Good software is vitally important, but it is not an end product. Dr Bain cites a package called Inspiration, widely used in the US and also in Australia. In the hands of a teacher who knows about visual learning and about how to build semantic maps and how to develop organisers for students, it is a wonderful tool, he says. But, alone, it is just another nice way to draw circles and boxes and link them together. Combine it with a teacher and it is very powerful.
Good technologies bring greater capacity to teachers.
Software needs to be open-ended, he says. Then it doesn't work. The need is to increase capacity without being so prescriptive that people feel that what they have is oppressive and restrictive. Software, not the boxes and wire, is the important bit, he says. If you build a thoughtful software architecture in school and you are doing innovative things, people will rededicate themselves to innovation every time they use it.