This spring I applied for a program called, "TI-Nspire FastTrack," and I was accepted! So, on July 27 I flew out of Norfolk Airport headed for Dallas, TX and the Texas Instruments Headquarters (which is where I am right now).
The point of this WEEK long program is to familiarize school district people (teachers, for instance) about their new calculator called TI-Nspire. So, they have given us one of these calculators, and they keep us in class from 8:00-5:00 every day with homework every night. Besides learning this cool new caclulator, TI will give me a class set of these calculators to use.
What does TI get out of this? Well, I have to give presentations (a total of 200 people) by Feb. 28, 2009; I have to write an article for their newsletter thing, and I have to write four activities to submit to their website. They hope after I present to all of these people how I have fallen in love with this calculator (yes, I'm a geek) that these people will also like the calculator enough to buy it.
I share this with you because I wanted you to know that teachers go to school too, and it's summer vacation! I also wanted you to know that we will be doing some really cool things this year with this new fancy pants calculator! Welcome to Ms. Stein's world!