My high school lends MacBooks to all of its students throughout the school year. I will say that it is nice to be able to look something up at almost anytime. I have learned a lot from it, but it's nothing I couldn't have learned from using a shared desktop computer or my family's home computer. Still, for students who don't already have computers (the target market of the OLPC project), having an internet connection is really nice.

I will also say that the first year we were lent computers, everyone procrastinated a ridiculous amount. Games, everywhere, all the time. Very little work was being done. But now, three years later, people mostly just use the computers for work.

I don't think a laptop in itself is that valuable. Maybe I'm just jaded - computers are pretty fantastic. I'd say that by far the most valuable part of a laptop is being able to go on the internet: wikipedia, forums, google, it's all incredible.