this new semester for many reasons. First of all, hurricane season is over! Secondly, we are excited about what is happening in the school districts-it seems like everyone in Florida is now talking, thinking, or working on the reading endorsement. It is great to see how educators are focusing on improving their reading expertise.

Another exciting piece of news is that the FL DOE now has additional ways for educators to meet Competencies, 1 and 3-6. FOR-PD is still meeting Competency 2. We continue to receive daily calls from districts, administrators, and teachers about FOR-PD. We are honored to announce that the University of Florida is now offering a graduate version of the FOR-PD course. Every university that has adopted FOR-PD has the freedom to add-on to it in order to meet specific program requirements. For more information on Florida Universities that have adopted the FOR-PD course, please our page with participating university information.

We were thrilled to find out that FOR-PD was referenced in Secretary Paige's, National Technology Plan that was released on January 7, 2005. In this landmark report, it is stated that "It is the responsibility of this nation's educational enterprise – including policymakers – to help secure our economic future by ensuring that our young people are adequately prepared to meet these challenges."

To help states and districts prepare today's students for the opportunities and challenges of tomorrow, a set of seven action steps and accompanying recommendations have been developed. Here are the steps:

  • Strengthen Leadership
  • Consider Innovative Budgeting
  • Improve Teacher Training
  • Support E-learning and Virtual Schools
  • Encourage Broadband Access
  • Move Toward Digital Content
  • Integrate Data Systems

We are proud to announce that FOR-PD is referenced in the National Technology Plan-please see http://www.nationaledtechplan.org/actionsteps.asp#leadership and then read the "Improve Teaching Training" section. You can read about FOR-PD in the paper: Meeting the Need for High Quality Teachers: e-Learning Solutions [PDF: 14 pages / 141k].

For more information on the National Technology Plan, please visit http://www.nationaledtechplan.org/default.asp.

We are proud to be serving our state and also to be providing an exemplary model for teacher education and professional development nationally!

Open enrollment for Spring 2005 sections has been available since November 17, 2004 and closed on January 14, 2005. Our Spring sections will begin on January 24, 2005. Although open enrollment is closed, we continue to receive district files on a weekly basis. Thank you for helping us spread the word to other educators who need to complete Competency 2. We are here to support Florida's educators in their professional development efforts.  

We will continue to inform you of our successes, challenges, and solutions in online professional development. We thank you for your ongoing collaboration with the FOR-PD project.  

FOR-PD Literacy e-Newsletter
Please read our January issue of the Literacy Newsletter.

Our emphasis this month is on effective professional development. Special thanks to Catherine Glass, our reading specialist, for developing this great literacy resource. We receive a lot of positive feedback from past graduates and current participants who enjoy our resources. You may reach Catherine at cc@orion.itrc.ucf.edu.  

Facilitating with Felicity
Please also read our Facilitator January Newsletter.

In our "Facilitating with Felicity" e-newsletter, we have been addressing issues of quality control and also ways to continue to support facilitators as they monitor teachers performance in the course. Special thanks to Wendy Bedwell, our Facilitator Support Specialist, for this wonderful facilitator resource. You may reach Wendy at Wendy@orion.itrc.ucf.edu.

Facilitator Leadership Board and Facilitator Professional Development

Because FOR-PD provides ongoing professional development and support follow-up to facilitators, we developed a Facilitator Leadership Board to aid us in the professional development of all facilitators! We are excited about the direction and support of this committee.

The FOR-PD Facilitator Leadership Board continues to assist FOR-PD facilitators. Currently, we are reading a book titled Systems for Change in Literacy Education: A Guide to Professional Development by Carol A. Lyons and Gay Su Pinnell.

The Leadership Board and the FOR-PD staff will post summaries of chapters on a monthly basis in the "For Facilitators Only"discussion board, pointing out the important aspects of the book in relation to facilitating the online FOR-PD course. We look forward to meaningful discussions that provide a form of ongoing professional development, support, and learning community for facilitators and participants.

Bi-Monthly Facilitator Discussion Topics

This is another form of ongoing professional development and support for facilitators. Not only do we at FOR-PD believe in the professional development of our participants through the information provided in our course, but we also believe in the professional development of our facilitators! We are going to begin having informal, bi-monthly online facilitator discussions in the "For Facilitators Only" course. Twice a month (around the 1st of the month and the 15th of the month) we will post discussion topics on the For Facilitators Only discussion board under the new topic "Bi-monthly Facilitator Discussions." The topic for Jan. 14 - Jan. 31 is Best Practices for FOR-PD Facilitators. We started to dive into this topic in the December chat for 2004. We believe that these professional conversations will help not only facilitators but also their course participants.

