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There is no area of human endeavour that is less collaborative than education. Teaching and lecturing are largely lone wolf activities in classrooms.

Surely it’s our schools and universities, not young people, who need to be dragged into the 21st century.

Creative people tend to struggle somewhat at school where academic subjects and exams brand them as failures.

An infographic developed by StudyBlue, a mobile and online study service for students, demonstrates several benefits for students who power-up their smartphones for study sessions.

So how did I learn all of the technology I use in my instruction and in my online collaborations with teachers? I learned it on my own.

So, I started using the internet to learn how to do what I wanted to do – blog, make videos, make podcasts, publish student work, etc. Of course it wasn’t easy, but I wanted to learn it so I did. (That is key – my learning was self-directed.)

are we independent learners?

How on earth does a teacher create an engaging lesson for 32 different learners, especially when each learner carries his own individualized learning style? It’s at this very point that tablet integration gets exciting.

When the correct apps are applied to the appropriate subject on a creative touchable interface, learners are free to work at different paces, in the same class and with the same teacher. The teacher then becomes free to work with the different ability groups, and to focus on developing the day’s curriculum.

I’m hoping that teachers continue to welcome the forthcoming opportunities in digital education. The tablet interface and app potential is a great step forward for the brilliant educators across the world.

Professional development becomes far more valuable when it searches beyond the simple nuts and bolts of technical use and instead encourages teachers to disrupt the traditional flow of education - to dabble, experiment and re-imagine how that technology can be used to sculpt new educational horizons.

10 BYOD Classroom Experiments (and What We’ve Learned From Them So Far)

What can Holy Trinity teach us? That when it comes to BYOD, it pays not to be overly strict with how the devices can be used in the class, as greater freedom allows teachers to work with students to develop the best uses for technology for their subject matter and teaching style.

BYOD requires much more than just changing tech policies and can sometimes mean overhauling the curriculum and spending money training teachers, though it does help students create a more personal and memorable learning experience.

We need, as parents, to help our children develop the values and the resilience and the capacity to engage with the online world unassisted.

With the huge potential that Information and communication technology has to offer for teaching and learning also comes a matching potential for distraction, illicit and inappropriate activity, and poor judgement.

The teacher holds a cornerstone role in the development of understanding, the appreciation of culture and diversity, and the formation of the moral and ethical basis that, like the cornerstone of a building, provides a strong and stable foundation for life in both the real and virtual world they co-inhabit.

The most salient lessons are not learned by avoidance but by facing you action, its impact, and the consequences.

"Today's adolescents develop an accelerator a long time before they can steer and brake."

One-to-one professional development often begins with examining teaching methodology and exploring how this can be changed in order to begin to include the use of the technology to create a profounder, more engaging, more creative learning experience. This usually includes some focus on new skills around creative and critical thinking, connecting ideas, and communicating and collaborating with a variety of people, ranging from local students to experts from around the world.

It can be difficult to shift your role when all around you people are expecting and even evaluating you based on the old definition of what a teacher should be and do

change needs to be managed not just within the school walls, but within the school community and maybe the community at large.

As needs change over time, addressing them might mean switching devices (remaking the choice). As schools progress in their technology implementation, they may find that their needs have changed, and should not hesitate to change devices as their understanding of their students’ needs develops. This seasonal view of devices (rather than “device as school identity”) is essential to helping schools move forward, meet their current students’ needs, and keep the curriculum relevant and timely for the future. A focus on pedagogy and key technology skills will transfer from one device to another, making the shift easier; a focus on being a device expert, or mastering device specific mechanics, will not. Students will graduate into a world that will demand technological fluency, the ability to move and process information across various platforms and devices.