Building innovation in schools

Some of the BIG questions, I think involve the terms, innovation, creativity and transformative practice.

What do these terms mean in the educational context? We are convinced (or are being convinced) of the efficacy of digital technologies in promoting innovation, creativity and transformative practice in the classroom but what do they look like? How can we nuture and promote student's creativity with innovative approaches to problem solving and so on. What are the pedagogical practices that facilitate this? And, more broadly, how exactly can digital technologies transform teaching and learning - i.e. are there some tangible, practical subject-based examples?

Assoc. Prof. Kathryn Moyle has written yet another astonishing paper on learning technologies. This Australian Education Review paper, Building innovation: learning with technologies is a must-read to build knowledge and understanding of innovation in the educational context and the role of educational technologies.

This paper is comprehensive exploring the intersections of policy and innovation, the complexity of pedagogies and technologies specifcally focusing on students use of technology. Anotehr chapter of interest is Creating 21st schools examining the mismatch between the use of new digital technologies in the traditional 'physical classroom' space.

Thought provoking as always.

Other publications by Kathryn Moyle worthy of mention include:

• Moyle K & Owen S 2009, Listening to students and educators voices Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations
• Moyle K 2006 LEADERSHIP AND LEARNING WITH ICT Voices from the profession Teaching Australia
  

Schools of the future

Aren't you all sick of hearing/seeing/talking about what needs to change to transform our schools into the 21st century? Look around - there's plenty of localised innovations in classrooms everywhere. Of course, educators are capable of identifying problems, exploring solutions, refining and sharing their practice, and of course they do! Teachers should no longer be regarded as practitioners in need of support and guidance - though I suppose that's quite useful for many.

It's 2010 ... what did schools look like in the 1950s? And, how far have we come already? This 21st century is just another phase we are going through.

School of the future (1950)

Charles Leadbeater on innovation

Charles Leadbeater is a researcher at the London think tank Demos. In this video he describes the rise of ‘amateur innovation’, where ‘users are becoming producers and consumers becoming designers’. (19 min video on TED)
This could have interesting implications in the educational context!