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From a student’s perspective, technology provides access to media with which they are familiar. However, technology also provides more opportunities for distraction. Moreover, the ease with which information can be accessed has led to a loss of research skills, as the maxim has become ‘near enough is good enough’. Teachers are finding that even senior students need to be taught how to refine searches so that relevant information can be found. General searches typed into a search engine gives far too many responses and the fractured nature of Google searches can limit and skew research. Thus, thinking skills also need to be taught in regards to searching and finding information of relevance to a given task.

Of course, in this ‘in between’ space, students and teachers find that the physical task of writing is becoming increasingly difficult. More and more students are losing confidence in their ability to write, but examinations are still presented in written forms. This offers an added difficulty to students and also their teachers. The question is, how do teachers vest in students the skills they need to perform when the demands are pulling in another direction?

It is a strange in-between, hybrid space that teachers and their students occupy at present. There is a feeling of being somewhat betwixt and between. This feeling is exacerbated by two other factors. Some schools are embracing the newest technologies and others are lagging behind. Thus the experience of students is disparate between schools. The ‘haves’ are getting a different experience to the ‘have-nots’.

Also, the issue of how to teach in the best way to adapt to change, is tricky. Teachers may not be comfortable with the pace of change and can find themselves having to reinvent how they teach for fear of their skills becoming quickly redundant. Digital changes have thrown settled teaching and learning systems into a state of divide.