In Sweden, like in many other European countries, schools begin to equip their pupils with laptops or, even more common today, tablets. Each pupil having his or her own computer is commonly known as one-to-one. In Sweden, the first evaluation reports are published (Kroksmark, 2011; Tallvid; 2010) and the Unos-Uno-project in at Örebro University is studying how learning is affected out from several aspects (Grönlund et al., 2011; 2013), but the knowledge is still very limited both concerning teachers approaches to pupils with a continuous connection and pupils’ learning. Except for young children using the method ”write-to-read” developed by Arne Trageton in their reading and writing, there are no other measurable effects on learning (Grönlund et al. 2013). Reports from USA points at more motivated pupils (e.g. Berry & Wintle, 2009; Silvernail & Lane, 2004; Zucker, 2005), but without really discussion learning. According to Kroksmark (2011), a municipality working with one-to-one in secondary school during the period 2007-2010 has lowered their results since the start of the project. A common problem seems to be that decisions are made without asking teachers. In many cases they are supposed to find out how to use the laptops or tablets without any further training.
In our project, we follow all three lower secondary schools in a small municipality in the middle of Sweden, where there has been a discussion between the management and the teachers at the schools during the period of implementation of iPads to every pupil. A consulting society is contracted to give training according to the teachers needs.
The overall aim of the project is to look at didactical use. In a first step we focus on expectations from pupils and teachers. IPads have mainly been used in primary school, since it is usually considered that there is a need for more powerful devices and other type of programs in secondary schools. This makes this project extra interesting. The aim in this part of the project is to see to what extent the iPads are integrated in the activities in the classrooms and if there are any differences between subjects and also if the teacher’s attitude plays an important role.
The theoretical base stems from a sociocultural perspective on learning, taken into account the multimodal environment, which gives a greater variation of learning possibilities. Digital media are artefacts, which change the activity itself, and also how people act, communicate and think (Säljö, 2005). To analyse the view of the didactical use of the iPads, we have started out from a model developed by Angeli (2005) in order to assess to which extent student teachers in science used ICT in during their practice periods. In her model (or instrument as she calls it), there are four dimensions, which are assessed on a two-rating scale. The model will be slightly modified to fit our purpose, but these are Angeli’s dimension: (a) selection of appropriate topics to be taught with technology, (b) use of appropriate technology-supported representations and transformations of content, (c) use of technology to support teaching strategies, and (d) integration of computer activities with appropriate inquiry-based pedagogy in the classroom (ibid.). In this first part of the study, we cannot expect to use the complete model, but we have used the model as a starting point when looking at the views on the didactical use of digital technology.
