Audience

	Children, on-line learning and authentic teaching skills in primary education
	Audience

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ICT enables learners to learn by doing real things. This leads to an issue about the identity of the audience for the products and knowledge produced by the learner. Examples:

ICT enables the presentation of information which can be useful for a wide range of others: publishing can realistically mean 'making public'
ICT can also enable the creation of specific 'tools' that can be used by others to acquire, process and/or present their own information

Traditionally the 'products' of learning activities have been intended for the teacher-as-audience with the purpose of enabling the teacher to verify (or otherwise) the learning achieved. Notions of curriculum have been based largely on the teacher-as-audience in the first instance, with employer-as-audience sometime in the future. The quality, portability and currency of information based materials produced by young learners can now be such that it is necessary to rethink the audience.

The emerging curriculum can be 'reframed' to utilise the potential arising from nature of the products of learning when ICT is involved. When learners are doing real thing the teacher often becomes a 'third party'. Many young children are able to report on the numerous ways in which they have used their competence with ICT to help others, especially friends and members of their family.

Indeed teachers frequently utilise this 'assistance role' in delivering the class program. Our in-class observations indicate that few classroom activities involve the provision of as much support as those related to ICT.

Working with ICT is resource hungry.
Working with ICT also provides a context for collaboration.

Curriculum - ICT - Action learning - Pedagogy

Thus their are several possible new notions for consideration: firstly notions of curriculum that will extend the audience for children's learning and products beyond the teacher. This means having a range of curriculum forms from which to select according to the needs, purposes and opportunities. In particular a 'new' form included by Seaton places members of the 'community' as the audience for the learners' products.

Secondly there is a parallel development in relation to the adoption of ICT in the class program. This means that the ways in which ICT is used in the class must complement the intended approach to the curriculum. Almost certainly the development of the curriculum and the development of the ways in which ICT is used is best dealt with concurrently rather than as a 'chicken and egg' issue.

Thirdly both these developments are supported and complemented by a third component, namely action learning in which learners draw on their access to programmed knowledge and their insight into their own, local, messy but rich experiences and activities.

All of which leads to attention to the critical early stages of pedagogy, namely

choosing the focus for learning and
designing the learning task including consideration of purposes and products

Thus, using the above notions, pedagogy (the management of teaching and learning) can be undertaken in a way that:

includes the learners' real experiences and activities
meets the needs of the learners and others
uses ICT for real purposes
in a collaborative context