Just when you thought it was safe.

Teachers today have brought computers out of the isolation of labs and into the main learning area of the classroom, enabling access to the web for their students on demand. Whatever the merits of the so-called Digital Education Revolution, we now have computers, notebooks or PCs owned by the school or students, in classrooms , in most cases now playing a vitally important role in teaching and learning. This revolution has been rather slow in coming – more of an evolution than a revolution; it's 20 years since some schools first made it compulsory for students to have a personal computer. As the Digital Education Evolution gradually picks up speed, the problem is that the functions of the computer are being taken over by the mobile phone. The mobile phone, of course, comes with additional features and these are introducing new challenges, some may even say threats, to current teaching modes. For example, the mobile phone can bypass the managed school network and can access sites and people that many teachers are unhappy about. As a result, this piece of technology is currently banned from many classrooms. The mobile phone challenge is also coming quickly, not like the introduction of computers into schools that has taken so long to become widespread. The prediction in a recent newsletter published by Gartner, 'the world's leading information technology research and advisory company,' is that 'by 2013, mobile phones will overtake PCs as the most common web access device worldwide .' How manageable is the traditional classroom going to be when all students have a mobile phone? Teachers are going to have to deal with more than a hidden book under the desk, or paper notes being passed around the classroom or students lapsing into daydreams. They'll now be dealing with a dynamic communication, entertainment and research device. For teachers, it's going to be harder to tame the mobile phone by making it fit into traditional classroom processes than has mostly been the case with computers. Just as our lifestyles have been transformed by the mobile phone, curriculum and pedagogy will also need to change to keep pace. Students who live by this new technology are not going to happily leave it outside the classroom. Teachers will have to adapt their instructional approaches, particularly those whose preference has been for didactic approaches. Mind you, it's not all bad news for teachers. Yes, mobile phones …