Our district is blessed to have a strong tax base from nearby large industry, so students are each supplied a Chrome Book starting in the 5th grade. Students may use their own device. WiFi access in the school is locked down pretty tight restricting it appropriate site access of course.
The benefits and risks of such a program have already been discussed, however, what hasn't been mentioned is the expectation at this time of colleges and universities that an incoming student be well versed in online class discussion, taking tests online, turning in work online, collaborative projects online, and of course getting sometimes daily notification of class information via e-mail. It's been an eye opener having sons in college for the last 7 years.
I should also mention that these days, my youngest as an electrical engineering student uses no paper notes, everything he does is on a tablet including written notes, schematic drawings, taking pictures of whatever in class, and recording any portions of lectures needed.
One of the bigger issues I've seen about computers in the schools is that well versed students (especially boys who tend to take more risks in general) enjoy the challenge of hacking into the school's system, retrieving information they shouldn't have access to such as teacher's passwords, grades, etc. This issue is compounded by the fact that it's extremely difficult to hire and keep strong IT personal to manage the system and security as they can get paid twice as much in the private sector with the same skills.
