A few of the differences seen at my school, that good teachers can turn into profound cultural shifts, even within a traditional teacher-directed classroom:

1. Teachers get a good chance to observe peer-instruction (and record it!) when they hand the pen over to kids. The UNDO function makes this less risky; the bright light makes it more prestigious for the child; pre-saved resources make it quick and easy to launch this situation.

2. Evaluation and registration can incorporate the recording of Teachers’ ad hoc writing. We can ‘raise the bar’ for collegial support. I expect to be surprised at how this transforms student teachers’ observation and prac experience.

3. Interrupted lessons are saved, and resumed at the next opportunity in exactly unchanged visual context, including ad hoc writing.

4. Absent students get to download a sequential recording of what was written in a lesson. (This was fantastic for our elite athletes in year 11-12.) We are still working out how this affects attitudes to attendance and in-person participation.

5. Mindmaps are easier to rearrange/restructure in software using a touch interface. Teachers with chalk rarely bother restructuring a mindmap, so are tempted to underuse or ‘lead’ contributions from students.

6. Zooming in/out on the work written during a lesson turns out to be very useful. What does a 4-page mathematical proof look like when you zoom out to one quarter scale? This also applies in map work and storyboarding.

7. Conversation skills are made explicit and modelled by the act of handing over the pen.

8. Learning handwriting. You know those kids who just can’t sit still long enough to do enough pencilled loops to get their hands to do it right? I was skeptical but then converted by seeing kids alternating gross-motor-scale letter formation with hand-writing scale work.

9. Peer cheers, meta-tasks and self-efficacy. It is pretty easy to put a child in the spotlight (erm, projector beam) doing something on the board with classmates calling instructions, corrections and praise; and then to save the session for real-time or accelerated playback … for the child to then post on the class web-page, import to a video or multimedia presentation, or project on parent’s day.