18 | ROUNDTABLE | PRIMARY AND SECONDARY
training such as learning how to use apps.
JR: Portable devices are heavily reliant on a fast broadband service and in a rural school such as mine, this just isn’t the case. Furthermore, where the school may have a good broadband connection, children’s homes may not and this compromises access and makes achievement outside of school inequitable. Unless pedagogical approaches and curriculum
are designed to accommodate such personal and autonomous learning as tablet use may manifest, then the benefits will not reach fruition. In my opinion, a 1:1 ‘vision’ may compel school leaders to have a very narrow view of learning and to dismiss other forms of teaching and learning in pursuit of the tablet-based classroom. Although I do not have the expertise to be certain,
I am under the impression that it is much more difficult to monitor what portable devices are used for particularly if they are taken out of a school seting. The benefit of autonomy and portability is at best balanced and at worse outweighed by the potential for a pupil to access harmful and inappropriate material or to use their device to propagate harm.
✥When choosing the tablet model, are schools considering all the options available to them, or are they simply opting for the most popular? Do you think there is enough variety?
NM: In my view schools are all considering their options carefully. It is a significant step to take. We trialled all available tablets before opting to focus our learning transformation project on iPads. We benefited from placing the focus not on the technical specs of the various tablets but on how their ecosystem could enhance teaching and learning. When you evaluate against those goals, the differences between the tablets become much clearer.
DR: There’s certainly enough variety – in fact many schools find it hard to choose the right device because there are so many choices to be made. The tough decisions are around offering a device that is best for the school, the pupil, the budget and the tasks it needs to do, whilst fulfilling the imagined desires of a technology and consumer tech-savvy school-age child. The right answer to tablet provision is not always the
most popular brand outside school. In fact, opting for the most popular tablet brand can be a short-sighted decision.
JR: I think that the iPad from Apple appears to be the ‘Holy Grail’ of tablets and that when one purchases another brand there is almost a sense of being a ‘second class’ citizen such is the power of the Apple image. I imagine that other more reasonably priced devices are equally as good as an iPad but don’t have the same kudos. I would be looking for a light, relatively robust device with appropriate functionality and a good warranty. In fact a less ‘fashionable’ brand would probably reduce the risk of theft or resale!
MY: In Tablet Academy’s experience, most schools opt for what they see as the most popular devices, taking their inspiration from other schools, or from the most recent marketing campaign they’ve received. There’s not enough awareness of what else is on offer, particularly from, say, Google or Microsoft for example.
✥E-safety has been a cause for concern in the past, what steps have we taken to reduce risk?
NH: Educators and IT administrators have learned from high-profile incidents in the past year where students had figured out how to circumvent security policies. Device manufacturers and enterprise mobility management vendors continue to work closely to enhance the security of 1:1 e-learning solutions. Schools are employing enterprise security advancements like geo-fencing policies and 'kiosk' mode to protect both
“The mobility of a device can enable learning both inside and outside of classrooms at an instant”
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