My county is starting a 1 to 1 initiative with technology and even though I'm a computer person I'm not comfortable with it. In the next 4 years every teacher and every student 3rd grade through 12th will have their own laptop/tablet device to use for school. This will hold all of their textbooks and also work as a Word processor/regular computer. It will have internet access.
While I think it has great potential, I also can't get over all of the cons enough to really get excited about it, both as computer support staff and as a parent. This means that 2 people will now be responsible for distributing/fixing/storing 2000 devices per school, plus 400ish printers as opposed to the 400 that we deal with now. I also worry about them getting stolen/broken/whatever and having to replace them constantly. It also seems like a classroom management nightmare since now it will be impossible for a teacher standing at the front of the class to tell if a student is reading a textbook or watching a video on youtube.
As a parent I don't think I like the idea of my 8 year old daughter having to be responsible for an $800 electronic device, or having to use that to read her textbooks. As much as I love my Nook I hate reading on laptops.
Thoughts?