Orchestration in a networked classroom: Where the teacher's real-time enactment matters

Designing for orchestration needs an emphasis on the criticality of the teacher's agency, skills and understanding of pedagogies and technologies in orchestrating the classroom beyond the provision of material scripts and technological supports. Drawing on data from the collaborative classrooms that use a collaborative technology called GroupScribbles (GS), we share the work of a teacher who successfully orchestrated the class activity. Yet at the same time, we noted that not all lessons were as well orchestrated like this despite using similar pedagogical and technological designs. The agency in appropriating and enacting these designs in the classroom lies in the attitudes, capacity and mind of the teacher and therefore must be a critical aspect of the overall plan in designing for orchestration. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.