Lets go back a few years to when I was in High School, like my brother before me- I had the ability to end up using a Personal Digital Assistant, a Pocket PC- a “Smart Phone” with out the Phone. In my final years I decided this was the best- as I had little classes which I had to write stuff in, and to be honest I wasn’t going to use them to turn the TV on and off.
Around the same time, the education system in my state was going to roll out a bunch of Netbooks. Well that’s all well and good, but they where a pile of shit. Avoiding them when I used a computer for my HSC.
My final school years where filled been the tech wizard in a world full of pens and paper. Because of the subjects I have chosen it was much easier to adopt my technology based system too.
The era was when phones where still becoming the hit thing, and no doubt no- they are still shunned and schools. However this is something which should easily be adopted to the current range of phones to enhance education. The ability to use your Android or WP7 as a education tool, instead of a harassment tool. The future is clearly geared up to go that way anyway- however its more geared to rattle itself into priority based laptops and systems which do more damage then good to the technology revolution.
The green idea which removes paper, with technology. The only problem is if it was to be used in any more subjects it would diswarrent the purpose. The way the education system is set up, it couldn’t handle a technology involved system for anything which isn’t related to a computer to begin with.
What I’m suggesting is ditch the laptops, commission some cheap manufacture to make something with an Office suit on it, call it a day and hand them out like candy.