I've always been a great advocate of what I call "authentic" learning, ie giving pupils a reason to actually do something. (I think that stems from my time at school, when I was forced to do mathematical exercises ad nauseum with no perceptible point to them!)
A couple of years ago I wrote a short series of articles called "7 ways to make IT real". As it happens, there were 8 articles in that series, thereby proving that all those years of my being made to do maths exercises were a complete waste of time....
I think the articles are still relevant, so here is the link to them. Enjoy!