Today, 38 percent of public schools use laptops for instruction, according to education-research firm Market Data Retrieval. The benefits are plentiful: mobility, educational software, and multimedia tools that can enhance teaching and learning. The difficulty is in choosing the right product for your schools: laptop or tablet? Mac or PC? Long battery life or bright screen?

T&L asked districts why they were using laptops and which models they had chosen. Here’s a quick look at some of their answers:

Alvarado (TX) Independent School District; a 3,200-student district

Why laptops? “We wanted students to have anywhere/ everywhere access and use laptops for all of their work,” says Kyle Berger, executive director of technology services.

Type of Laptops: HP Tablets and Mini Notes

Madison (SD) Central School District; a 1,200-student district

Why laptops? “We chose laptops to complete the 1:1 initiative we started three years ago,” says Robert Honomichl, director of technology

Type of Laptops: LifeBook T1010 tablet PCs

Watertown (MA) Public Schools; a 2,500-student district

Why laptops? “Our goal was to put a laptop in every teacher’s hand,” according to Ann Koufman-Frederick, assistant superintendent. “We wanted laptops because of the 24/7 connections to colleagues and the school community. We wanted to encourage the use and exploration of digital resources.”

Type of Laptops: Dell Latitude 531s and 520s

>Pascack Valley Regional High School District in Montvale, NJ; 2,100 students

Why laptops? “In a word? Mobility,” says Superintendent Benedict Tantillo III. “We started with laptop carts and desktop labs. As teachers received training and used them more frequently, they started to say, ‘We can’t wait two weeks to get to the lab…’”

Type of Laptops: Apple MacBooks.

Miami (FL) Country Day School; 1,000 students

Why laptops? “Laptops and tablets provide contextual learning and model what students will have in the business world,” says Donna Lenaghan, director of technology. “Tablets let teachers transform the environment. Many now have paperless classrooms.”

Type of Laptops: Toshiba M400 and M700 tablets; Toshiba Tecra M5 & M9 laptops

For tips and to learn what the interviewees do and do not like about their laptops, read the complete article, “Mini Powerhouses: The latest laptops”