Listened to an Apple promo guy the other day - had some interesting points to make about how young people engage themselves with many 'inputs' at once - mobile phone, MP3 player, text messages, TV, homework, books, - and spoke about Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants. We oldies, apparently, are digital immigrants and the youngsters are digital natives. They learn differently - and it's not good or bad - it's just different. Their brains have developed differently because of their surroundings. They are learning in parallel, rather than in series; - they can concentrate even though they have many inputs. They can take in information from many sources at once and do several tasks at once.

I hope the pilot of the next plane I fly on pilots the plane with a logical and single-minded concentration. But I suppose it could help if a pilot can multi-task.

Anyway, Apple guy's point was that we need to change the way we teach! I've been on this jag for 30 years. Schools are so grey compared to the outside world - no wonder kids get bored.