It doesn't aid thier education at all. The kids spend more time working out how to use the device than actually doing work and then they use it for purposes other than school work. My daughter through her school has a macbook and I think the main function it is used for is sharing pictures, movies and songs and not actual school work.

I went to a big presentation at the school last year on the introduction of laptops and none of the staff that were involved in the decision process even had a clue, including the so called IT staff. They talked about new means of communications, facebook, msn, twitter, sms etc but really had no idea what relevance or meaning this had to education. I believe this is just more evidance of the decline in the quality of education and how schools are letting are kids down. Rather than improving the quality of staff and concentrating on educating the kids they want a device to be a baby sitter so they can employ less staff. The funding of staff comes from school fees and the government and if the school puts up fees everyone complains but if they now add a new line to your invoice for $100 per term for a laptop or make parents buy them it's seen as being progressive.