This study explored the available resources and learning contexts of learners at an "out-of-school" learning centre in the South of England. Learners at the centre used a self-managed learning (SML) approach. Using this model, learners designed their own curriculum,  choosing to study for formal qualifications or deciding that they preferred to pursue individual interests, e.g. music, drama, language learning, animal husbandry, film-making, etc. in a more vocational or practical way. This gave learners greater choice and flexibility, but also made them more responsible and accountable for their own learning. This meant that they needed to develop a deeper awareness of the implications of their selections. They needed to become "resourceful learners" and to develop a deeper understanding of the resources available to them - individually and socially, locally and globally.

This study looked at the kinds of resources available to learners, with a particular focus on digital technologies. The aim of the study was to ascertain how these technologies might be used to support learner's learning across multiple contexts.

Learners owned or had access to a wide range of technologies in and outside of the learning centre. They used these technologies to communicate; for entertainment and leisure, and to support their learning needs. However, the learners generally took their technologies for granted, viewing them as 'everyday' objects - "just there to be used". Consequently, they did not always make the most effective or appropriate use of these tools. They often overlooked the alternative, relational and/or context-specific opportunities afforded by these technologies.

With this study, therefore, we sought to make the potentials of technology to support learning more explicit to learners (and their learning mentors) by helping them to think about the kinds of ways in which technologies might go beyond the "everyday". To do this, we examined learners' use of technologies in-action, at the learning centre, in their personal lives and on a trip to the London Planetarium.

To explore and model learners and their contexts and to identify ways in which learners might adapt available resources to best support their learning needs, with a particular focus on digital technologies.