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Through observing the use of iPhone and iPad by a child between the ages of two and four years and a half, this study presents accounts on the child’s use of and interaction with these devices, as well as her interaction with the physical environment.

Unstructured, naturalistic observation was employed in this study. The study is grounded in theories of user engagement with digital and physical objects.

A child’s interaction with touch-based devices does not deter the child from engaging effectively with the physical environment or from activities centered on creativity and interpersonal engagement. A child is able to move back and forth seamlessly between the physical and digital environments.

Findings from this study could help parents, educators, and system designers understand why and how toddlers and preschoolers use and engage with touch-based devices, as well as the kind of tasks they perform.

Studies of toddlers’ or preschoolers’ information behavior and interaction with touch-based devices are scarce. Children born toward the end of the first decade of the twenty-first century are growing up with a propensity to using touch-based devices. This study provides a framework for effective usage of such devices while ensuring all-round cognitive and physical development of the child.

Mobile devices, through their capacity to enable anytime-anywhere learning as well as capture, annotate and share multimedia, offer entirely new ways for students to learn. This chapter provides review of mobile learning with a particular focus on learning design. First various definitions and characteristics of mobile learning are examined in order to establish a common understanding of its boundaries and meaning. Example uses of mobile learning in schools and higher education are described as a way to provide a more concrete understanding of design possibilities. Benefits of mobile learning are unpacked, as distilled from the literature, including the ability to provide flexible, accessible, authentic, personalized, ubiquitous and seamless learning. Mobile learning issues are also examined, including technical problems, cognitive load issues, distraction, equity and safety. A primary school science and a university pre-service teacher education vignette are described so as to offer a more in-depth illustration of what mobile learning can look like and achieve in practice. Finally, mobile learning research findings and observations are synthesized into recommendations, to inform and guide evidence-based mobile learning design practices. Opportunities for future research and investigation are also discussed.

Purpose – Describes the various ways mobile devices are becoming part of the 21st century classroom and how best practices of reading instruction are applied to the use of these devices to support struggling readers.Design/methodology/approach – Situates mobile devices within the framework of other information and communication technologies (ICTs), especially as related to struggling readers. Following that discussion, uses of various mobile devices are addressed based on the learning/reading task rather than a specific device.Findings – Uses of mobile devices in the classroom often build on or simply “digitize” traditional reading/learning strategies. Other implementations of the devices can take students beyond such basic approaches to engage them in multimedia and New Literacies to create their own texts and multimedia projects that enhance reading skills rather than just consume them.Research limitations/implications – The field of mobile devices in the classroom is quite new and extremely fluid. It is certain that there are other great applications and strategies being implemented in schools all over the world. More research to gain further understandings is needed.Practical implications – While obviously not exhaustive, this chapter offers instructors and researchers an opportunity to become aware of the issues related to mobile devices in the classroom and to launch their own exploration of this field.Originality/value of paper – It is hoped that instructors and researchers will be inspired to try out some of the strategies and/or devices discussed and find even more inventive ways to positively impact learning for their students.

Changes in digital communication technologies have impacted on society so rapidly that educational researchers, policy makers and teachers are challenged by the application of these changes for curriculum design, pedagogy and assessment. The multimedia facilities of digital technologies, particularly mobile hand held devices and touch pads, encourage the processing of several modes simultaneously. Thus the traditional concept of literacy as reading and writing has changed as these rarely occur in isolation within digital communication. Many students are engaged in more sophisticated use of technologies outside school than they experience at school. Moreover, participation in gaming and social networking has created significant social and cultural change.

At the same time there have been many initiatives in classrooms to adapt to the learning potential of new technologies with schools introducing laptops, iPads, or students’ own devices. While issues such as pedagogy and equity offer challenges there are new and exciting ways forward for literacy education in an inclusive learning environment. This chapter will examine attempts to re-define literacy with theories such as ‘multiliteracies’, ‘multimodality’ and ‘new literacies’. These have developed to explain the changes in communication and to offer educators ways to balance the incorporation of new modes of communication with those skills of reading and writing that are seen as core for a literate person.

This chapter explores ways that tablet devices can be used to support the inclusion of students with disability in inclusive classrooms. A short description of the evidence of efficacy of using tablets to support students with disability is provided. Ways to use tablet devices to support students with disability in the areas of communication, academics, organisation and social emotional skills to support their inclusion in mainstream classrooms are addressed. Lastly, barriers to using tablets to support students with disability in inclusive classrooms are described and ways to remove these barriers are suggested.

A pressing educational concern is how to provide effective education for the growing population of dual language learners (DLL) in early childhood settings. Given the robust findings that family involvement promotes children’s academic success as well as recognition of parents’ “funds of knowledge,” one pathway to provide a culturally and linguistically responsive classroom environment for DLLs is to form collaborative relationships between parents and teachers of DLLs. The purpose of this chapter is to describe Project TAPP (Teachers and Parents as Partners), a community of practice (CoP) composed of parents and teachers of preschool dual language learners. The chapter describes the framework of Project TAPP, findings related to participation, and lessons learned.

As a company that has continuously achieved business innovation, Apple in the United States has successfully applied strategic knowledge creation to produce a series of products that integrate various digital devices as well as diverse contents and applications, such as the iPod, iPhone, and iPad, based on a corporate vision of a digital hub concept. At the same time, the redefining of corporate boundaries that expanded Apple’s business in a horizontal direction from the Macintosh PC business to the delivery of music, smartphones, and tablets is also an indication of the evolution of a corporate vision involving Apple’s strategic transformation. This chapter presents the strategic and creative processes that enabled practitioners, including the late Steve Jobs, to demonstrate “strategic innovation capability” by “holistic leadership” at every level of management at Apple and successfully achieve a business ecosystem strategy through “creative collaboration” across diverse boundaries within and outside the company.