Celebrate the Start of the School Year with BIG Professional Development Savings


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Celebrate the Start of the School Year with
BIG Professional Development Savings

Our Lowest Prices for Site License
and DVD Combos in 2007

Save 33% - 60% Off Individual Purchase Prices

PDPalooza is Choice Literacy's best sale in 2007. Celebrate the start of the school year by purchasing a professional development package of memberships and DVDs at a greatly discounted cost for the literacy leaders in your district. You'll receive innovative materials for mentoring, leading study groups, and collaborating with colleagues all through the coming year.

Site members have a full year of continuous access to all resources at Choice Literacy - currently over 250 articles, videos, templates, and workshop suggestions, with 4-5 new features added each week.

The DVD Workshop Kits include professional quality video from the classrooms of Choice Literacy contributors, as well as field-tested workshop suggestions for using the videos in faculty meetings, study groups, and mentoring sessions.

Last Days - Sale Ends September 12, 2007

5 Member Site License and 2 DVD/Workshop Kits of Your Choice: $699 ($953 if purchased separately.)

Click here to download the order form.

10 Member Site License and 4 DVD/Workshop Kits of Your Choice: $1199 ($1832 if purchased separately.)

Click here to download the order form.

20 Member Site License and 6 DVD/Workshop Kits of Your Choice: $1899 ($3354 if purchased separately.)

Click here to download the order form.

50 Member Site License and 15 DVD/Workshop Kits of Your Choice: $3999
(BEST VALUE for smaller districts - $8385 if purchased separately.)

Click here to download the order form.

100 Member Site License and 25 DVD/Workshop Kits of Your Choice: $6999
(BEST VALUE for larger districts - $15,620 if purchased separately.)

Click here to download the order form.

What Does Choice Literacy Provide to Literacy Leaders?

Choice Literacy is a truly different type of professional development resource, designed specifically with the needs of literacy leaders in mind. If you believe change that endures comes from within school communities, and are looking for thoughtful, practical tools on the web to help make that change happen, then we may be a good fit for you.

We assume you are well-read about best practices in literacy education, and aren't looking for a one-size-fits-all program or magic cure for any of your school's ills. If you're like us, you've probably been burned at least once or twice with a PD program or product that delivered far less than it promised.

But if you're like our members, you're also constantly on the hunt for new ways of observing and guiding colleagues, or leading study groups, or injecting just a bit more talk about literacy learning into weekly staff meetings. A little weekly inspiration from savvy, funny colleagues who are just as passionate as you are about teaching reading and writing doesn't hurt either.

We also assume you don't have a lot of time to wade through irrelevant content or fluffed up lessons to find what you need. And you really don't have the patience to sift through scores of ads to get to the content you want on the web.

Concise, Inspiring, and Relevant

Choice Literacy presents the "how" of literacy leadership, with weekly infusions of field-tested activities, suggestions, and protocols that help teaching communities grow and thrive around literacy goals. Our contributors are published authors working in schools now as teachers, coaches, literacy specialists, and curriculum coordinators. Our subscription fees allow us to keep the site ad-free, and we pride ourselves on our independence. Our joy is helping colleagues do their jobs well.

Rather than explain how we're different, it's easier to show you how we're different. You can click on any of the links below for samples of our multimedia content:

Insights from Veteran Coaches -- Our contributors are continually trying out new ideas in their schools, and then writing about their discoveries here. Shari Frost and her colleagues try out the "Open Book Club," an alternative to literature circles that extends book discussion groups into communities beyond individual classrooms in this example -- you can read about it by clicking here.

Forms and Templates for Professional Development -- Our eGuides are brief workshop guides on specialized topics. You can click here to view the sample "Puzzle Kids" eGuide -- a 12-page workshop guide for use in study groups or with mentor teams learning how to assess and assist students who are not identified as special needs, but still falling through the cracks in one way or another.

Hard Truths about Tough Issues -- Literacy Coach Confidential is our advice column, and here is a sample question: "Attendance at my study groups is pathetic. What can I do to improve participation?" Click this link to read our response.

Examples of Coaches Learning in the Midst -- Many of our features are series, with a literacy leader working in a school over weeks or months to consider one issue. In this example, Jennifer Allen shares how she is helping new teachers move from individual to group observations as part of her yearlong new teacher group series. You can click here to read the article -- like many of our features, it includes professional-quality video.

Insights from Top Researchers and Writers in the Field - We talk with our favorite authors about their new projects, interests, and research studies. Click here for an excerpt from an interview with Ellin Keene, where she discusses starting points for new teachers interested in strategy instruction.

Resource Lists -- At least twice a month we publish short annotated booklists on themes, and we specialize in scouring the web for the best sites for literacy leaders. If you click on this sample article, you'll see Franki Sibberson describe how children's literature blogs, or the "kidlitosphere," can support teachers' work.

Videos of Best Practices -- Our videographers have won Emmy awards, and our audio recordist just took one of the top prizes at the Sundance Film Festival. There's no YouTube home video here.

