Going mobile

• Article 10 of 15
• EducationInvestor, February 2013

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However, according to Frog's Gareth Davies, there's a certain element of novelty behind the rush towards tablets, as well as "a lack of direction anywhere else", that's causing schools to invest in tablets. This means schools are buying devices, particularly iPads, without really being sure what they'll be used for. "They think buying the iPads will sort everything out but find out it doesn't. They can't get into their network, all the information in the pupils' apps they can't get to, they don't know how to manage them and so on."

As a result, BESA's survey showed that 85% of schools are worried about security and management, and 71% are concerned about the installation and purchase of apps. While there are options available for managing iPads in volume, companies such as Disgo can offer more complete packages of ready-managed, cheaper, Android-based tablets. "Android is much more suitable for education. We can be much more flexible in what we provide," says Luke Noonan. "Products have to be locked down and people can't mess with settings."

Avantis has similarly developed the LearnPad tablet-based ecosystem for schools, which as well as including an Android-based tablet, includes apps, an app store, management software, volume licensing options and more, all targeted at educational institutions. "When schools come to us, they don't know what they want from the tablet. They don't know what to do. They know they want the light, portable, battery-powered tablet tech but that's it. In a lot of cases, they've already bought iPads, but they don't know why, and they don't integrate well with ICT, content or the curriculum," says Avantis MD Nik Tuson.

But, the issue of what to actually use tablets for is one of their biggest problems. Geoff Mulgan, the chief executive of the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (Nesta), says that despite more than £1.4bn being spent on technology in schools in England in the past three years alone, "The emphasis is too often on shiny hardware rather than how it is to be used," adding that too often it is not being used to its "full promise and potential".

Elizabeth Burd, an IEEE senior member and professor in the School of Engineering and Computing Sciences at the University of Durham, has conducted research into the use of tablets. She says there is a missed opportunity in many schools to uses tablets for collaboration and to display pupils' work. Schools also have a tendency to have banks of tablets given out for a lesson then returned to racks, which limits the abilities of pupils to use the tablets in their own time for work. She also argues that it's the multimedia aspects of tablets that schools should concentrate on: "Text, especially to younger kids, is one of the least interesting aspects of the educational experience, so tablets are a very good way of engaging today's multimedia students."

Part of the problem, says Cognita's Joe Warren, is the time needed to locate good resources. "Not all devices are content rich. Even though there are lots of educational resources becoming available all the time, it requires lots of research time by the teaching team to find apps and resources that are suitable." He adds that the schools he works with would like more education-focused material available, "especially ebooks at A-level and that level".

Content provider ClickView's CEO Harvey Sanchez agrees. "Content is massively available - the challenge is relevancy, finding something that's specific to the curriculum. That's something very few companies do well."

Avantis's Nik Tuson adds that a lot of content is unavailable to many tablets, since iPhones and iPads can't play content created in the Flash format, which is a popular for educational videos and interactive apps on web sites. While Flash will die out in the long-term, having been discontinued for most applications by its creator, Adobe, in the short-term, the need of educational tablet users to access existing Flash content will remain.

Content creation by teachers is also an issue, says Cognita's Joe Warren: "A lot of teachers in the sciences just want them as recording devices: students can record with them and film each other doing experiments. If it's just a research tool for that and looking things up, teachers find that easy, but you can do that with anything." As a result, he would like to see more tools for creating lesson resources, as well as applications that children could explore, something that ACS Hillingdon International School is doing, according to its IT integrationist Sue Wakefield-Gray.

"Teachers are beginning to create curriculum content using the iBooks Author app which allows complex eBooks to be produced containing text, audio and video files. Students are also creating eBooks that allow them to showcase their own learning or to be shared with other classes such as storybooks for younger students or non-English."

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