It’s an ever familiar story in 2018. A child comes home from their day at school and casually asks their parent, “Can I go on my iPad now?”.

For many adults growing up this would have been far from an option. Instead, playing in gravel or dirt in your back garden, or using the time to play with physical toys or draw a picture, or craft. But nowadays, in the midst of a digital era, with social media and ‘all things computerised’ on the rise, this is pretty much an everyday occurrence.

Many parents are somewhat opposed to allowing their child so much “free” time on their tablets or computers. They believe that they are missing out on the real world, or worry that they are becoming more aggressive, or more dependent on them. You also hear whispers in the press of how too much screen time can be bad for your health. So, with this in mind, parents can be faced with quite a dilemma. There are lots of articles on the pro’s and con’s of tablet usage, but parents themselves are ultimately held responsible for how they deal with this issue. Risk potentially alienating their child from society in general by not allowing them time on their devices, or letting them explore these devices – but at what cost? Either way it can be a struggle for parents to know just what the right answer is, and explain this to their youngster, who is surrounded by other children whose parents may feel differently.

As educational institutes explore the possibilities of using digital technology and tablets in school and colleges, this opens up more questions for parents. But also more opportunities for learning. There are many arguments, articles and research on how best to manage tablet use within schools. How do teachers use them to their best advantage? How do schools deal with maintaining and keeping the devices safe? How do they ensure distribution of devices?

There are other questions too. Should we be encouraging use of tablets and Chromebooks inside of schools to enable parents to be confident that if they do not allow or restrict digital time outside of school hours, their children will still have access to the same resources and develop the same understanding and skills that any other child will develop?

Some experts predict many existing job roles will be automated within the next 30 years, and the robots are already taking over. Others believe humans will find themselves working side by side with robots, rather than being replaced by them. Whichever way you look at it, the predications are that automation could displace 22.7 million jobs by 2025*. This equates to a job loss of 16% between 2015 and 2025. (See article here for more information: http://www.computerweekly.com/opinion/Robots-will-transform-not-replace-human-work).

This means the children of today will have to be training for different job roles than existed in the past. This shift in job specifics means our children must be equipped to deal with this change and have the skills necessary to embrace it or fall behind.

At LocknCharge we have many education establishments using our storage and charging carts. And it appears from the many schools we speak to one of the main challenges with digital devices is management.

Many of these establishments, with our help, have gone on to successfully deliver charging stations which enable them to get the best from their digital devices in class, whilst not impacting negatively on other areas of schooling. There is no doubt that a mix of both traditional learning and digital learning is now becoming commonplace throughout the education industry. And whether we are a fan or not, it is a topic that does not seem to be going away.

For more information about LocknCharge mobile device security and storage stations, click here.