Laptop Cart more hassle than what it's worth?

Hi guys, I gotta do a little venting here cuz this is getting frustrating. This math cart is great to have but with only 15 computers im wondering if it is more trouble that what it's worth! When students are sharing a computer they are busy talking and not listening to instructions and then I have to repeat myself to each group over and over again. The gizmos must be done in pairs instead of individually. I also tried to have them print documents from my web page to find that not all laptops have printers installed.

Today has been a disaster with my first two blocks.

Students dont remember their passwords, not all have gmail accounts yet, gmail and google dont work together without setting up a google account. It's taken almost the entire class periods to just get set up and logged on to the gizmos! Im also finding out that these students aren't as tech advanced as we might think. Yeah they can use cell phones, but when it comes to links and sites and passwords etc.. they are lost. I know this all takes time and in the long run is worth the trouble, but the hard part is trying to fit this in with our curriculum time constraints. In trying to do a lesson on circles through the gizmo, i have actually wasted a day. I think it's just faster and easier to project it on the board and work as a class then as pairs or groups. But that is the same as we have always done it. Any suggestions or ideas?

Im gonna try it again for my last two classes today. Lets see how it goes.

Principals Common Assessment

Thanks to Regina Stewart and Jennifer Svihlik for helping create the Principals common assessment. I currently have the original and will make copies for the 8 sections of principals. I'd like to test tomorrow (9/20) because we pushed back the test from today for maps testing and that thursday is the only day we had available. Anybody got spare scansheets to share?

Geometry Classes

Hi guys, I've created a quick reference document for some of the conjectures we pass over quickly in Geometry. The ones about angles in Chapter 2. Students can print it and use it in class. It's posted on my blog site Gee-Im-A-Tree.

Also there is a good Gizmo lesson on Area of parallelograms and triangles. It has some cool animations and shows the relationship between are of rectangle and parallelogram.

Dept update

Alright Math Gurus, here's the skinny.

LAPTOPS
We have a MATH DEPT laptop cart with LCD, printer and wireless access point. Please contact me if you'd like to use it - maybe a wiki or something later.

ASSESSMENTS
According to the curriculum guides on starnet, we are all supposed to be testing on Wednesday 9/12. At the department meeting it was decided to push it back to Friday 9/14. No discussion was made about grading, or when copies would be made available to teachers for their classes.

MATH MATES
9th and 10th grade teachers, you should be using the "math mates" worksheets in class. If you have questions see me. If you have extra or need more go to SW200 closet.

INVENTORY
If you still need calculators - Tom Deaguero is keeping track of those, please see him in W202 to check some out. I believe he's got the graphing calculator and only the CSAP calculators are otherwise available in Regina's room SW207.

If you have textbooks I still need each number from you and your calculator count, please.

There was dicussion about the Pre-calc books, and ordering more. If you're teaching this class, or might be (Anatoly, Heidi, & Tom), can I get an estimate of how many we need to order? Also, the geometry books look pretty bad also; however, there's a closet full of them.

BUDGET
Mr. Paxton went to bat at the last board meeting and got our copy budget back, so we'll up the reimbusements on supplies to $200.

Don't forget to participate in the blog
http://achsmathtech.blogspot.com/

and the wiki
http://acsd14technology.wikispaces.com/