Hand Held Conference

On July 24th and 25th I plan on going to the MidAtlantic Handheld Conference in Salisbury MD. Iam excited about going because when I went last year I was just starting to become familar with the many uses of handhelds. This year I will probably go with out one again but I am hoping to learn more about the functions and uses on an administrative level. I realize the students could make use of the handhelds also but I believe teachers need to get them in their hands first and get very comfortable with them. Once the teachers are comfortable with the menus and functions then it makes sense to bring them into the classroom. This is a two day event. (14hrs) I plan on staying with my aunt and uncle and I am hoping a fellow teacher in the graduate class will go with me. I know she will be so excited about every thing she will learn!

TI Graphing Calculator

We had a math workshop at school on June 22nd and June23rd. Larry who is from Haddon Heights in New Jersey came and showed us some really awesome activities we could use in our classroom using the TI 84 calculator. We played around with the Calculator robots and programmed them to move around a yardstick and run into a golf ball. We also learned about a subway in Canada that is designed using the digits in PI. We created a design ourselves using the same pattern. I learned a little more about Parametric equations. We had two motion detectors going at once and a third person traced the letter "P" using a yardstick. We put the lists together that contained the distance of the horizontal and vertical movement of the yardstick. When we graphed the two distances together we had the letter "P" drawn out on our calculator. This was a great introduction to Parametircs. We also played around with trig functions. This was a challenge for me. (12hrs)

I learned several new ways to use the calculator. I am excited to take what I learned and use it in the classroom. I learned more about saving data as a program in the calculator and also how to manipulate my lists to really utilize them.

Then from June 26th to June 30th I went to a TI training to become certified in using and training with the TI 84 calculator. I learned a few new things like how to type in an equation on the home screen and use the Boolean symbols to test and see if my solution was true or false. I also learned how to store a value for a variable and at the same time substitute it into an expression and find the value. I know these tricks will be very useful for teaching students how to take the math SATs. I also like learning more about the Appls like the study cards and the Algebra apps. I really enjoyed the transformation app which is very useful in teaching students about how functions move and change. (35hours)

We took some time to play around with the software TI Connect. We learned how to download apps from the internet and onto our calculators. I plan to spend some time next week focusing on TI Interactive. From what I understand there is so much more to it than how I use it on a daily basis in school. I hope to share what I learn with the other teachers I am in training with the TI. We have four more days of training. (28hrs)

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!!!

Reflecting on the Fall

Wow its been a while since I have sat down and thought about what I have done or what I am doing. We just started another new semester this week and ended the fall semester last Friday. I feel a little beat up and tired. Just another two days til the weekend and about another 3 weeks until we have a three day weekend!

I had the opportunity to present some neat websites on our November 8th inservice here at school. I ran two sessions, the first was some what filled which was nice because I was able to get a feel for the group and what they were interested in. The second session was pretty full. We had some network connection problems....it was intermittent not good a thing when you have a classroom full of teachers! I spent at least ten hours prior setting up a webpage for the session, sorting out what sites to show, preparing handouts for each session and making sure the room would be ready.



MaryJo and Jennifer,

I just wanted to let you know what a WONDERFUL job Kristina Hurley did yesterday! Her presentation was well organized and applicable to a wide range of teachers. The session was useful to teachers of any subject and was user friendly for the novice while it still benefitted the experienced technology buff.

I was fortunate to attend this session!

Cathy

Hi,
I'm sorry I keep forgetting to Thank You for Tuesday, it was a great help to us that you returned the projector, and had the mobile lab at the door ready to go.
Thank You,
Mary-Anne and AJ

I was pleased and I got a lot of positive feedback. While I really enjoyed showing the teachers sites that they got excited about I was also glad when it was over...it was work...normally when I go to an Inservice I am usually the one sitting and watching! (10hours)

I have recently gotten hooked to the the newletter "Connected Classroom" which Sandi our school Librarian introduced me to. In one week I sat down and read 2 or 3 months of newletters and used the links (the newsletters are loaded with them) to check out tons of sites and then added the ones I thought were worth remembering to my portaportal.com (guest login:kmshurley). I have also started reading T.H.E. Journal. I have found some really good articles and ideas that I have started using in the classroom. My students are now blogging! My students both in my math classes and web design classes are leaning through interactive web sites that connect directly to the curriculum. They have taught me a few things along the way!

Like today two sophmores showed me how to write something on the Smartboard and then turn it into text! I am sure I was shown that before but it was still really cool to see it again! And the fact that the kids weren't afraid to play with the Smartboard and show me a few new things was pretty cool!

Having spent the time surfing and finding some really cool interactive websites, I was able to share some cool science links to a science teacher who I share a room with. At first what I showed her she said would really be for middle school science. So I did some more searching and found very good interactive Biology websites that she said she would use AND she shared them with another science teacher who copied them from my portal into her own portal....how cool is that!! Yes I feel that I have made a very worthy contribution to the technology integration here at Strath Haven;)

I think I would like to run some more sessions with the teachers but I would like to work with one subject at a time. Like with English I think they might appreicate Landmark Citations Machine. But maybe they already know. I just spoke to one English teacher who didn't but that just might be one teacher. (8 hours)

I have been invited to a Texas Instruments certification workshop this summer. There are nine classes altogether. The first five will be June 26-30, 2 days in August, 21-22. The last five will be later in the fall.

