Tablets for Schools

This month sees the launch of the Tablets for Schools website and the publication of stage 1 of our research report. Tablets for Schools is a CSR initiative led by Andrew Harrison, CEO at the Carphone Warehouse, and supported by Dixons, Samsung, Acer, Microsoft, eLearning Foundation, Sony, TalkTalk and 9ine amongst others. The research carried out 2011-12 followed 3 schools in Essex, Kent and Belfast that had introduced one-to-one tablets for pupils in September 2011 and included a ‘control’ school (where one-to-one tablets were not used) in Essex and two feeder primary schools. We followed the schools’ journey through their first year of tablet adoption, and carried out ethnography in class, and focus groups with pupils, teachers and parents, as well as in-depth interviews with school leadership. The report also includes a look at the global adoption of one-to-one tablets in education, and a literature review that considers the effects on pedagogy of one-to-one devices in schools.

Results suggest several benefits to learning including an increased motivation to learn; increased parental engagement; more efficient monitoring of progress between pupil and teacher; greater collaboration between teacher and pupil and between pupil and pupil. It appears that one-to-one Tablets offer a sense of inclusion that allow children, irrespective of socio-economic status or level of attainment, an opportunity to thrive through a new pedagogical model of pupil-led learning. Stage 2 of the research began in October, and includes 9 schools that have or are about to adopt one-to-one tablets in this academic year. Full details can be found on the Tablets for Schools website.