Consider the relationships between teachers and learners who are using technology.

In this context 'teachers' may include school teachers, classmates, friends, family members... Indeed from the observations made in this project the majority of students learn more about the use of technology from family and friends than they do from school programs. Some schools specifically draw on this by arranging for students to work in pairs while undertaking ICT based tasks and do little in terms of specific ICT related teaching.

From the following model

there are a number of important implications about the role of teachers in learning situations that involve the use of technology

• Teachers LEAD the learners ideally in a collaborative context
• Teachers MEDIATE the learning as may be the case in all learning, and in addition,
• Teachers are required to MANAGE the technology, including arranging and 'maintaining' the equipment, resources and services involved

This framework provides some major criteria for evaluating the use of learning technology in general and learning objects in particular.

While the technology often assists in the provision of scaffolding of learning activities, mediation of learning experiences is more problematic.

Mediation of learning experiences requires some knowledge of the likely experiences of the learner, both 

• positive such as a sense of achievement, mastery... and 
• negative including frustration, uncertainty... 

Awareness of how 'I got to where I am as a user of technology' thus enables a person to help others get there too. This helps to explain the value of the teacher being also being someone who is learning to use the technology. It also explains why teachers value their relationships with colleagues who are at a similar stage of development.  
 

Teachers regularly report that becoming familiar enough with the technology in order to manage it in a way that facilitates their mediation of the students' learning is a major demand made on their time and attention. Delivery of learning content becomes a small item in relation to the total enterprise.

Important Note Another observation made in this project is that there appears to be less support for the management of technology the closer one gets to the teacher.  As a result it is not unusual for

• printers to remain unusable for the want of a fresh ink cartridge
• screen settings within a classroom to vary enormously
• file management settings to be as for a typical single user non-network desktop even though the machine is a shared network workstation

Such observations indicate that many teachers are reluctant or unable to manage the technology itself.  Thus it may be appropriate to consider the nature of the 'working knowledge' involved for the teacher.