I’m not sure what to make of the news that 5,000 Irish kids are to start the school year using Wriggle’s tablet-based digital curriculum.

“Parents or guardians of students purchase an iPad, or another tablet, for their child/children when such such schools get involved with Wriggle.

While this is up to the discretion of the school, some post-primary/secondary schools that have migrated to the Wriggle programme have reportedly liaised with families so that they can come up with an agreement with their local credit union in order to give families the option of paying for such tablets in installments.

Otherwise, the school may decree that a family will have to pay upfront for a tablet. Generally, however, Furlong said that the school community will be quite flexible and will work with parents /guardians. She said that often kids are buying tablets for their own use, anyway.”

Is this really what we want? In the current economic climate to be pressurizing parents into buying iPads for their children? And, from the wider perspective is this move away from the PC a good thing? How many workplaces do you know that are going tablet only?