Skip to content
Skip to main content

About this free course

Download this course

Share this free course

Childhood in the digital age
Childhood in the digital age

Start this free course now. Just create an account and sign in. Enrol and complete the course for a free statement of participation or digital badge if available.

4.3 Tablets and digital applications

Described image
Figure 5 Tablet computers are particularly easy to use for all ages

Tablet computers might provide some of the devices that help a ‘flipped classroom’ operate effectively. Since their first appearance in 2010, tablet devices have been praised for their potential to enhance education, especially with young children. Yet there is still some ambivalence. While some educators enthusiastically embrace new media such as tablets for learning (e.g. Galloway, 2009), others argue that they have no place in young children’s lives (House, 2012).

In the UK, over 70 per cent of all primary and secondary schools now have tablet devices in their classrooms and 900,000 tablets are expected to be in schools by 2016. Young children in particular find them user-friendly research has found that their design presents very few technical challenges for young children, who quickly become enthusiastic and competent users (Lynch and Redpath, 2014).

The fusion of several technologies in tablet devices was seen by the researchers as creating a new ‘digital playground’ for children. Tablets have become increasingly portable, affordable and efficient, and they are specifically designed to accommodate a number of apps, many of which have a child-friendly, intuitive design for learning. For example, Neumann and Neumann (2013) describe tablets as tools for supporting reading and writing, with apps for alphabet matching, phonics games and stories.

In reality, the true potential of using tablets for educational learning remains largely untapped in many educational settings (Kucirkova, 2014). To explore their potential, we consider current findings on digital apps and e-books in the following section.

If you would like to, read the article Let’s chalk up some rules before ipads enter every classroom, by Natalia Kucirkova, 2014 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)] .