A computer for every teacher - or for every classroom?

A couple years ago, I suggested to district leadership that we stop giving teachers the option of a laptop as their primary computer. (How to be unpopular: no teacher laptops.) The proposal was considered by building administrators for about 30 seconds then firmly rejected.

Yet the same problems we were hoping to solve by giving teachers only desktop computers are still with us.

Laptops:

• Have historically been more expensive to purchase than desktops with the same memory, speed etc..
• Have higher incidences of repair and maintenance, with each machine requiring two new batteries during its life span and often a new power adaptor.
• Are more likely to be lost, stolen,or dropped.
• Grow obsolete more quickly (as teachers tell it), needing replacement every three years instead of every five.
• Are not available to substitutes for use with attendance, Smartboard, etc. when teachers take them home and then are absent.

As the use of cloud-based applications and files (primarily GoogleDocs) grows in the district, the need for a "personal" computer - one that holds programs and files specific to the individual teacher becomes less important. The Chrome book model - a device with only a webbrowser - should work just as well with teachers and administrators as it does with students.

So what might happen if we assigned no computers to individual teachers at all? (No matter how unpopular one currently might be, one can always strive to become more so.) Let's instead put a computer in each instructional area, each on a replacement schedule. And then provide enough laptops or tablets for teachers to use at meetings or at home.

From a cost/managment standpoint, I can see some advantages: 

• Longer life and maintenance cost of a desktop would equal less TOC
• A standard "teacher" configuration would make imagining computers less time consuming
• There are fewer instructional areas in most schools than there are staff members (shared classrooms, part time teachers, etc.) so fewer total machines needed
• Less confusion over acceptable use when a machine is treated as a school-owned device rather than a personally-owned device.

Have we reached the point that the teacher computer should simply be a part of the classroom infrastructure like a desk, a light switch, or a white board?

I am not convinced this is a good idea, only an idea worth studying. For 20 years I've been trying to meet the challenges resulting from teacher-assigned computers. This approach, I'm sure, will create a whole new set of problems.

But wouldn't that be refreshing?