In this paper interactions of groups of school students working with a
variety of educational software are analysed to develop an account of
the structure of collaborative educational activities supported by di
rective software. First the application of a quantitative method is de
scribed and its results used to question the hypothesis that directive
software limits the quality of discussion between groups of users. Th
e nature of the talk occurring around directive software is then explo
red in more detail. It is argued that the structure of educational act
ivities around directive software can allow for the possibility of emb
edding exploratory symmetrical pupil discussion within a directed teac
hing programme: an educationally desirable combination otherwise diffi
cult to achieve.