The purpose of this paper is to present and discuss ways in which we developed a University based unit to assist pre service teachers to use technology to create individualised learning environments for young children. Such contexts are characterised by knowledge building and information exploration, which enable learners to use processes and develop skills fundamental to discovery based learning principles. This was the case both for the University students and the children who they were preparing to teach.

We have developed a number of courses at the University level which, while the students enrolled in them attend classes on campus also contain on line resources. We share an example of one unit here. The courses provide a context in which students can share their work, based in technological environments, with others – both at the production stage for constructive feedback, and when completed in order to share their ideas with other professionals. They also provide the opportunity for the students to become involved in the design and implementation process. When the University students completed their project we arranged for a class from a nearby primary school to come in to test drive the final products so that the students were able to see how real children would react to them. Our desire was to enable the University students, many of whom had no prior experience with computers except for word processing, web access, or the use of CDROMS which had an educational content, to use information and communication technologies (ICT) in a personal way that was relevant to the needs of the children that they were teaching in a school based curriculum context.