It could be like any other chemistry class for Leaving Cert pupils at St Fintina's post-primary school in Longwood. But these students are perhaps unique: they have a virtual teacher.

The chemistry pupils attend lessons at the Meath school by watching chemistry classes which are taking place simultaneously in another local school.

There are two classrooms, but just one real life teacher.

The St Fintina's pupils can see and hear their teacher Ruth Smith on screen via a webcam, and she can see and hear them. From her own classroom in Dunshaughlin Community College she can supervise pupils a few miles away in Longwood.

The two schools which are under the umbrella the Meath Vocational Education Committee are at the forefront of a hi-tech revolution that will transform education in the coming decades.

The Meath VEC have been chosen as innovation mentors by Microsoft. Many of the innovations were introduced at Dunshaughlin Community College, but are now used at the other VEC schools in the county. Last month, the Meath VEC was chosen as one of only 12 global mentors at the Worldwide Innovation Education Forum organised by Microsoft in Brazil. The forum showed how the IT revolution is set to change teaching and education for ever.

Nationally, the government last month acknowledged the importance of new technology in schools when it pledged €150m towards providing laptops.

The Meath VEC schools are years ahead of the government in introducing computers into classrooms. Every classroom has a teaching laptop with a digital projector, but that is really just the start of the education revolution.

At St Fintina's, every student in first year now has a laptop. The students rent the computers for €100 per year, a fee which is paid by parents.

The payment for laptops by parents could eventually be the model followed by Irish schools in the future, with poorer parents compensated in the same way that they are currently given allowances for textbooks.

Parents are unlikely to welcome the initial extra cost, but as the cost of laptops drops this will be offset by savings on text books.

At Longwood, the first-year students have text books in four subjects -- Irish, history, geography and science -- loaded onto their laptops. So, they do n't have to lug around these books in their bags.

The concept of technology in the classroom used to be based around the idea of a computer lab. Every so often, pupils traipse into the lab for a few minutes to tap away on a keyboard.

In the most technologically-advanced schools computers are embedded into the learning process so that they are used in every classroom by every pupil.

There will soon be a big demand for online subject material available on computer that is tailor-made for the Junior and Leaving Certs.

Seamus Ryan, education officer of the Meath VEC, says there will be a radical change in the type of course material used by pupils.

"Once the text books move on to computers, there is potential for all sorts of innovations, such as the use of animations and film.

"We are moving from a situation where you had a teacher teaching at the head of a class to one where children learn in a different way. They have more control. It has the potential to engage kids much more.

"If you are teaching the poetry of TS Eliot you can have TS Eliot reading one of his poems. In geography you can call up a map of anywhere in the world on Google Maps."

It may be too early to assess the benefits of laptops for all. But initial findings suggest that the greater engagement of pupils through computer use improves academic results.

At Dunshaughlin community college, Junior Cert maths higher level results have tended to be way ahead of the national average since the introduction of the hi-tech classroom. A pilot project at St Aidan's Community School in Tallaght found that giving each pupil a laptop improved exam results and rates of attendance.

Overall computer use in Irish schools is patchy. The OECD Programme for International Assessment in 2006 found that 30pc of Irish 15-year-olds never used computers in schools.

Education Minister Batt O'Keeffe has admitted the €150m investment in school laptops announced last month is merely playing 'catch-up' with other countries which have 'leapfrogged' us in investment. In Portugal, every child is being given a laptop for school.

They may be seen as an essential requirement on the road to our Smart Economy nirvana, but throwing laptops into schools will have little positive effect without proper broadband connections and training of teachers to use computers effectively. The general secretary of the INTO, Sheila Nunan, has said: "Putting a laptop into a school with no broadband is the same as giving someone a car without any roads." Computer engineering lecturer Prof Eamonn McQuade of the University of Limerick supports the increased use of computers. But he also believes Computer Studies should be introduced as a core subject.

"It is not just a matter of teaching pupils how to use computers. They also need to understand how they work.

"An actual Computers Studies course would encourage innovation. Students can learn how to design their own games or websites within a relatively short space of time, and pick up many useful computing concepts," added Prof McQuade.

Irish Independent