iPads as Placed Resources: Forging Community in Online and Offline Spaces

The article focuses on the notion of tablet technologies as placed resources (Prinsloo, 2005; Prinsloo & Rowsell, 2012) by exploring how an international research project in Australia, Canada, and the United States forged community through online spaces. There is a tendency in media and in literature to romanticize technologies like iPads as a panacea, as an answer to the challenge of 21st century literacy education. Prinsloo’s notion of new technologies as placed resources is helpful to contextualize where, how, when, and in what ways these networked artifacts (Pahl & Rowsell, 2010) can be used and understood.