If you've got kids you'll know how easy it is to handover your iPad to your child in exchange for ten minutes. No wonder they're growing up loving everything about the smartphone interface. And if your nana has ever said the words 'I don't want a mobile phone, the buttons are too fiddly dear' you'll find she soon changes her tune when she gets a smartphone in her hands.

Touch technology, the kind you find on your iPhone, Android or iPad is not only a doddle to use; it's making technology easier and more accessible to everyone, from the very young to the very old. I mean, Apple may not directly market its tablet as a toy, but the iPad 2 is now happily sitting on the shelves of Toys R Us in the United States and soon will be in the UK.

Hang on a minute, why hasn't the Dynabook been invented yet?

Well back in 1968, Alan Kay wrote about the Dynabook, 'a personal computer for children of all ages'.  It would have all the features of a contemporary laptop or tablet but, importantly it would introduce children to digital media. This may be the earliest idea of mobile learning but today's tech still falls short of Kay's ultimate vision if only because the key software and educational content are missing.

Surely we're getting close?

We seem to be, and many teaching professionals believe the iPad is the closest thing. It might finally be the device that takes education into a future where one-to-many learning becomes a thing of the past. Only to be replaced by one-to-one always-on learning, the kind that is tailored to the unique needs and curiosities of an individual? Now, wouldn't that be good.

The iPad's pricing, design, operating system, App Store's specialized apps have all led to its success but its ease of use, especially with kids, is the real story. The touchscreen interface is the most tactile, most intuitive interface there is, period. The awkward mouse is gone and you can now home in on the action with natural hand movements - flicking, swiping, drawing, magnifying and so on.

Interestingly, whilst some of us familiar with the mouse have moaned about the lack of one, the digital natives have a different outlook. Pre school kids are picking up the iPad touch interface as naturally as their Farley's rusk. In fact an Ad Age article, How the iPad Became Child's Play, stated that those as young as 18 months were now attempting to interact with the TV as if it were a touchscreen too!

Today's teachers are clearly voicing the need for learning to be more contextual and engaging beyond the blackboard and the limitations of the digital whiteboard. There are loads of ways in which the iPad can be used to support learning:

Reading - Students can load textbooks - the iPad's Book Store is already beating Amazon's Kindle according to Student Monitor in March 2010 - and research subjects on the internet.

Publishing - Teachers can design and publish learning material, video-based training, deliver presentations and projects to the class.

Presenting - The iPad can act as a whiteboard to support classroom instruction and display HD video and online content. It's easy to connect it up to a monitor to mirror on screen content.

Organisation - Students can manage class timetables and homework and it's lightweight and portable.

There's no doubt that the iPad has taken personal computing to the next level enabling a host of activities such as referencing, collaborating, and creating content. Some of the early problems with the iPad, like the absence of a camera have been dealt with in iPad2 and the virtual classroom concept is well on its way to becoming a reality.

So, is the iPad the new Dynabook? Will it ever be?

Well I guess that depends on what we choose to do with the available technology. If we develop the key software and add in the educational content we're missing, why not? It's time to get our heads together, to collaborate and make the necessary changes.