Outside the classroom profound change has been occurring. We are living in a digital society. The ICT resources of the home far outstrip those of the average classroom. Digital technology is an everyday part of the students’ lives. Virtually every school is now fully networked, with Internet access from each classroom and the vast majority of the school’s administration and much of its communication is now operated through digital technology.

A major shortcoming has been the availability of digital teaching tools that all teaching staff are prepared to use integrally in their everyday teaching. Overcome that shortcoming and the whole school can change overnight.

The key is to get 100 percent of teachers using ICT integrally in their everyday teaching. Once that happens the total teaching staff begins to recognize the immense opportunities opened by the digital technology, their expectations grow very quickly and they in turn put pressure on the school to improve all of its other digital operations.

Interestingly this total teacher ICT usage has been achieved in schools using interactive whiteboards (IWBs) throughout the school. Those schools soon achieve digital take off and almost unknowingly start doing things very differently.

Even at this early stage one can see that the schools operating within a digital paradigm are:

• Networked

• Integrated operations

• Synergistic

• Predominantly using a set of convergent digital teaching tools

• Ever-evolving, ever changing

• Strongly focussed on enhancing teaching.

On the other hand these schools have:

• Immense untapped potential

• A set of ever-rising expectations

• Uncertainty about the future.

They give scant consideration to the implications of going digital, use technology only to replicate the ways of old and operate with few identified parameters.

While one can, and should, debate the features of the different paradigms the first step is to recognise the paradigm shift occurring and the second is to note the fundamentally different aspects of each paradigm. The networked, integrated digital paradigm is almost diametrically different from the discrete operations of the paper based paradigm.

Once a school goes digital it will, and needs to, operate differently. It will rightly continue to use the many, many good attributes of the traditional school, but in virtually every area, changes and refinements will be required, with new priorities established and old ways abandoned. For example quality teaching will always be quality teaching but the teachers in a digital school will need a sub-set of competencies very different from those in the paper-based school. Just think of the new skills you have had to acquire in the last five years, the competencies you would love to have, and those you’ll need ten years from now.

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