What I want and what might be a stepping stone

What I want: cheap, durable, easy (intuitive) to use, flexible tools to teach with. I'm not so interested in specialty websites, content-area software, etc. Instead, I want something as ubiquitous as a pencil or a chalkboard. Anytime you need operations on data, you reach for...

Examples:
1. teaching: graphing calculators -- powerful tool all the way through math from algebra onwards. Little bit of a learning curve.
2. administration: internal mail servers -- not hard to learn (but most people only use at a more basic level than intended), effectively sends text
3. administration: internal web servers are close to being a reality. Would nicely augment/replace printing, given broad enough hardware base. Need to become simpler to operate/manage.

What I want:
1. database tool -- can slurp any combo of data (ASCII or binary), can search, organize, etc.
2. graphical tool -- can construct graphical models of ideas, include links to or imports from database

What to look at:
1. Project Inkwell is pushing for a universal educational platform. Sounds fishy on one level (proprietary? open source? -plus the website is members-only...) but could be the real deal.
2. hiddenagenda.com -- challenges college kids to create educational games for middle-schoolers. But why can't we see the games they've created?