ABSTRACT
The flexibility of digital technology through the different forms that it can take and the uses to which it can be put is widely evident in many aspects of life including inside and outside of the classroom. A further quality of digital technology that has become highly visible in recent years is the scope it provides for connectivity. The digital landscape within which learning can take place is one that can provide scope for participation, collaboration, community and democracy. Situated learning also involves immersion in a culture populated not only by human actors but with an array or artefacts and tools. Technological manifestations of behaviourist principles have included Skinner's use of a teaching machine to implement a learning programme where items of information stored on disks, cards or tapes are presented and followed by related tasks of increasing complexity. Within language and literacy the role of mental structures and prior knowledge can be applied to processes such as reading.
