ABSTRACT
It is important to acknowledge that children do not come to school with a single set of experiences. Differences in social and cultural background influence the amount of exposure a child is likely to have had to computers and to the internet. Parental attitudes, which are also very varied, have a tremendous impact on the child’s own views. Nevertheless, it is fair to say that many children are exposed to computers and the internet at a very early age and that experience provides them with certain expectations about the technologies that they encounter in school. As children develop during their primary school years it is likely that they will
acquire a range of skills in using computer technologies and the internet through a variety of recreational and social activities. Again, their precise experience will depend on a number of factors, but in many cases the internet plays a growing role as a medium through which children discover and come to know the world around them. For example, the internet overlaps with many of the recreational and cultural spheres in which children operate. It is a means of communication with relatives and friends, a place to play games and a means to find information about hobbies or interests. In fact, the distinction between the virtual and the ‘real’ is becoming blurred, as television programmes and many of the activities and products that children encounter in the embodied world create extensions in cyberspace, in the form of websites. The fact that children acquire so much of their understanding of internet and com-
puter technologies outside school can render the use of ICT in the classroom problematic. The child may associate the computer or the internet with recreational or sociable activities and therefore behave in ways that disrupt group work and undermine the more structured approach to learning and teaching encountered in school. They may even associate it with approaches to learning that undermine the kinds of activities undertaken in formal learning situations.
