That Teleread image can be seen in different ways, particularly if you've worked in a school where the principal went ballistic over paper use!

The slate isn't better than paper, just as paper isn't better than the slate. Your choice of a technology should depend upon its benefits for in a particular application. Paper is good when you need a lasting record, and is wasteful when you don't need a lasting record. A teacher may choose to use paper when a student is writing a story that the teacher is taking home to grade or that the student may want to take home to show their parents. A teacher may choose to use a slate when practicing grammar in class, since the teacher can do a formative assessment during class time. Oh, and before you make too much fun of the slate being old fashioned, it is making a comeback in schools. The only difference is that it's a white plastic card used with erasable pens or erasable crayons.

Much the same can be said of print vs. electronic books. Neither is better than the other overall, but one may be better than the other in particular circumstances. For instance: ebooks are good if you're building a personal library or borrowing from a public library. Print books tend to be better if you pass on books or share your books. Ebooks are good for titles that accommodate text reflow. Print books are good for titles that have complex formatting that is difficult to reflow. (Of course you can read such documents electronically, but it is only efficient when the screen reflects the document's formatting.)

We see this sort of thing everywhere, so I would like to offer up another example. Since people like to make fun of buggy whips: ask yourself why many police forces still have mounted units in operational use. (I know that the police don't use buggy whips, but the buggy whip analogy is made under the assumption that horses have been obsoleted by automobiles.) Outside of ceremonial use and public relations, some police forces prefer to use them for crowd control both due to mobility and visibility. They are also used for patrols in rural areas that are not accessible to automobiles.

Contrary to what some people believe, new technology is not all benefit and old technology is rarely entirely obsolete. At best, the new stuff is revolutionary. At worse, it is wasteful. If you choose appropriately, choose the best of both worlds, we can let the revolutionary be. If you choose inappropriately (favoring either new or old), you end up with a very inefficient world. I'd mention my favorite example, the automobile, but that probably belongs in the politics and religion forum.