Nataša Jeras, Osnovna šola Šmartno pod Šmarno goro

This school year we have started applying tablets in classroom use as a part of a nationalpilot project entitled Introducing e-learning contents and e-services. I was curious whether tablets can be a useful tool and can thus be effectively incorporated in classroom use or should  they be regarded as another novelty which will eventually turn out to be an obstacle in the teaching process rather than its advantage. I have to admit that my 4^th graders quickly got a grasp of basic tablet operations. We have set some clear rules regarding the way the tablets should be used since it is well-known that pupils tend to confuse ICT tools with gadgets which allow them to play games. I have usedtablets with different learning strategies such as taking photos, recording experiments and dialogues, solving quizzes (using aplication Brez knjige). I have also used them for checking the pupils’ progress during the lesson, making posters, solving worksheets (the students had to browse for specific information in e-student books), as a notepad (the students had to complete and compare notes with their classmates) or for regular progress checks using application Kliker. The pupils were also able to evaluate each other’s assignments on Internet forum in my interactive classroom. Using tablets in the classroom makes it much easier to differentiate the teaching process so that it suits the needs of individual pupils. I have discovered that tablets are not an obstacle in any way but are rather a very helpful tool for promoting different learning strategies. However, at this stage of the project, it is premature to make assumptions that tablets generally raise the pupils level of knowledge.