Mac users and Apple investors are happy to hear Apple notebooks being put in the hands of school kids. This means more money for Apple, and more Mac users in the long run. Those are great reasons for Apple to push the education market and try to get iBooks to all of the school kids around the world, but in most cases, kids abuse that privilege; especially when wi-fi internet access is in the mix. Most of our staff is teenagers and half of them have notebooks at school.
One staff member in particular, Larry Anderson has neglected school work to play games and post on the popular forums at www.spymac.com Although, many schools have stated that student attendance, grades and good discipline has grown, I think this is just school administrators trying to keep a job. If millions of dollars in taxpayer money was put into an iBook program, and the county officials, and parents learn that their kids are chatting via iChat and playing Nanosaur, I think these programs would not last very long.
I, being a student myself have taken a different approach to the laptops for kids. I did start getting distracted, but remembered why I had the laptop. I originally got it, because I have poor handwriting and have problems keeping track with handwriting. So I type all of my assignments and print them out around school via our Airport network, and keep track of homework and other information with iCal. The fact that internet is available only aids me in research of projects. So in short, the programs where kids get notebooks or even if parents purchase the students a laptop should be reconsidered. The student must already be doing well in school and should not be school wide, but on a per student basis. I would like to see these programs succed but schools need to work on their infrastructure to only allow certain sites, disallow iChat AV, and other apps like iTunes. This would keep kids working instead of exploring the digital hub in the schoolhouse.