I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. – Albert Einstein

Interestingly, it seems that it is the influx of Digital Natives into our schools that is providing real impetus for needed educational reform these days. Educational leaders, pressed to find ways to meet the unique needs and expectations of their 21rst century students, are working hard to implement ubiquitous computing programs designed to support the creative use of ICT throughout the students’ academic preparation. Thanks to their efforts and the visionary ground work laid by Seymour Papert and other educational pioneers like him, the old schoolhouse model is slowly giving way to new collaborative learning environments where teachers and students together decide what to learn, how to best create this new knowledge, and what technologies they should use to support the process.

Many of us have experienced first hand the magic that can happen in these exciting new technology-supported learning environments. Educators and students are being given opportunities to co-discover creative ways to leverage the unique skills, attitudes and interests of today’s digitally savvy learners in ways that maximize the potential that technology brings to the teaching-learning process. Research in neurobiology, social psychology, and learning science shows that integrated technology programs have the power to provide learning opportunities that vastly improve today’s students’ achievement, advance digital equity, and enhance teaching and learning across the disciplines. Information and Communication Technologies—always accessible but rarely the actual focus of learning—enable each member of the learning community to get connected, construct knowledge in personally meaningful ways, and demonstrate their intellectual competence and creativity using a variety of modalities.

Simply put, ICT provides the essential conditions in which Digital Natives learn.