Despite successive waves of technological innovation being rapidly adopted by schools, teaching methods and curriculum designs have been slow to evolve in response to the affordances offered by an increasing array of digital devices. This project explored student thinking, problem solving and collaboration when using digital tablets (iPads) for a range of conventional curriculum-related purposes, and in project, problem and inquiry-based learning programmes. Three separate studies were completed in this project. They were: (1) investigating how students used their devices to collaborate on learning tasks in the classroom and beyond, which device features and functions they considered assisted in this process, and how these were used; (2) exploring the nature of thinking skills students applied when using computational apps to solve learning problems embedded in mathematics curriculum; and (3) analysing how students combined procedural and conceptual scaffolds within apps with practical 'hands on' work to learn basic science concepts. Data were collected in junior and middle/upper primary innovative learning environments (ILEs) at Leamington Primary School in Cambridge, where small teams of teachers collaboratively planned, taught and assessed. The three studies used similar methods to gather highly authentic data recording the strategies and practices of students as they used their devices within their normal daily classroom activities. A set of iPads supplied by the university were equipped with a display and audio capture app that recorded all student interaction with the apps and others they worked with, irrespective of their location in the classrooms. These data were downloaded and analysed against different coding frameworks using Studiocode video analysis software. Display data were supplemented with student interviews, focus groups and informal observations.