IPads in teachers’ practices: The web of change

Research in learning technologies has often focused on the affordances of single technologies such as pcs, smartphones or interactive whiteboards (Meyer 2013). However, in most learning environments technologies do not stand alone but are embedded in activity structures and webs of materials that make up the learning activity (Fenwick, Edwards and Sawchuk 2011, Lawn and Grosvenor 2005, McGregor 2003, Nespor 2002). This is specifically relevant when the object of study is mobile learning, where devices are flexible and follow the learner in his/her shifting learning activities and needs (Burden et al. 2012, Melhuish & Falloon 2010, Traxler 2010). This paper focuses on the ways in which iPads as learning technologies become involved in sociomaterial practices that are emergent and improvisational and how this contributes to educational change. The paper proposes that the introduction of tablets into classrooms will enroll devices in networks of learning that establish new and significant relationships between learning technologies such as iPads, whiteboards, pcs as well as books, pens and paper. These relationships challenge the idea that iPads can act as isolated and unique actors in educational development.