Group items tagged

Where the resistance lise!

It's hilarious when you think about it: technology is touted as being one of the key drivers of change, but those people sitting on power over how we use IT in companies and administrations are some of the least capable of embracing change.

The reactions give even more insight. Trying out innovative new tools is by the respondents regarded as sth that is not key to business processes. You should only be allowed to use tools that are tested. Understandable from some perspectives, but couldn't IT departments become a little more open in supporting and working together with advanced users?

(Alan) There is a tendency to write off email as not being important because it is not "state-of-the-art"

(Alan) There is a tendency to write off email as not being important because it is not "state-of-the-art", but it is extremely important in the dynamic of exchange and the development of new ideas. As this article indicates, emailing activity is an indication of the extent of individual networks and the size and richness of that network correlates with impact in research and innovation.

A talk by a specialist in teacher training about the impact of Web 2.0 on education. For those already interested in change in education thanks to ICT, this may bring little new. When are people going to go beyond statements about how things are radically changing to what we are going to do about it?

A major UK project designed to foster creatviity in schools. Could open doors to introdsucing innovation in schools.

The second half of the New York Times article about innovation. It  highlights the usefulness of the outside perspective. This is one of the rich aspects of peer-exchange work across countires and differing cultures and perspectives that is not properly understood and exploited by peers.

A not very inspiring look at the near future from Business Week. It does confirm the ever-growing interest in innovation in the US that is also being felt in Europe.

The author says: "Once again, the policy makers have it wrong. How can you gather policymakers to discuss innovation in education without teachers and their professional associations?"

About how expertise can hinder innovation and creativity because it tends to fence in ideas and limit possibilities, especially within specific areas of expertise. So thought has to be given to stepping outside existing frameworks and how new ideas are communicated to others.

The Schooling for Tomorrow project (SfT) is a major CERI project since the late 1990s, developing futures thinking in education. Its starting point is that neglect of the long term is increasingly problematic in meeting the challenges of complexity and change that education is facing.

When trying to understand what the word innovation is meant to mean, it is not so much the dictionary definition that interests us but rather the meanings that people give the word when they use it...

Details of the new Finnish Innovation Strategy which is not just about education but mainly about entrepreneurship and industry.

In the page about implementation of the strategy it pleads for a holistic apporach to policy-making about innovation: "The key recommendations of the national innovation strategy will apply to the co-ordination of a broad-based innovation policy at the government level, and especially the co-ordination of the implementation of sector-specific development and innovation programmes. The objective of intensified co-ordination is to increase synergies between policy sectors in the promotion of innovations and to accelerate innovation activities especially in the public sector. The strategy will also outline how to promote the preconditions of Finnish enterprises and entrepreneurs in a comprehensive way."

A summary of points made by Paul Saffo in a talk about predicting the future and the challenges it brings.

This article advocates a future without traditional boundaries between work and home and learning. Although effectively such a relaxing of boundaries is under way, we must also think that boundaries are what makes sense fo the world.
See my article about "Open sourcing ideas: a hacker approach to learning working and writing."

This article advocates a future without traditional boundaries between work and home and learning. Although effectively such a relaxing of boundaries is under way, we must also think that boundaries are what makes sense of the world.
See my article about "Open sourcing ideas: a hacker approach to learning working and writing."

The UK Innovation Unit promotes innovation to improve education and children's services. It acts as a catalyst for change and draws on expertise from both the public and private sectors, combining practitioner expertise with the ambition of policy makers.

The following text is based on the answers of thirty-three experts from sixteen European countries to a series of questions about possible changes in education as a response to one of eight challenges identified by the European Commission in its working p

An amusing talk by Sir Ken Robinson about creativity in education and how education pushes creativity out of children.