Recurrent routines: Analyzing and supporting orchestration in technology-enhanced primary classrooms

The increasing presence of multiple Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in the classroom does not guarantee an improvement of the learning experiences of students, unless it is also accompanied by pedagogically effective orchestration of those technologies. In order to help teachers in this endeavour, it can be useful to understand how this orchestration takes place in real-world classrooms, and to provide teachers with professional development opportunities that can be easily applied to their everyday classroom practice. This paper describes a qualitative field study conducted in five primary school classrooms where a new collaborative software was introduced alongside existing classroom technology. For six months, teachers designed and orchestrated classroom activities in these authentic, technologically-rich settings. The analysis of the resulting activity designs and enactments uncovered a limited set of recurrent elements of teacher practice, or routines. These routines and their graphical representation are posited as a useful analysis tool for researchers in understanding complex teacher practices with ICT. Moreover, the authors propose that these routines offer new opportunities for professional development of teachers in effectively using ICT in their classrooms. Initial uses of these routines in teacher workshops, with encouraging results, are also presented.