Russell Prue has done many things to promote the use of computers in education, and that includes standing on a stage wearing a pair of pyjamas whilst playing the role of a school boy working at home on his PC. What is more, Prince Charles was among those in the audience.

Mr Prue -a big man, with a big voice and an even bigger laugh - is chief product evangelist for RM, the leading supplier of information and communications technology (ICT) to UK education.

Despite his title, Mr Prue is not a salesman: "I see my role as a strategic adviser who helps those in influential positions think about policies for ICT and education. I put forward RM's view on where the technology is heading, but I'm not in the business of selling our products," he says. Mr Prue regularly speaks to government ministers, civil servants, educational advisers and teachers.

Mr Prue was born in Oxford in 1964, and despite leaving school with three A Levels decided not to attend university. Instead, he had a variety of jobs which included being a disc-jockey, running a sports club and acting as a tour guide on open-top buses around Oxford. In 1985, he joined RM (then known as Research Machines) as a temporary employee in the purchasing department.

Founded in 1973 by two Oxford graduates, Mike Fischer and Mike O'Regan, Oxford-based RM has grown into a company with more than 1400 employees. Its turnover for the fiscal year 1999 was £162.2m, with operating profits of £11.7m.

But when Mr Prue joined the company it had just launched its first proprietary-based PCs into the growing schools computer market.

Four years later, RM adopted the IBM-compatible PC platform, and today, RM provides software, support and services to schools and higher education institutions. It is also an education internet service provider - its service, Internet for Learning, connects more than a quarter of all UK schools to the internet.

Memorable presentations

Mr Prue later joined RM on a permanent basis and moved on to the sales desk, where he was soon involved in making presentations to clients. "I developed my own style of presentation and discovered that if you can entertain people, they are more likely to listen to your message."

Anyone who has ever seen Mr Prue in action will attest to the fact that his performances are often memorable.

The UK government plans to spend £1.7bn on technology and learning in England and Wales over a five-year period, starting from 1997, but some see this as a leap of faith in ICT, as no large-scale study has ever provided the compelling evidence that ICT makes a difference to learning or teaching.

"I agree with that," he says, "but I also think there's plenty of anecdotal evidence that ICT does work. There are many teachers who will tell you that ICT brings pupils into school early, makes then want to stay on after the school day ends, motivates them and helps them focus their attention."

Mr Prue says the school's attitude makes a big difference on the impact of ICT in a classroom: "One school is using e-mail to motivate under-achieving boys, but another restricts pupils' use of it because they're afraid that they will write rude things. Pupils have been writing rude things on paper for years."

Education is becoming more pupil-centric rather than classroom-centric, says Mr Prue. "Pupils no longer have to go into a classroom to learn, and the internet has played a large part in that. And technology means we can offer subjects that used to be uneconomic to run, such as Latin.

"Systems such as e-mail and video conferencing mean you can bring together groups of pupils from different schools for their lessons."

But as more learning takes place on home PCs, isn't there a danger of a "digital divide?" "It's one of those media buzzwords. What we're talking about are the haves and have-nots, and that's always been the case, whether it's been books, televisions or VCRs. But there are many technologies that can help bridge the ICT gap," says Mr Prue.

One of these is digital television: "On my digital TV, I can surf the net, send e-mails and access a wider learning community. You've got cable and ADSL [a high-speed digital telephone service] rolling out, which will provide fast internet access for many homes."

Games consoles such as Sega's Dreamcast and Sony's PlayStation2 could also be used for home learning: "Two-thirds of UK 14-year-olds have a games console in their bedrooms. Many of these consoles can link up to the net, so why not use them for accessing the school's network?" RM has shown how the Dreamcast console could be used this way.

The growth of online services poses some problems for teachers, including the issue of plagiarism: "It's never been easier to download a 5,000-word essay and try to pass it off as your own," says Mr Prue. RM has developed a concept product, Copy Cat, which uses intelligent software on an internet server to detect plagiarised materials. RM also offers managed services to educational institutions, which involves installing, maintaining and managing a school's ICT network.

"Using ICT in a classroom is vastly different from using it in a corporate environment. If you trashed your company's database it would be a sackable offence, but some pupils see this as a challenge. So you have to develop ICT systems that can survive in a school, and at the same time, provide pupils with the ICT skills that can be transfered to the world of work."