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Organizations maximize innovation if they embrace distributed leadership that truly amplifies opportunities for anyone in the organization to imagine, prototype, and build on new ideas. 

nnovative schools focus on teaching each individual user, not on the process of content transfer.  Differentiated learning, truly adapting the learning experience to the needs of the student-user, leveraged through the differentiated resources of the teacher-user, will be the tsunami of educational change in the next decade.

uccessfully innovating organizations make numerous bets, many of which are small, and some of which shoot for the moon.

In short, their ability to be creative, to share complex knowledge across locations, contexts and cultures and to manage global innovation and product development teams effectively is precisely why multiculturals in integrative roles in the innovation process do make such a positive difference.

In addition, they identified intercultural, cognitive integration (one’s ability to simultaneously hold and apply several culturally different schemas and thus to think as a member of one culture or another depending on need and context, or to think simultaneously as member of several cultures) as the key to creative, adaptive and leadership skills fostering their career success. As one of the managers Hae-Jung Hong interviewed put it:

The most important skill I need in order to develop and launch this product line successfully is to exploit what I’ve got from one part to other parts of the world, which brings something innovative in the market. I am able to do this because I have references in different languages— English, Hindi, and French. I read books in three different languages, meet people from different countries, eat food from different countries, and so on. I cannot think things in one way only. That’s not my way.

Develop guidelines for use and share with your staff. Update your acceptable-use policy as well as personnel policies to reflect the district’s position on appropriate use of social networking sites. For ideas, check out the Social Media Guidelines for Schools wiki (http://socialmediaguidelines.pbworks.com). Many of the ideas presented here are adapted from this resource, which is meant to be shared and expanded as new information becomes available.

reate an official site for your school or district. To protect others’ privacy, set it up as a fan page so people can post comments or become a fan without giving you access to their personal pages. Commit staff time or resources to daily updates. Keep the tone conversational, but represent your organization and your position respectfully and responsibly. According to Pew Research, “44 percent of online adults have searched for information about someone whose services or advice they seek in a professional capacity.”

What’s the impact of messages related to classwork when they’re part of a large stream of messages students receive from friends, family, horoscope advice, sports scores and so on? What sort of learning happens best (or is reinforced best, perhaps) via SMS? How can these sorts of messages be adapted to students’ progress and how can they be sequenced and scaffolded over time? How many students are able and willing to participate in these sorts of educational activities via their mobile phone? Can students afford the texting fees? Do they want to use their text-messaging allocations for this purpose? Can we subsidize this sort of SMS traffic for student populations? If these sorts of messages between home and school become more common, will there be a way to include parents and parents’ phones in the loop? Can these quizzes be sent to parents’ phones so that they can have the opportunity to pose a question to their children? “This would, in a very small, modest way, alert parents to what students are supposed to be learning,” suggests Trucano. “If students don’t know the answer, this may trigger parents to push their kids more, and/or to question whether the school is doing a good job in this area (including whether or not the official curriculum is being followed at all!).”

course modules focused on developing students' understanding of big ideas and global concepts,

have a daily learning practice that involves myriad social media platforms, a whole range of devices and connectivities, lots of interest in learning about new platforms and means of expression, and an intense inclination to be a learner around technology.

instructors who

we revamped our tech support structure, merging the media staff to expand the scope and provide a broader range of technology integration support.

number one mission of our tech-media team is evolving into a Disney-style imagineering approach to expanding our 1:1 and use of technology tools for learning.

The superintendent must provide the team with the vision, resources, and freedom to strike out on their own and maximize their creativity. They must feel safe to take risks and have the public backing of the superintendent that enables them to support school administrators and teachers in adapting to new technology changes.

"It's not about the tools, Bill," Sheryl pushed back. "It's about the behaviors that the tools enable."

After all, most schools are investing their professional-development technology budget in training teachers to use computers for non-instructional purposes even though new tools allow for a significant shift in pedagogy.

Instead of exploring how new digital opportunities can support student-centered inquiry or otherwise enhance existing practices, today’s schools are preparing their teachers to use office automation and productivity tools like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.

Instead of exploring how new digital opportunities can support student-centered inquiry or otherwise enhance existing practices, today’s schools are preparing their teachers to use office automation and productivity tools like Microsoft Word and PowerPoint.

begins by introducing teachers to ways in which digital tools can be used to encourage higher-order thinking and innovative instruction across the curriculum.

Let me suggest that it is time to be done with this unnecessary conflict about 21st-century skills. Let us agree that we need all those forenamed skills, plus lots others, in addition to a deep understanding of history, literature, the arts, geography, civics, the sciences, and foreign languages.