How you determine what tools the students need in the first place? I've used laptops heavily for almost all my classes for the past few years now (obviously I can't take a laptop to a ceramics class, for example) and the tools I use depends on the class.
For most classes I can get away with using textmate, voodoopad and word (yuck). However, for classes with lots of diagrams I can't easily reproduce on the computer, I'll take out the tablet and use it with voodoopad specifically. Another person using a laptop in my class just brings a digital camera and takes pictures. There was one class I had where someone else wanted to take notes with me, so we used google docs in class. But I don't do that in a CS class, where I usually just bring out my IDE of choice and start hacking away and occasionally take notes.
For most classes I can get away with using textmate, voodoopad and word (yuck). However, for classes with lots of diagrams I can't easily reproduce on the computer, I'll take out the tablet and use it with voodoopad specifically. Another person using a laptop in my class just brings a digital camera and takes pictures. There was one class I had where someone else wanted to take notes with me, so we used google docs in class. But I don't do that in a CS class, where I usually just bring out my IDE of choice and start hacking away and occasionally take notes.
Just a thought.