The Fluid Materiality of Tablets: Examining ‘the iPad Multiple’ in a Primary Classroom

This chapter explores interactions between children and iPads in a primary classroom in England. Focusing on iPads as artefacts rather than on use of specific apps, it highlights the ‘fluid materiality’ of iPads, which become different things as they are ‘actor-enabled’ within a mess of bodies, texts and other objects. It explores how interactions between bodies and devices are significant to the different ways children take up iPads. Drawing on Law’s (2008) work on complexity, it asks What does a tablet ‘become’ in a classroom? And what kinds of relationships and meaning-making opportunities are associated with its use?

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