IT IS TIMELY FOR EDUCATION to consider the potential of a symbiotic or mutually beneficial relationship between literacy and technology for children's early literacy learning. For early years educators a symbiotic relationship challenges the traditional ways that technologies have been applied to the literacy context. In this paper, issues and challenges surrounding the contemporary dynamic of the changing literacy landscape are discussed in relation to the application of technology to the literacy context in the early years of education. It is proposed that, when technologies are viewed as conductors for communication, there is potential for a mutually beneficial relationship between literacy learning and technology to be realised. This paper suggests that the reconceptualisation of a familiar model, Cambourne's Conditions of Learning (1995), has the potential to support and acknowledge learning within and across home and formal education communities through a mutually beneficial relationship between literacy and technology where technologies are seen as conductors for communication.
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