Yet at the same time, we know many schools and individual teachers have older computers for viewing videos, so many web video formats will freeze up their machines. Our solution? We film classroom sequences with multiple cameras, using experienced crews so that they are the highest possible quality. We then post videos in Flash format to ensure the videos can be viewed on 99% of computers manufactured in the last five years (as long as you have a connection faster than dial-up). You can sample a classroom video of a conference with an English language learner by clicking here.

Your Package Includes Weekly E-Newsletters and DVDs for Use in Study Groups and Mentoring Programs

These are just a tiny fraction of the over 250 resources we have posted at Choice Literacy, with an average of 20 new features added monthly. Our members keep up with the new content available on the site each week through a subscription to the Big Fresh, our weekly concise e-newsletter delivered to your email in-box weekly. Over 8,000 literacy leaders from 72 countries subscribe to the Big Fresh.

And if you sign up for a site license/DVD combo in our PDPalooza promotion, you'll also receive your choice of our DVD workshop kits. Freed from compressing our video for the web, these DVDs have high resolution video with full-color viewing guides. You can access full descriptions of the DVD Workshop Kits by clicking here.

Are you still reading, but hesitating to purchase because of the expense or nontraditional nature of Choice Literacy? If you order anything in our PDPalooza combo and are unsatisfied with your purchase, you can return it within 30 days for a full refund. We are confident we can meet your needs, because we're literacy leaders ourselves.

Click on any link below to download an order form for a Choice Literacy site license and DVD combo through our PDPalooza promo, and give the literacy leaders in your district the gift of inspiration and practical advice all year long.

Frequently Asked Questions

What forms of payment are accepted?

We accept purchase orders and checks for this promotion. Choice Literacy's Federal Tax I.D. information and ordering details are available on the order forms.

What qualifies as an individual site?

Individual schools or entire districts can apply for a site license/DVD combo. Many districts have members from different schools within the district included on one site license, in order to qualify for larger savings.

Do all email addresses for individual members on the site license need to be from the same email domain?

No. Site license members have the option of using a home or school email address. Members can access their accounts from home or school, regardless of which email address they choose for their account.

We currently have a Choice Literacy site license in our district which won't expire for six months. Can we receive a discount on one of these site license/DVD packages based on fees we have already paid?

Yes, we can rollover your current site license into a new combo package. If you have a site license that isn't due for renewal soon, we will prorate your remaining site license time and deduct the balance of your license fee from the new package cost. Please contact Shelly Hafford at 1-800-973-2313 ext. 1 or click here to contact Shelly by email so that we can calculate a reduced package fee before you begin processing a purchase order or check.

What DVDs may we order as part of the package?

You can order any DVD/Workshop Kits offered by Choice Literacy, in any mix of titles. Detailed descriptions of the DVDs, workshop guides, and sample footage are available at this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/products/department2.cfm

For example, if you are focusing on overcoming the 4th grade slump in your school, you might order multiple copies of "Writers in Transition," Franki Sibberson's DVD with a focus on the needs of learners in the intermediate grades.

If you are targeting assistance to young English language learners, you might prefer multiple copies of "Write from the Start" or "Synthesizing Butterflies: Teaching Reading Strategies to Kindergartners."

If you want to improve the quality of your assessments and conferences in daily reading workshops, you might choose "CAFÉ in the Classroom," a DVD from "The Sisters" which details their Comprehension/Accuracy/Fluency/Expanding Vocabulary system for setting and tracking goals with individual students.

The DVD workshop kits each include many suggestions for workshops using the classroom footage, so it is possible to design a full year of weekly or monthly study group sessions from any individual DVD. If you have a wide range of professional development interests, you may want one or two copies of many of the DVDs in the Choice Literacy catalogue. Every school has different needs and interests, which is why we leave the choice of DVDs completely up to you.

We have 32 people we would like to include on our site license, which doesn't fit one of your standard member packages. How can you accommodate our needs?

You have two choices - you can purchase a smaller site license/DVD package, and pay for additional members for a fee of $79 per member. Some schools find it's more useful to buy a larger license, and include classroom teachers and specialists as members who might be tapped to mentor new teachers, lead study groups, or host demonstration lessons in the future.

How long does it take to process an order?

Site licenses are normally activated within one business day. Each member will receive an individual notification of the activation of their membership. We will ship the DVDs included in the package to the contact person listed on the order form within two business days. DVDs are sent priority mail, with confirmation and tracking at no additional charge.

Our school is outside the U.S. Can we participate in this promotion?

Because of tariff and distribution agreements for the DVDs, only schools with U.S. or APO mailing addresses are eligible to participate in this promotion. You can still receive our standard discounts on site licenses memberships only. For more information on the site license program, please click on this link:

http://www.choiceliteracy.com/public/department63.cfm

If you have any additional questions not answered above, you can contact us by clicking here.