This paper presents the results of the first phase (2007-2009) of a design experiment, the Knowledge Building International Project (KBIP), in which K-12 teachers from several countries collaborate as a loosely coupled network of networks with a common goal--to implement technology-supported knowledge building jointly across their classrooms. There was a visible increase in agency at all levels of the network: students, teachers and school senior management, resulting in deepening levels of pedagogical innovation over time, as well as changes in governance in response to the innovation as a result of self-organization. These are emergent features characteristic of complex systems that cannot be explained by a traditional model of change as diffusion. This study adopts Banathy's dimensions for systemic educational design to identify the key features of the sociotechnical design that nurture and sustain the innovations upon which these teachers embarked within and beyond their own schools.