One hopes that tablet technologies will get cheaper, along with bandwidth, so that the government will be able to source the technology.

State schools cannot purchase the technology unless the Department of Basic Education approves a range of preselected tablets, as well as online textbooks.

The key issue is that suppliers actively create a market for online digital content, as with textbooks, as quickly as possible.

In my view, textbook publishers should form partnerships with tablet developers to create a competitive market for state procurement.

It is likely that textbook publishers and other learning-content providers will also need to look to intermediary partners for software to allow content to be viewed on a range of devices.

Cellphones' key limitation (in most models) is that they cannot output digitised data to a TV. This will change and low-end smart phones and digital televisions will allow TV screens to play a key role in home learning.