brecklundin,
I agree with you (except your comment about non-tech-savvy teachers
). I AM a teacher (inner city Philadelphia), and I can tell you that much of the technology so far leads to distraction rather than focus. I'm not sure how many people here have taken a group of kids to a computer lab, or rolled in a laptop cart and distributed laptops for an assignment, but I have. The internet provides endless opportunities for kids to do anything EXCEPT focus.
I'd love to see ebook devices, lightweight, portable, with student texts and literature easily downloaded to them. I think such a device would be more useful than a laptop. I know it's a pipe dream here in the US (I did read somewhere about an experiment with this in Norway though). We don't want to invest in education in this country -- at least, not in an education that will actually help our kids in the competitive global economy of the 21st century. Other countries will though.