Ask how the education system in Canada is progressing and a tongue-in-cheek-- yet accurate -- answer might be that it's coming along in bits and bytes.

By now, most K-12 classrooms in Canada have at least one computer. Some have one for every student, and most schools are trying to move in that direction.

But while technology is becoming a bigger part of our education system, teachers are still grappling with the challenges of incorporating technology into their curriculum as well as with learning how to use it themselves.

To meet that challenge -- and to take advantage of a growing market -- some tech vendors, such as Intel and Microsoft, have developed training programs designed to give classroom teachers the skills they need to move from the old pen-and-paper model to one that relies heavily on software tools to get the job done.

Intel, for example, last year announced the Canadian launch of its Teach to the Future program, which the vendor says is part of a worldwide initiative to address the barriers teachers face in applying computer technology to their teaching.