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Teaching practices slowly evolved from communicating personal knowledge on the blackboard to prescribed text books. Contemporary teachers are now faced with a multifaceted array of delivery tools. Schools need to make explicit to their teachers biannual benchmarks of what Information Technologies should be employed in their classrooms. Leaving it up to the teacher is insufficient. Only 2 out of 10 teachers are innovators. These teachers will have passion and commitment to the school. They will drive innovation. 6 out of 10 will turn up and put time into their work. They operate on the status quo. They need assistance to innovate. The remaining 2 out of 10 will not contribute. The Innovative teachers should be employed by the school as agents of continual change, with the objective to raise the benchmarks of Information Technologies employed. The bulk of the teachers Performance Management should be tied to the expected benchmarks. The non contributors should be actively squeezed out of the school. If schools do not provide the appropriate and relevant service they become irrelevant and their students are dis-serviced.

Schools have evolved on a basis that can be described as a silo platform. Whilst schools do share state or national curriculum outcomes/statement they are competitive. They are competitive for content resources, teachers and students. Whilst some privilege schools may benefit many poorly resourced schools do not. This competition maintains the silo status quo. The physical ability to cross pollination will benefit not only poorly resourced schools but also richly resourced schools. To enable a physical capacity to cross pollination requires structural changes in how students enrol, how content is developed and how teachers perceive their roles.

The future of a school is reliant on its capacity to connect to the online world. Presently innovative individual teachers and students use leading edge communication technologies to develop individual learning environments. The starting point to a connected learning environment may be the individual however real gain will be made when schools become active knowledge nodes. The skills shortage issue is real. Attracting and retaining senior level specialist teachers is becoming more difficult. Departments of Education need to develop strategic plans to enable schools to enterprise as knowledge nodes or else schools will become irrelevant.