Here's the teaser...
We went one-to-one with Chromebooks last year and although I found it burdensome to incorporate them at the beginning of the year, as began to see the possibilities they really enhanced my/student's experience. The first thing that made my life easier was Google Sites. This made it easy to link forms, docs, and sheets for students to access. The Desmos app is also helpful, although I still do not feel it's a replacement for a TI (sad face). For my stats kids, having them individually play with applets was nice...when they worked. That's the one thing I'm not liking about Chromebooks...they are not compatible with everything.
Anyways, if you watched the teaser you saw how cool Google Classroom is. They released it to a batch of teachers in June and it is supposed to go live in September. I think it would be nice if they made it a little earlier so we could start the year with it but it looks easy enough to use.
If you're interested, go to their website and "request" an early version. That's what I did! I eagerly check my email everyday in hopes of getting in. It kind of feels like when I was in high school and I would wait for college acceptance letters.
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We went 1-1 with chromebooks last year too and I agree with your sentiment on the applets not always working on things. This classroom thing excites me too! Would like to chat with you on how you use chromebooks (sadly I hardly used them and feel that I need to more this year). Feel free to hit me up on twitter @jomalleyiv and we can talk about chromebooks!
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