So who’s leading the way already?

“Canada is doing reasonably well on most indicators that we have, but the Nordic countries in Europe are at the frontier of education technology,” says Schleicher.

This shouldn’t come as a surprise: Scandinavia is not only creating some of the most innovative apps (from Vivino to King mobile games) but it is fast becoming a key player in digital finance, and we’ve already seen Sweden embrace eSports on its school curriculum, and record-breaking children’s coding classes in Norway.

One innovative Chinese programme that supports teachers has also caught Schleicher’s eye.

“Shanghai provides its teachers with an intelligent platform to share their lesson plans,” he explained.  “The more other teachers use your lessons, comment on your lessons, criticise them or improve them, the more status and respect you obtain as a teacher throughout the province.”

“At the end of the school year, your principal will not just ask you how well you taught the students in the classroom, but what contribution you made to Shanghai’s education system.”

“That’s about empowerment, about professional autonomy in a collaborative culture.”

Creating the schools of the future

We’ve already spoken to the British Gojimo founder George Burgess about how the UK education system must evolve. But where does Schleicher think will the world be in 10 years time?

“I hope we will use technology much more imaginatively to connect learners, and give learners a greater sense of belonging and engagement.”

“Technology should allow for deeper learning, and flexibility for more individual choices to accelerate learning, and to use out-of-school learning in effective and innovative ways.”

How to we achieve these dreams?

As in many evolving industries, big challenges lie ahead.

“We need to acknowledge that we are still light years away from reaping the benefits of technology in education,” says Schleicher.

“Schools simply haven’t become good enough at the kind of pedagogies that make the most of technology.”

“If students use smartphones to copy and paste answers to prefabricated questions from Google, then they are unlikely to become smarter: Teachers who want to ensure that students become smarter than a smartphone need to think harder about the instructional methods and learning environments they are using.”

“We are probably also overestimating the digital skills of both teachers and students,” Schleicher added.

“The real contributions ICT can make to teaching and learning have yet to be fully realised and exploited.”

If we ever want these dreams to be realised, we have to invest in our future. One of the best ways to do this is to invest in education technology.

The Education Technology Summit 2016 will take place at the Sheraton Centre, Toronto, Canada from Tuesday 5 April – Wednesday 6 April.