No Meetings! Chromebooks!!!

A rare day.  No meetings after school.  I think I'll blog.

I'm super excited for tomorrow.  A UPS plane landed in Minneapolis at 6:03 this morning carrying 30 Chromebooks.  They are scheduled to be at my school by the end of the day tomorrow.  THE END OF THE DAY!!!  30 CHROMEBOOKS!!!

Part of me thinks I'm greedy.  I already have 30 MacBooks in my room.  However, they are 4 and 5 years old.  They weren't mine to start with.  Many were missing keys when they got to me.  There were a couple scratched screens.  In addition, MacBook batteries are set to only last about 3 years.  These don't make it through a day.  I'm lucky to get about 3 hours.

Here's why I'm excited about the Chromebooks:

• They are new.  I get to set them up and care for them from day 1.  I don't have to worry about what I'm getting.
• They start up in 8 seconds. That's instant compared to the minutes for MacBooks.  
• They wake up instantly.  That, with the start up time, is huge for management in the classroom!
• We haven't used anything on a MacBook for software that isn't web-based.  The extra money spent on iLife is wasted in my room.
• The batteries will last more than a school day.

I'm can't wait!  I need to figure out how to number them effectively.  I need to figure out how they are going to work with the cart that I have.  I need to make sure that students have access to a guest account for the first day so that we can hit the ground running.

Oh, boy. Chromebooks are coming!