eReaders and Tablets can be important if the students and teachers plan to use them for reading eBooks related to their class work, going online, watching educational videos, Using Apps to help them in schools, or testing Mobile Apps they made themselves in computer class with computer programming languages like HTML5, Javascript, Java, etc.
Cheaper 100 dollar Tablets and eReaders might be a less attractive item for criminals to steal especially if your school is in a high crime area since pawn shops, and second hand store won't pay much for them.
In my college, and high school things like laptops and projectors get stolen and missing often.
I think it can be cheaper to design a Tablet, and eReader case which has a hole in it to tie it to a table then buying a lot of laptop wire locks.
They could use them if they plan to stop using paper for environmental choices, etc. then that's fine. It would make learning a lot easier for one thing, but it's not like they're gonna learn anything differently then if they didn't.
Indeed, it can be hard, but the teacher can use remote desktop and networking to stream files to all of Tablets at once from a PC or server, or flash/image the tablets drive with the needed apps, use MicroSD cards preloaded with files so students all have the same files and textbooks.
But, teaching less computer literate teachers how to use remote desktop, networking, microsd cards, or image tablet hard drive can be difficult sometimes depending on the teacher learning speed.
I think your forgetting something, at least in my school no teachers can handle creating a PDF file, yet alone streaming... Textbooks we have online on a server, we just login with our personal student account and we have all we need there with highlighting tools and the lot.
The Amazon Kindle eReader has built-in notetaking and highlightinh.
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iBooks for the iPad also has built-in note taking.
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However, I think a lot of schools still can't afford Kindles and iPad for every student, and they might take money away from other programs like School lunches, after school programs, and physical educations which can be more important then digital textbooks since kids need to eat, and stay in shape to learn better.
Telling kids to buy their own Kindle or iPad might be a problem as well since many people are still too poor to afford a Kindle or iPad for school compared to using free paper textbooks which the school bought for students to use each term.
