Key ideas

A network of handheld computers, teacher controlling everything like a director in a play - very strong theatre metaphor, with “staging”, “lights”, “props”, “backstage” etc.

Importance of capturing ephemeral processes for analysis and sharing. (“act becomes artefact”)

Designing, implementing, and monitoring these learning activities is a workflow challenge, as research in teacher cognition, planning, and learning has highlighted (e.g., Borko & Putnam, 1996; Cohen et al.. 1993; Hammond & Sykes. 2001; Little & McLaughlin, 1993).

Teachers currently plan and manage these efforts using a broad array of documents and physical resources, including

• class lists
• publishers' teacher activity guides
• seat-based distribution of textbook instructions or photocopied materials
• physical separation of groups in the classroom space
• worksheets to be completed
• informal observations of equitable participation by students in discussions

• actors (including teacher, students, bots)
• data objects
• interaction networks (flows of information, workflows?)

(seems similar to ELOs etc)

System seems extremely controlled by teacher - very little focus on self-organizing among students, agency etc.

Focus on contingent/adaptive teaching, like in DeBarger et al., 2010DeBarger, A. H., Penuel, W. R., Harris, C. J., & Schank, P. (2010). Teaching routines to enhance collaboration using classroom network technology. In F. Pozzi & D. Persico (Eds.), Unpublished manuscript (224-244). IGI Global. , enabling teacher to quickly assess students and collaboration, and change teaching approach on the fly.

At a modeling level of description, classroom activity can be defined as an information processing function having an input, an output, and a process by which the output is to be generated from the input This functional definition of an activity can be used to model activities including

• IRE sequences
• role-playing activities (such as participatory simulations)
• small group project-based work
• seatwork or homework exercises

Mentions an implementation of Initiation-Response-Evaluation related to a global earth science project.

Automatic implementation of “jigsaw-style” interaction, through saved network topologies.

• Activity-centered design (Gifford & Enyedy, 1999; Bodker, 1997; Nardi, 1996)
• Education modeling languaguage