Advantages

it's more intuitive. Users can simply drag their fingers around the display, making tasks simpler.

They are designed to give you access to e-mail, the Web, and some basic productivity elements to tag along while you're on-the-go. A touch screen might fit well with that aim.

Committee work: Students contribute their unique points of view and technology expertise. Prepare students for committee work by practicing brainstorming and using consensus language.Internet safety and AUPs: Include students in the process of reviewing school acceptable use policies (AUPs) so the participating students will be better able to articulate the new rules to their peers.Security: Offer trained students a gradually-increasing access level between a normal student and a teacher.  Avoid putting even trained students in an awkward position by allowing unnecessary access.Student support for teachers: Students can work one-on-one with teachers to help integrate technology into planned lessons, can help provide floating classroom support, or even present the lesson themselves.

Integrate students with professional tech support: Some IT staff will not want to deal with students. In these cases, student tech support should focus on support for teachers using classroom technology.

Create student tech support teams:

The Saugus Union School District (SUSD), through funding from the EETT competitive grant, will provide a technology-rich writing achievement program for students in the fourth grade, entitled Student Writing Achievement Through Technology Enhanced Collaboration (SWATTEC.) With a focus on writing within the science curriculum, the SWATTEC project will engage every fourth grade student by providing a sustainable, one-to-one computing environment, which will be used to advance writing skills, build science knowledge, increase student and teacher technology proficiency, engage students and teachers in 21st century collaborative environments, and promote student writing achievement.

Two trends in the world of technology are making a big splash in education: web applications and netbooks.

Simple Spark, a directory for web applications, has over 9,900 web apps listed. Besides looking there, check out the list of links to the right. These are web applications I've recently bookmarked. Click here to see my complete list.

Advantages to using netbooks in schools is that they are about the size of a hardcover book, easily fitting into a backpack. Would-be thieves can't tell a netbook is in a bag, unlike when students tote around laptop bags. Because netbooks are so small, they can have a place on a desk along with a textbook. Additionally, netbooks tend to have quick boot-up times, taking just 20 seconds to power on.