laptop buying advice for forum newbie/mac person oldie

[teachpro]

I'm a special ed teacher who uses her mac a lot with students. Current machine is 3+ year old macbook (2Ghz Core duo/1GB 667MHz DDR2 SDRAM) which has been dropped, spilled on, had optical drive (superdrive) and case replaced--thank you AppleCare!--and is finally on its last legs with unusable optical drive, peeling case, occasional keyboard freeze, etc. Fortunately, It's insured, programming and all.

Now the question: I got a check for $1850 (!!!!) from insurance to replace it. Any suggestions? I'm really tempted to upgrade to low end 15" macbook pro. Way too much computer for what I do, but.....

Suggestions on how to spend the money burning a hole in my bank account?

I can still let "my" kids use this machine, as it obviously still works.

Thanks.

 

[macpluslaptop]

I like the extra screen real estate - the 15" really makes a difference.