Matt you have raised some wonderful points here. Thank you for your response. I appreciate the backchannel frame you have elevated. I agree that we can go even deeper in exploring the innovation that is happening here and draw connections between different implementations of a backchannel. In fact, I wonder if the term backchannel de-emphasizes some of the power of this work. In this case the Google Slide is very much a front channel in the class and was used as the driving text for a subsequent conversation during the lesson.

As to your second point, thinking of this teacher move as an incremental change leading towards something larger is a useful way to understand what is going on. I also want to explore the idea that larger changes may have less to do with the outward appearance of change and more to do with significant changes in thinking that can happen for the members of the classroom community.