Similar products different processes: Exploring the orchestration of digital resources in a primary school project

• We examine in what ways ICT support dialogic and synergistic group interaction.
• Pupils' products became quite similar but the interaction processes with ICT varied.
• Dialogic interaction with ICT could be evidenced in four groups.
• Synergistic interaction with ICT was rather rare but could be found in one group.
• The understanding of using the laptop features and the subject content were related.

Today, teachers and pupils are interacting with digital devices during different types of activities in the classroom context. During such activities, dialogic interaction has a particular value as a pedagogical practice that helps to develop pupils' understanding. This study has explored the question: In what ways do digital resources support dialogic and synergistic interaction?In order to explore primary school pupils' interaction within group activity and how they make use of the features of the laptops, the empirical material was collected through video recordings and further analysed with the interactivity analysis framework (IAF) developed by Beauchamp and Kennewell (2010). The findings show that although the products produced by the different groups of pupils were similar in a technological way (i.e. the pupils used the same modes of expression), the patterns of interaction during the group processes varied. Two out of six groups used the digital resource as an 'object of interaction', where the tool had a more passive role during the group collaboration. The other four groups used the ICT resource as a 'tool for interaction', where the resource became more of an interaction partner during the meaning-making processes, which opened up opportunities for learning. The findings also indicate that the interplay in these four groups between the group members and the laptop features seems to have developed the pupils' understanding of ICT resources as well as their understanding of the subject content during the group work. Synergistic interaction with ICT was rather rare but was observed in one of the groups.