The following article was published in Teach Secondary magazine, before Covid-19 barged its way onto the scene. I still think everything I’ve written here is relevant, though I would, for obvious reasons, emphasise the need to clean them well, and frequently.
I use gloves these days when using a public touchscreen! Gloves, by Terry Freedman
We’ve all become quite used to touchscreens, but have you ever sat down and considered what makes them so great? If you’re thinking of buying more hardware for your school, here are ten reasons to go for touchscreens.
They're intuitive
Even babies know how to point and touch. Even if you have a pupil in your class who has never used a computer before, they should have no trouble at all working out how to use a touchscreen. If you have a colleague who is frightened of using a computer, having a touchscreen device — that is, one that doesn’t have a mouse or any other add-ons — lowers the barriers to entry, simply because there is less they need to get to grips with.
They’re everywhere
Part of the reason for touchscreens being intuitive, of course, is that they are ubiquitous these days. You’ll find them in the station when you want to buy a ticket from the ticket machine, in the shopping centre when you want to locate a particular shop on an interactive map, and in the bank when you need to withdraw some money from a cash machine.
Apps are right there on the screen
Another great advantage of touchscreens is that the apps or programme can be found on the screen itself. You don’t have to delve through menus and sub-menus, an activity that can drive you insane, even if the menus are arranged logically. At worst, you may have to go to a second or third screen to find what you’re looking for, but that’s all.
They don’t require great co-ordination
When anyone uses a mouse for the first time, the pointer goes all over the place. So, if you have a pupil who has only ever used a tablet, or an older colleague who has so far managed to avoid using a computer of any description, having a touchscreen device is a blessing — not least for your blood pressure.
There’s less to cause mayhem
I’m sure this would never happen in your classroom, but when I was teaching I would sometimes discover that someone had swapped the mice over, so that Bob’s mouse pointer moved about on Joanna’s screen. Hilarious, but infuriating too. Sometimes, the mice would disappear altogether. So a touchscreen device with no moving parts? What’s not to like?
Field work is easier
Taking a laptop and mouse out on a school trip to do field work isn’t a trivial matter. In fact, if you’re serious about getting students to experience taking measurements and collecting data in situ, whether that is interviewing shoppers in the town centre or going out into a local nature reserve, a touchscreen tablet or smartphone really is the only feasible solution.
They are faster to use than other devices
Why? Because there’s less faffing about. No fiddling about with a mouse, much less time spent looking for items, as mentioned earlier. They tend to boot up faster as well. In the classroom, your most precious commodity is time, so the more of it that is spent usefully the better.
Devices can be future-proofed
If someone comes up with new functionality for the software on a non-touchscreen computer, the chances are you will have to buy another mouse or other add-on with the requisite buttons on it. Touchscreens don’t suffer from this drawback because the extra functionality can be assigned to a virtual button on the screen.
Storage is easier
You need space for just the device itself, not any add-ons. You might argue that a mouse only takes up a couple of inches. However, in that space you could fit at least one, maybe even two, tablets (which tend to take up less room than laptops).
It’s easier to keep them clean
Touchscreens can, it’s true, get pretty grubby if you don’t clean them every day. However, you will at least be spared the problem of dust, food and heaven knows what else accumulating in the crevices between keys on a keyboard.
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