Texas Instruments position is that participants that complete the TLC program will receive enough training so that they can return to their districts and lead training for their or neighboring districts. Texas Instruments does not designate instructors, the local districts/organizations designate the participants that will lead training sessions in their district.

I hope that I have the opportunity to do some training here in the area. I am sure here at the high school I will be able to do something.

I have contacted Joe our SD's TI guy. I asked him if I could work with him for my Internship. He said yes. He included me in an email to a group of individuals about a Technology Committee. This will be my first official Tech mtg here at school! I hope its a productive meeting and productive committee. (1.5 hours)

One last event...I heard about a special ed teacher and math teacher teaming up to teach a low level sophmore class. The speical ed teacher and I are going to take a look at some technology lesson ideas to integrate into the math class. I am going to share my jeopardy ppt reviews. The portaportal with the lists of interactive sites. Ways to maybe use the Smart Board to lead group discussions. We are going to meet next week. (1.5 hours)

Backing Tracking

I felt I should go back and record a few things I have already done in the past six months. Back in March of the 2004-2005 school year, I created a survey (1 hour) on Advancedsurvey.com. The survey was comprised of questions about math software, websites, and MS Office. Eleven of the twelve math teachers in the department responded. They wanted to know more about Geometry Sketchpad and Fathom.

Partly because the teachers wanted to know more about GSP and because I wanted to learn more I signed up for a workshop (35 hours) the week after school ended in June at the DCIU. One of my goals was to be able to recreate a ferris wheel activity for a collegue of mine. I spent time working on it on my own (4 hours) then at the end of the workshop I asked the instructor if he could help me. We spent another 2 hours. We started playing with the action buttons and the properties. WOW did I learn a lot about that! We were sooo close, but both of us were tired. We were able to figure out more than 75% of the action buttons.

The following week, the last week in June, I went to the NECC conference in Philadelphia (27 hours). I took the train in each day starting on Tuesday. At the conference I went to a session called Holy Handhelds which was hosted by Seaford HS in Delaware. I got really excited about PDA's. They said that there would be a workshop in Salisbury MD on July 18th so I signed up. I learned so much from that one day workshop in Salisbury MD (14 hours:includes driving).

I went to two sessions by K12 Handhelds and learned about useful websites and the extras needed for using the handheld in the classroom. For administrative reasons I want to have one so I can do my grades, keep track of student behavior, track students meeting the state standards (Learner Profile), and keep track of appointments. I am sure there are more things that it could be used for adminstrative purposes.
I must have spent 5 hours researching the different handhelds available. I have had chats online I have gone into Staples, Office Max and Circuit City asking all kinds of questions. The LifeDrive by Palm and HP's IPAQ2755 are pretty comparable. I am leaning toward the Palm OS.

Back to the NECC conference...I went to a very informative and entertaining session on Technology Grant writing. I hope to be able to be apart of some grant writing in the near future. I am keeping all the tips and tricks and web resources filed neatly in a binder until I am ready.

I went to an outstanding session on digital photography. Leslie Fischer from Adobe spoke about what makes for excellent photographs. I picked up a few new things about camera settings...I tried a few when I was on vacation. I was even more excited when I checked my email and saw that they had video taped her sesson and were making it available on line. I hope to be able to share some of it with my students this semester!

PSSA questions using CPS clickers

Last night (4 hours) I copied and pasted the PSSA standards from the Internet into eInstruction. I am not exactly sure how to get the standards to show up under the questions. When I am in the "question" mode I can click on the standard icon and choose the standard(s) that fit with the question. But when I was typing in the questions I could see the stem, difficulty level but not the standard. I continued typing in questions for the different categories.

By the time I went to bed I was up to 2.4 Mathematical Reasoning and Connections. I left some questions' graphics undone. I was focusing more on typing.

Today I worked on typing and graphics. It got pretty hairy! I was using Word, MathType, SmartBoard Tools/area capture tool, TI Interactive and Photoshop. I had to play around for a bit trying to figure out what was the best way to get a gif into CPS.

TI Interactive doesn't have a simple option to save as a gif. What a PAIN! I needed TI Interactive to make scatter plots and other graphs and lists. I used the Area Capture tool to get the image into Notebook which does have the option of saving as a gif. Only problem with Notebook is I couldn't edit the image. I needed to do some cropping. Thats why I used Photoshop to do some quick editing! I am not totally convinced that the way I found to get my image into CPS is the best but for now I know what to do and I am able to do it quick enough to keep me going with the typing.

Getting started

I have spent some time thinking about possible intership projects. I would like to make a web based teacher resource for the math department at Strath Haven called "Math Tech Train." It would be technology activities and lessons that the teachers have created and would be willing to share with the other teachers in the department.

A booklet and CD would be created and handed out to the teachers in the department. Some teachers are concerned about posting possible future lessons and parents or students accessing them before the teacher is ready to use the activity. The other concern is some teachers don't want everyone in the world to have access to their activities that they spent time creating. These teachers would like the opportunity to get paid for their work if it were to be published.

I would also like to create CPS or "clicker" quizzes on 11th grade PSSA material. Today I spent several hours typing in two practice tests: Number Systems and Computation/Estimation. My goal in the next few days is to work on the other categories' Practice tests.