Step into a modern classroom and the impact IT has made is obvious – ­ the blackboard is now a relic of a bygone era. But while technology has become a great tool for communication, collaboration and administration within education, many experts now argue that its potential to improve and accelerate individual learning has not been properly exploited.

For some, technology has opened up new avenues to engage with students. At Stockport College, 500 hairdressing students have recently been supplied with T-Mobile Vario III Windows Mobile smartphones. These are used to access intranet content through the college’s virtual private network (VPN) and to email peers and tutors.

“It was intended for students who could not access other learning materials, for instance when they are travelling to assignments or when they are on work placements,” says Stockport College project manager Amira Thorn.

Despite such innovations, there is concern that more could be done. A recent report from Becta, the government agency charged with improving IT in education, concluded that while the use of technology in education is increasing, many schools are still not using it to its full potential.

Part of the problem is that much of today’s e-learning infrastructure is ill suited to education, says Itiel Dror, senior lecturer at the University of Southampton’s department of psychology.

He says that today’s computer-based learning techniques are largely ineffective because they were developed in isolation and do not take cognitive learning into account.

“There is a missing link today between computing and how the human brain works. E-learning based around gaming and interactive video, for example, has failed to deliver,” he says. “Technology is driving learning and that is wrong – ­ it should be the other way around.”

David Cavallo, co-head of MIT Lab’s Future of Learning group, which focuses on the design and implementation of new learning environments, says schools should use computers as a collaboration tool rather than simply as a means to access information.

“What the computer gives us that other formats do not is the tools to have an interactive experience. You can engage in real investigations through a laptop, for example, aggregating data from region to region and extending it to other countries,” says Cavallo.

Working this way can make learning for younger students more akin to what is seen in universities, where teachers provide advice rather than simply information, an approach that can yield incredibly different results, says Cavallo.

“For most children, school is not a wonderful experience. They tend to focus more on the information rather than the knowledge side. As researchers, we should aim to help them engage with working projects of this type,” he says.

“Engaging them in a more rigorous way of learning is the key to real change and achievement, not just by patting them on the head and saying ‘good kid’, but engaging them as thinking individuals.”

Cavallo knows there are substantial obstacles to overcome, not just in terms of funding and distributing appropriate computers, but changing entrenched attitudes to learning processes and promoting innovative software development to take advantage of this new approach.

“It is a chicken and egg situation right now because software developers will not build new applications until new devices are there, but that will change,” he says.

“There also needs to be institutional change, but it takes just one early adopter to pick it up to show there is a better way of spreading ideas.”

Though Dror’s theories about integrating cognitive learning techniques into software were greeted with scepticism by application developers at the Association for Learning Technology conference in Leeds this year, he says software companies do not necessarily have to acquire new skills to achieve the desired effect.

Nor are the benefits limited to learning software ­ – other interactive IT systems, such as security tools, can benefit from a cognitive approach.

“Developers do not need new technology or skills, just the direction to use the ones they have in a better way. Nor do they need cognitive people as part of their team, but just to work with people and open up e-learning,” says Dror.

Dror has worked with a number of organisations looking to improve their e-learning practices. The US Air Force, for example, managed to improve airmen’s ability to identify aircraft. By making variations between aircraft more pronounced in simulations, airmen became better able to identify planes in real-world tests.