computer based math tools

Last week I learned about two more ways to engage students in math. We played with a couple of very neat math utilities: Fathom and Geometer's Sketchpad. What great classroom resources these would be! Geometer's Sketchpad looks like a particularly versatile tool that, according to its website, can help kids learn everything from geometry and algebra to proofs. For geometry, creating geometric shapes to fit over a clown's features - using only a limited number of available shapes - was a challenging exercise even for an adult! It really forced you to remember and apply your knowledge of the properties of geometric shapes.

Two questions I have are: 1) in what way can Geometer's Sketchpad facilitate algebra learning and 2) how much does it cost (I think this was mentioned, but I've forgotten). The next time I have free time on campus, I think I'll try and explore ways in which Geometer's Sketchpad can help students learn or practice algebra. If the algebra functions are as engrossing as the geometry exercise was, I think they'd be very useful in a middle level math class.

One implication for classroom practice is how to best utilize Geometer's Sketchpad when you only have a couple computers available for classroom use. Perhaps it would be best utilized as enrichment or remediation tool in that case - although if the software has a high pricetag, you'd probably want every student to have access.