Blog 1: Ideas for PD Sessions during the school year

If we have two day sessions, I like Friday-Saturday or.........
long Saturday 8 am-7pm and short Sunday 12-5???
For learnings, how about building the foundations for solving equations starting with fact families and inverse operations.

Blog 2: What do you want/expect/need from Robin as she observes or visits your school this year? Maybe help me with tech stuff and I will make sure you visit when students are compiling or interpreting a survey and creating graphs or experimenting with tech. Perhaps virtual algebra tiles (sorry, I think that term is copywrighted, Algeblocks) in 6th or 7th.

Blog 3: Ideas for next summer PD For geometry strands, we could do lots of rates of change or estimate area under a curve using trapezoids (or rectangles above the curve and below the curve).

Blog 4: Microsoft
(1) How do they currently use technology in the classroom, if at all? If so, what technologies? How many students have access to PCs at home? We are trying to increase use of TI-Nspire. I have been without graphing calculators since 1995'ish. Almost all of our students have access to technology at home.

(2) Is their school leadership supportive of their individual use of technology in teaching and learning? I don't think I get enough education. They are supportive of my using it, but not so supportive of buying tech. Our graphing calculators were purchased with grant monies.

(3) Where did they get information about ICT in the classroom or about technology (before your class, of course!)? I have read articles on networking but have not had any formal education about using it in the classroom. I joined Myspace and Facebook just so I could learn how to 'start' functioning. I wanted to learn how to set up internet classes or tutoring online, so I joined a group on yahoo. But I felt the group was making topics too complicated for the students, so I opted out of the group.

(4) Would they be interested in connecting online with other teachers from around the state/region/world with similar interests? I would definitely be interested in connecting with others but am hesitant about getting in too large a group.