The arrival and rapid success of a piece of maintenance-free plastic kit called Keyboard Crazy has done a great deal to bolster what could be called the lo-tech end of the ICT spectrum.

Essentially, Keyboard Crazy is an oversize plastic free-standing qwerty keyboard with holes where the keys would go. Into the holes, children slot square tablets - upper and lower case - with the letters printed on them. By fitting the tablets into the right place, they learn to recognise the letters and to memorise their positions on the keyboard.

However, that is just the start. The real value of the game lies in the way that children can "type" words - picking up the tablets and putting them in the right spaces. This leads to competitive and co-operative games around spelling and grammar - for example a series of 10- minute sessions, pioneered by John Bell, a teacher at Admirals' Junior School in Thetford, Norfolk, called "Mental literacy."

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