Fiction and Non-Fiction Adventures on Tablets: Open Doors and Open Hearts With Picture Books

The Digital Environments Within Primary Education

The rapidly changing field of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has affected the trends and concerns of the current primary educational system. Galloway et al. (2015) report on the tendency of schools to bring ICT media into the classroom in order to enhance a greater range of innovative teaching and learning approaches. Hal (2010) and Younie & Leask (2013) referred to the significant progression in the use of ICT in classrooms, within the schools in the UK, since computers made their initial appearance in its schools in the early 1980s. There has been a continuous development from the perspective of teachers’ knowledge and training in using ICT facilities as well as understanding that ICT media are important tools for enhancing teaching rather than replacing it. Thus, ICT has marked a turning point in the field of education. Caldwell and Bird (2015) argue that there is a rapidly growing evolvement of the use of technology in schools as new devices and tools have become available in recent years. As teachers began to exploit the possibilities for integrating media devices into learning practice with the iPad or tablet, the latter became the predominant device to enhance teaching and achieve successful learning (Galloway et al., 2015).

Although the iPad or the tablet was first introduced in the worldwide consumer environment as an individual tool, it has been successfully implemented in schools both as a pedagogical and as an administrative tool (Caldwell, 2015; Galloway et al., 2015). Hatchison et al. (2012) and Flewitt et al. (2014) argue that the iPad’s pedagogical development depends on the teacher’s ability to include and link it to their teaching process and curriculum. Thus, it is the pedagogy in the use of technological devices, including iPads and tablets that make the difference and forms and expands children’s learning and teachers’ teaching methods, rather than the tablets themselves.