Hello Sunshine Where have you Been!

Yesterday, I had the pleasure of taking 4 of my secondary math teachers to the Video Reality Trade Show in Conway, AR. We had a nice drive over and back and enjoyed the beautiful sunny day. After the past 2-3 days, the sun was a welcomed sight.
At the trade show, we listened to several presentations on the new SMART 800 series board, Notebook 10.7, and SMARTResponse. Our district has 100 % of it's academic spaces equipped with SMARTBoards. Our next project is to begin placing SMARTResponse and Document Cameras in classrooms. Our teachers and students both love SMART!

Rain, Rain, Go Away

Once again, the weather forecasters were correct when they predicted strong winds, tornados, and heavy rain. We definitely got the heavy rain part here.
Marion Schools were closed today due to flooding on our quad area. I don't think any of our buildings were damaged, but we did have a few leaks. The morning news said we got between 4-6" last night. I believe it. It was raining this morning so I didn't go check my rain gauge. Today has just been rain, rain, and more rain. I can't wait to go see the mighty Mississippi this afternoon. They are predicting it will crest at around 45' next week. This will be one of the highest marks in history. I just hope the levee holds!

Happy Easter G!

My favorite Grandson in his Easter suit.

msdadmin blog project

As expected, there were skeptics in the crowd yesterday. However, I think most of the group appreciated the opportunity to have the freedom to complete this task at their own pace.
This morning there were two who had joined the blog, one had actually commented.
I must be patient, they will come around. (keep repeating that)

New Project Continued

Monday is the big day. I unveil my new project to the entire District Administration Team! I'm excited but also a bit scared.
Here's the project that I was charged with developing.

"Come up with...something that our administrators can do to earn 3 hours of staff development credit." Granted it is the middle of April and this must be completed before June 1.

I am very much a hand's on person, so I really wanted to get them involved in this project rather than hiring someone to come talk, or purchasing a CD/DVD to watch, or a book to read.
So, I developed a blog! http://www.msdadmin.blogspot.com/. The task is for the administrators to simply read and comment weekly for one month in the blog. I will post articles each Monday for them to read. In addition, they may start a new thread of their own and receive technology credit!
We have teachers blogging, students blogging, so why not the administrators? Hopefully this project will develop into more than a one month assignment. I hope that they will see the benefit of blogging and will develop their own blog either for their teachers, parents, students, ...or why not all three?

New Project

I have gone from being terribly upset because I was asked to do a project that I felt I had no background for or contacts or ideas or anything remotely qualifying me for the task to being totally excited about my brainstorming session (with myself) and the parental involvement project I am now developing for our administrative team (wow, that's one long sentence) Hopefully they will embrace this project and will feel that they have not only gained parental involvement knowledge, but also technology skill. More to come later as the project develops.