My four-year-old son arrived home from school yesterday and asked me if he could do some homework before dinner. While I struggled to reclaim my breath, he swept my iPad and stylus from my desk and opened up the Paper app. He told me he had to draw a picture of Father Christmas for a group project and would need to use my printer a little later. I have to confess that this isn't a rare occurrence. Even my 9-month-old daughter is starting to use basic apps on my iPhone.

Seeing how young children interact with technology amazes me. It's simply a media to be used, like a colouring book or a whiteboard. Fast forward a few years and you find teenagers using the same technology as a means of communication, consumption and productivity. Yet while children are quick to adopt to this new technology and the new opportunities it presents, others are not.

Talk to any teacher about the use of technology in the classroom and you're likely to begin a lengthy discussion with polarized views. Many teachers believe that technology actually hampers children's learning, especially their attention spans. In an app-centric and information rich ecosystem, some teachers believe that children are losing the ability to focus and maintain concentration.

There's certainly a wealth of information to support this view. Take a look at the latest research from the Pew Research Center or the broader brush strokes of Nicholas Carr to see some of the figures. Carr's 2008 article in The Atlantic on whether Google is making us stupid is still seen as a clarion call to those who want to limit children's access to technology.

Some schools are even imposing blanket restrictions on any use of technology. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley, the Waldorf School of the Peninsula is perhaps the most famous proponent of this approach. The school prohibits any screens in the classroom, believing them to inhibit creative thinking, movement, human interaction and attention spans. The school has used similar methods of teaching for over 100 years.

It's fascinating to note that many of the Waldorf's pupils have parents who work at Google, Apple and other such Silicon Valley luminaries. The CTO of eBay even sends his children here. It's impossible not to read this and wonder if these parents know something that the rest of us don't.

Does the use of technology in the classroom restrict mental development, hinder social skills and lead to less well-rounded individuals?

Looking at my own children, I can't believe that this is the case. I firmly believe that technology and a truly connected classroom presents schools and educational organisations with an incredible opportunity, one that we've never encountered before. For the first time, we have the tools to reassess how we educate, how we engage and how we develop the minds of future generations.

To harness the incredible potential of a connected classroom, we need to develop a new education ecosystem, one that adopts technology where appropriate and places it alongside other traditional tools. As an example, compare an iBook to a traditional textbook. The opportunity to bring topics to life through rich multi-media is enormous.

Yet this is only the start. Take a look at what companies such as Knewton are doing. They're making digital textbooks designed for connected devices and designed for the individual. Through the pupil's input, Knewton can identify how you learn and enable you to better tailor your studies accordingly. They can see if you study maths better in the morning or afternoon, if you're more productive before dinner or after and develop suitable learning plans.

Creating these individual paths to success is phenomenal. But the connected classroom promises even more than this, it promises opportunity. An opportunity to learn no matter where you are. An opportunity to exchange ideas, to work collaboratively. An opportunity to connect across borders, across cultures, across the world.

For people to refute the use of technology in schools is to say the system as it stands is good enough. But should children's education be good enough? Shouldn't it be the best it can be? Is the purpose of education to prepare students for exams or to prepare students to think, to communicate, to create, to share.

Do you believe that technology has given us an opportunity to redevelop the education ecosystem? Should technology be integrated into the classroom? Or are we creating a generation with short attention spans? Let me know what you think.