Microsoft commissioned an ongoing study of Anytime Anywhere Learning, published as the Rockman Report. Each model has potential advantages, either in terms of instructional benefits, ease of implementation, or savings. In the concentrated model, teachers are free to integrate technology fully into instruction as well as assignments, since all students have access to a computer for homework, study, and projects. In the desktop model, although the computers are owned and maintained by the school, a student working on a computer-based project during the school day might be allowed to take the laptop home to complete their work. Also, teachers are better able to reconfigure their classroom setup to suit their technology integration needs.
Laptops can also take the place of desktops in a traditional lab setting.
These computers are available for checkout to their middle and high school students. For many schools, the primary advantage of laptops over desktops is in creating opportunities for all students to have access to a computer both during and outside of the school day. Traditional laptops are not the only portable computers appearing in elementary and secondary institutions. The AlphaSmart and DreamWriter, for example, make it possible to provide each student with a rechargeable portable that can be used for word processing or keyboarding instruction at a fraction of the cost of a traditional laptop. Some mini-portables do more than word processing.