Getting technology that works reliably into the classroom *is* that big a problem. 10 years ago most teachers wouldn't know what to do with computers. Now they do. This whole "internet" thing has pretty much caught on. Almost all teachers know what they would do with them (I've interviewed about 50 and found 2 that didn't).
Your pencil analogy is a good one. Computers are not, in any way, sufficient for teaching, but just as it would have been absurd 30 years ago to have classrooms that didn't have pens, paper and chalk in them, it is similarly absurd now to have classrooms without computers. If you tell a kid to write a paper and (s)he has a computer at home, it's going to seem silly to write it by hand at school.
If you put computers in a school you do need to be committed to keeping them working and NOT to add to the school's tech staff's workload. LTSP Thin clients make it possible to essentially do a drive-by and put in place equipment that is reliable and needs almost no continued maintenance. Teachers need to know little more than how to log in, that the "Applications" menu is at the top of the screen, and that "word processor" means "word," "presentation" means "powerpoint" and "Spreadsheet" means "excel."
Very few schools have personal computers for students. They have impersonal computers. A kid sits down and nothing is there. No files, no bookmarks, no picture of their car, cat, or girlfriend on the desktop. That is not the way that people use computers. LTSP solves this too by giving every kid an account, so they get all of that stuff anywhere they sit.