Quality Assurance Checks

We will continue to do random quality assurance checks this semester. Results from last semester have proven to be very effective in helping us to address certain facilitation and participation issues. The quality assurance checks have assisted us in planning for facilitator monitoring, addressing facilitator issues, and helping participants who need additional help with the course. Our Facilitator Support Specialist will monitor facilitator participation 3 times a semester. Our Reading Specialist and another staff member will be randomly contacting students (3 times a semester) across various sections to see how they are progressing in the course.

FOR-PD Help Desk Hours

Help Desk hours are:
Monday through Friday 9:30 A.M. - 4:30 P.M. &  6:00 P.M. - 10:00 P.M. 
Saturday 10:00 A.M.- 3:00 P.M.

866-863-READ: Technical Support Help Desk - Toll Free, Florida Calls Only
407-249-4702: Technical Support Help Desk - Non-Florida Calls Only  

Technical support is also available through AOL Instant Messenger, screen name "forpdhelp". 


FOR-PD's Reading Strategy of the Month

This month we are featuring an authentic reading strategy called the Prediction Wheel. This strategy was developed by Zygouris-Coe & Glass (2004). Do your students struggle with making logical predictions based on the text? Try out the Prediction Wheel. Predicting involves previewing text and anticipating what will happen next. Making predictions requires students to use their prior knowledge, make inferential guesses, and make connections. The Prediction Wheel will provide guided practice in making predictions, checking predictions, and revising predictions as needed.

Last month we featured the Vocabulary Box reading strategy. Do you have students who struggle to understand vocabulary? Many of our students do struggle to understand the meaning of words that they are reading. As students mature and work their way through the educational system, the text that they must work with become increasingly more demanding, and the vocabulary becomes increasingly more complex and difficult to understand. Research tells us that vocabulary must be taught directly and explicitly with strategies that help enhance meaning-making.   

Check out other FOR-PD Reading Strategies and please share the FOR-PD Reading Strategies with your colleagues. Let us know how you utilize them in your classroom. Email us at forpd@mail.ucf.edu subject heading FOR-PD Reading Strategies.


FOR-PD Online Chats

This month our online chats will focus on Technical course-related issues. Our FOR-PD TECH Team will be hosting February's FOR-PD chats.

Date: February 1, 2005

Time: 7:00 PM to 8:00 PM, EST

Where: General Chat for All Courses 		Date: February 2, 2005

Time: 7:30 PM to 8:30 PM, EST

Where: General Chat for All Courses


FOR-PD Notable Quotables

Read what some participants are saying about the FOR-PD experience.

"I loved the course. I thought everything was so well-organized. I can't imagine putting together such research! This was my first experience with an online course. I was apprehensive. I was worried about self-discipline. I felt I needed the face-to-face contact a course on campus provides. The written word can be misinterpreted. Personal contact makes clarification so easy.

I didn't feel that this experience was impersonal at all. In fact, I loved being able to read my classmates' posts and your responses to posts. I liked responding to their posts and receiving replies. It was such a comfortable experience. I didn't have any trouble with self-discipline because the information was so intriguing. Most importantly, I learned so much that I will use in my classroom every single day. Thank you for the experience. You were a great facilitator!"~ FOR-PD participant

"SUPER JOB on the newsletter, I am really enjoying it! Thanks for all the hard work!"~ FOR-PD participant

"Thank you very much for sending me FOR-PD's Literacy Newsletter. It gave me a renewed interest in the things I learned in the course. I only wish you were offering another on-line course. I really enjoyed taking this course and would like to do more."~ FOR-PD participant

"I read the articles and found the link to "Just Read, Florida!" with its Q&A on the reading endorsement most informative. This has been an ongoing discussion with my colleagues at New Smyrna Beach Middle School. The new NCLB information came out and we discovered that the 6th grade reading teachers are okay with Elementary certification. What a relief that was to them. Thank you for the information." ~ FOR-PD participant

Give us your opinion of the course. Email forpd@mail.ucf.edu.