SMITHFIELD - Not so long ago, students in classrooms here gossiped and flirted by passing handwritten notes from desk to desk.

Now, they text.

So, school Supt. Robert O'Brien told a group of local educators and parents last week that the technological revolution - which suddenly has reached even pre-schoolers - is what they must keep in mind as they plan how Smithfield should go about teaching its children over the next five years.

O'Brien made his comments to a "strategic planning team" that met in five-hour sessions Jan. 18, 20 and 21 in Bryant University's Unistructure to hammer out a road map for education here over the foreseeable future.

The last time the school district held such a planning session was a decade ago, but learning today, where children have a world of information at their fingertips, is vastly different, O'Brien told some 30 community members selected by the School Department to help with the planning process.

To illustrate his point, O'Brien said even his toddler grandson is proficient with an iPad; "These are the types of students who will be coming to our kindergarten."

In fact, Assistant Supt. Bridget Morisseau rounded up a collection of iPads for inspection by any members of the group unfamiliar with some of the gadgets that are second nature to contemporary learners.

"This is the way our students are learning today, and it's very different from the way it was even six years ago," O'Brien said.

As an anthem for the group as it focused on the future, O'Brien reached back nearly half a century, showing a video Morisseau made of today's classroom activity backed by the strains of Bob Dylan's 1964 song, "The Times They Are a-Changin'."

The superintendent threw out a challenge to the group, saying that in five years, "I want Smithfield to provide the best education in the country."

Margaret Votta, a research specialist in the state Department of Education who served as the planning group's "facilitator," told the gathering that while Smithfield is already a well-performing school district, "that shouldn't be enough."

She said that in groups of five or six, the planners would examine the local district's strengths and weaknesses using a plethora of available information, identify core problems and discuss what is causing them, and set goals.

In coming months, similar planning groups will develop a specific "action plan" to reach the goals as the district implements a new Basic Education Plan mandated by the state calling for rigorous standards in areas including staff quality, leadership, curriculum, and self-evaluation.

O'Brien said one of the plan's goals is to establish accountability for school district progress or lack of it based on measurable information that is available from a variety of sources, including standardized testing and surveys.

Tracking performance will enable the district to compare progress in various areas so it is better able to identify where to deploy its financial resources, Votta said.

O'Brien told the group that the school district has made substantial progress in accomplishing goals set at the last planning session, in everything from improving readership levels, to technological upgrades, to making sure schools are safe, but that more needs to be done, including taking steps toward:

* Offering more professional development in technology "focused on student needs."

* Providing more opportunity for teachers to collaborate.

* Continuing the district's diversity committee and reviewing curriculum and programs.

* Establishing more course offerings for students.

* Increasing communication and improving outreach to the general public and the business community.

The three days of work resulted in a strategic plan that lists five overall goals:

* Value and promote a culture of teaching and learning excellence.

* Provide all students access to guaranteed and viable curricula that are clearly articulated, organized and sequenced.

* Provide flexible and student-centered programs and course offerings to develop successful global learners.

* Develop a communication system for distributing and receiving communication between school administration, teachers, staff, students, parents, and the general community.

* Integrate current and emerging technologies to promote teaching and learning excellence.