Sign Me Up!

I signed up for two cyber safety workshops. One is with I-safe at the IU on March 13th in the afternoon. I am looking forward to the workshop. I plan on meeting up with a friend who is also in the Instructional Technology Specialist Masters program. This will certify me to be able to teach other teachers in my school district. I will also be attending a workshop on March 9 th at the Middle School. This is really directed to parents in the community but I would like to hear what the presenter will suggest for parents to do at home with the Internet. (5hrs)

I also signed up for a Power Media workshop on Feb 22nd. I will be able to bring this back to our teachers at the high school if their interested in learning about it. Its kind of hard right now when we only have two smart boards available to all teachers in the building. There are five smart boards (I think five) in the English department but they are not accessible to all teachers. Our Tech Director is saying that within two years we will see more Smart boards in the building. (2hrs)

I signed up for a TI workshop in Wilmington DE using the Graphing Calculator in an Algebra class. I asked a math teacher I teach with and also a teacher who is the Technology Instructional Specialist program with me at the IU. I hope to learn more ways to use the graphing calcualtor other than for graphing. Or at least learn more ways to use the graphing features to explore more math concepts! (4hrs)

Grant process

I was just sitting and thinking about the process that I have gone through thus far with this grant writing. I am exicted at the thought of actually being awarded a grant!!

It started several months ago with sending a link to a website to search for technology grants to the curriculum director. She said she was interested. She sent back a list of possibilities and I sifted through those and narrowed it down to a few. After printing the RFP's and reading the questions and requirements I thought I could do the HP grant.

It took some brain storming with a few other math teachers to figure out who should be on the team and what the project would be. I started thinking about the project as I was driving home and thought the unit Alice would be a possible project. Then after discussing it with the math department head she suggested Orchard and who the three math teachers should be. I was glad to have her input. It definitely pointed me in the right direction. (3 hrs)

After meeting with two of the math teachers we came up with a title for the project "I can see clearly now!" Its very catchy. I sat down over the weekend and started writing up the answers to the questions. It wasn't that hard...I am not saying that my answers weren't edited several times! But at least it got us started!:) (5 hrs)

Next I had to meet with the tech guy for our district (1 hr) and then onto the principal and curriculum director. Holy cow! Part of me is a little intimidated but I am also very glad to have so much support to make this grant process a success (hopefully!)

February

Another semester has started and every teacher is so exhausted I would put money on that every teacher will probably take a sick/personal day before spring break. We hardly had a chance to end one semester then turned around to start a new one!

I have been spending some time with a Special Ed teacher a few days after school talking about how to integrate technology into the math classroom. She is team teaching with two math teachers this semester. We talked about using Quia.com, Smart Notebook, and Interactive web sites. She made a quia activity for a 2ccp class. I am interested to hear how it goes. She did a great job creating the questions and then put them into a Rags to Riches game. (3hrs)

I have written two grants! I am excited...so far anyway! I have never done something like this before so I will be exhilarated if we actually are awarded the grants or even one! The first grant is tthrough HP for $30k. It involves a team of teachers which is made up of three math teachers, a special ed teacher and myself as a technology teacher. If we get the grant we will get five multimedia projectors, five Tablet PC's, five digital cameras, five all in one printer/scanner/copier and each teacher will get a $500 stipend. We spent two days after school answering the questions. Then on another day I meet with the Technology director for the school district who is my mentor for my internship. He gave me his okay. We discussed at length the three year technology plan for the school district. It was interesting to hear his plans to upgrade the equipment across the district in the next two school years then start focusing on professional development in the school year 2007-2008. Next I will need to meet with the principals and the curriculum director. The HP grant is due on Wednesday...I hope there aren't too many corrections!!
The other grant is for $5K. I nominated a math colleague as my Math Hero! She is amazing in all that she has accomplished and all that she does every day. This grant is also due on Wednesday also. I am hoping she can get a SmartBoard, laptop and multimedia projector out fo the grant! (3 hrs)

So thats all for now! I hope to come back and write about all my successes with grant writing!!!