Tablets are not laptops...

Tablet Technologies and Stages of Adoption

Just had a question from a teacher asking which was the best keyboard to use with a tablet. That started me thinking about the stages of adoption that I had read about in the research literature for other digital educational technologies. The first stage of adoption–and the one that many people never get past–is the stage where the new technology is substituted for a preceding one. This is seen often when Interactive White Boards are dropped into classrooms. The IWB becomes in essence, a substitute for the chalkboard and the overhead projector. Without conscious effort and in many cases, specific training, many people remain at the stage 1, substitution level and continue using a very expensive chalkboard.

It occurred to me when the teacher asked about keyboards, that she wanted her new tablet to become a laptop substitute rather than to think about the tablet as an entirely different tool for performing different types of tasks.

I thought about how my use of the tablet has evolved over the past two or so years. I use my iPad a lot and there are some areas of overlap. I did for example, use it with a bluetooth keyboard to produce a presentation for a seminar I was in. This was a conscious decision on my part. I set out to research, create, and present this presentation completely from the tablet and the exercise was successful. It did however make me think that while the tablet worked fine in this instance, it wasn't the best tool for this particular task.

My teacher's question made me think carefully about the idea that a tablet is not a smartphone, it's not a laptop, it's not a desktop... it's a tablet. There are things that it does better than other devices in certain circumstances and there are some tasks for which it's just not well-suited. 

It is time to take my tablet use to the next stage of adoption.