Edtech is progressing at an incredible speed, and it can often be difficult to see what’s ahead. Dominic Norrish, group director of technology at United Learning takes a look at what we can expect for tablets and 1:1 learning.

Innovate My School asked me to write about ‘the classroom of 2017’ a while back, and I responded with a thousand words of wild speculation and unfounded assertion. It was a lot of fun to write, and when 2017 finally rolls around, what a laugh we shall all have (from astride our hover-fridges) at some of the stupider sentences. And apparently their appetite for the barely-credible knows no bounds – this time they want to know what the future holds for tablets in education…

There are amazing innovations being implemented into schools daily, but what are the downsides of this? As with Elliot Simmonds' piece on Friday, Shiny Things director Mat Peterson has some concerns about the expansion of edtech - namely, the lack of physical actions that these modernisations require.

While the use of devices in one-to-one classrooms is hugely beneficial to education, the potential impacts of abandoning handwriting in favour of keyboards have largely been overlooked. Early formative years are essential for sensorimotor development and a complete shift to computer-based teaching could be detrimental to a child’s learning.

New research from the Stanford University School of Medicine shows that areas of the human brain do become specialised for the specific recognition of numerals. Meanwhile, several studies have shown that the human brain's specialised ability to recognise letters and numbers is strengthened by sensorimotor experiences with those characters, specifically through handwriting practice.

Below you will find all of my iPad 100 posts covering everything you will need to know when investing in iPads for your school.

iPad in schools 101 – In the beginning http://buff.ly/TNmYa1

iPad in schools 102 – Why iPad? http://buff.ly/ZjYmuD

iPad in schools 103 – THE device http://buff.ly/TNnbdB

iPad in schools 104 – THE learning http://buff.ly/ZjYH0r

iPad in schools 105 – Workflow – How to save, work with multiple apps and share http://buff.ly/ZjYQkr

iPad in schools 106 – The importance of your infrastructure http://buff.ly/ZjYXwh

iPad in schools 107 – Why trialling is important http://buff.ly/TNnxRj

iPad in schools 108 – The importance of training & staff http://buff.ly/TNnF3o

iPad in schools 109 – Ways in which mirroring can take place http://buff.ly/TNnPYx

iPad in schools 110 – Stakeholders http://buff.ly/TNo31z

Photo credit: FHKE