This paper presents a study on how primary school educators describe children’s use of ICT. This is done in order to lay a foundation for an understanding of how information literacies may be enacted in Swedish primary schools. The empirical material consists of four focus group con-versations conducted with 20 educators at three Swedish primary schools. The analysis is focussed on how the educators discuss and describe ICT as tools for information activities and as parts of children’s childhoods. Two descriptions of childhoods are identified in the analysis: 1) the good childhood, in which there is room for traditional tools for information seeking such as books; 2) the contemporary and insufficient childhood, happening outside the school context, where digital tools for information seeking and other activities are used. The task of primary school is descri-bed as counterbalancing contemporary childhoods and therefore avoiding ICT. The authors discuss how the implications of these approaches could be limiting for how information literacies may be enacted in primary school.

Information and Communication technology (ICT) has swept into modern society and rapidly been brought into use in various areas. In many ways, ICT has become part of children’s everyday lives, in our homes as well as in pre-schools and schools. The debate has often become polarised between those who consider computers to be detrimental to health and learning and those for whom computers can make a key contribution to children’s social and intellectual development. My paper and presentation has focus on what meaning teachers and librarians give to children’s work with ICT in preschool class and grade one. The analysis is based on teachers’ and librarians´ group conversations in focus group and analysed in relation to socio cultural theory. The analysis shows that teachers and librarians give meaning to the use of “the new media” as contradictory to other forms of media as books or to sojourn in the nature. It can be described as; the evil (the new media) vs the good (books and the nature).

Since 1997 professional diaries have been emphasized in teacher training at the University College of Borås. This project is based on our experiences that we need better methods to promote students’ diary-writing, their collective reflection, and the roles played by mentors. The results show that students need more support in their use of the diary and that reflection is viewed as the glue that joins the professional diary, the education at the college and at teaching placements, and the mentoring activities. Both mentors and students report that they have changed their views on diary-writing.