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Schools that tweak the existing assembly line model of learning will become increasingly irrelevant in a world that does not reward the output of that learning. 

“Technical” means that there are methods of learning that work better than others, and the experts are experienced teachers. They know what works; they just may not know how to adapt this knowledge to a setting in which they, the teacher, are farmers in the ecosystem, not preachers in the pulpit.

nnovative schools become culturally comfortable with rapid ideation, shipping, and iteration.

ts time to pursue knowledge about which they are passionate is antithetical t

Opportunities to network are now ubiquitous as colleagues can connect frequently, inexpensively, and across all divides of space and time via professional and social media.

Aversion to risk and failure is one of the greatest impediments to innovation. 

chools that do embrace innovation share a universal quality: leaders who are willing to take risks; who support and require their employees to take risks; who develop systems that leverage failure as a unique learning experience that builds institutional grit.

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.

Adults want proof that something new will work; we want a 20-year longitudinal study to show that something different is better than what we have done in the past.

They can, and do, each tell their own story of mission advancement. 

Although much attention has been paid to the laptop computers that have been provided to students in the district, Mr. Edwards insists that the conversion isn’t about devices.

The digital conversion happening in Mooresville has required everyone in the district—including students—to “aggressively embrace continuous learning,” said Mr. Edwards. For instance, educators should continually be working toward their own professional goals and expanding their instructional knowledge, just as students are expected to add continually to their knowledge base.

“You have to clearly send signals that mistakes, bumps, and turbulence are part of the landscape. It happens, and it’s OK, and if things don’t go right, that’s normal,” said Mr. Edwards.

“If you don’t know what you’re going to measure, and carefully collect data along the way, you will not have that story to tell six or 18 months later,” said Ms. Cator, a former director of the office educational technology for the U.S. Department of Education.

In Albemarle County, for instance, students sit on the district’s tech advisory committee, participate in surveys about the district’s strategic goals, and provide feedback about budget initiatives, virtual learning, and other strategies through a county student advisory committee, said Ms. Moran.

Building a Culture of Innovation School leadership experts outline several ways districts should work to create an atmosphere in which good ideas can flourish, including: • Develop strong leaders who encourage informed risk-taking and experimentation rather than protection of the status quo. • Establish an expectation of continuous learning and improvement from every person at every level of the organization. • Craft a clearly defined and articulated vision for the district, and make sure everyone understands it and adheres to it. • Foster an environment in which people have the power to change course quickly if a project or initiative isn't working. • Empower everyone in the district, from students to teachers and administrators, to take on leadership roles. • Ensure a seamless infusion of technology throughout every sector of the district to produce efficiencies and collect meaningful data. SOURCE: Education Week

our school culture and capacity. I need to be able to clearly articulate our vision and help them understand what we are doing to obtain this reality. I do not want all of my teachers to have the exact same strengths, as that is not realistic or beneficial, but want to continue to build their leadership abilities. It is essential that if we are working in a climate of continuous change, school administration needs to create a system based upon the strengths of individuals, and build a system that utilizes these strengths to the benefit of the entire school. We need not only to have a purpose in our schools, but we need to GIVE purpose to those who are a part of our school. Find the strength of your colleagues and use them.

Teachers benefit because they receive training, professional development and ongoing support that aligns with technology they receive and the work they do in their classrooms. Moreover, they have reliable tech support when they need it.

many businesses are now finding that the pace of change demanded by the global economy and facilitated by various technologies is requiring them to rethink how they are organized. Many are restructuring themselves as learning organizations—organizations in which new learning and innovation are the engines that drive the company.

Knowledge Forum is, of course, not the only online learning environment available. Others of note include FirstClass, WebCT, and Blackboard. Palloff and Pratt (2001) note that, whatever online environment is used, "attention needs to be paid to developing a sense of community in the group of participants in order for the learning process to be successful"

How does it work? In practice, the teacher presents students with a problem of understanding relevant to the real world. It could be a question such as What is the nature of light? or What makes a society a civilization? The focus here is to make student ideas, rather than predetermined activities or units of knowledge, the center of the classroom work. The next step is to get the students to generate ideas about the topic and write notes about their ideas in the Knowledge Forum (KF) database, an online environment with metacognitive enhancements to support the growth of the knowledge-building process. In generating these ideas, the students form work groups around similar interests and topics they wish to explore. These groups are  self-organized and dynamic; the teacher does not select the members, and members can join or leave as they choose. Idea generation can take place during these group sessions, during which all students are given the chance to express their ideas, or in individual notes posted directly to the KF database. While in a typical classroom setting ideas or comments generated in discussion are usually lost, the KF database preserves these ephemeral resources so that students can return to them for comment and reflection. Students are then encouraged to read the notes of other students and soon find that there are differing schools of opinion about the problem. The teacher's job is to ensure that students remain on task and work towards the solution of the problem under study by reading each other's notes and contributing new information or theories to the database

You know that searching various areas of the Web requires a variety of search tools. You are the information expert in your building. You are the search expert in your building. You share an every growing and shifting array of search tools that reach into blogs and wikis and Twitter and images and media and scholarly content.

You open your students to evolving strategies for collecting and evaluating information. You teach about tags, and hashtags, and feeds, and real-time searches and sources, as well as the traditional database approaches you learned way back in library school.

You work with learners to exploit push information technologies like RSS feeds and tags and saved databases and search engine searches relevant to their information needs.

You know that communication is the end-product of research and you teach learners how to communicate and participate creatively and engagingly. You consider new interactive and engaging communication tools for student projects. ● Include and collaborate with your learners. You let them in. You fill your physical and virtual space with student work, student contributions—their video productions, their original music, their art.

Know and celebrate that students can now publish their written work digitally. (See these pathfinders: Digital Publishing, Digital Storytelling)

Your collection–on- and offline–includes student work. You use digital publishing tools to help students share and celebrate their written and artistic work.

You welcome and host telecommunications events and group gathering for planning and research and social networking.

You realize you will often have to partner and teach in classroom teachers’ classrooms. One-to-one classrooms change your teaching logistics. You teach virtually. You are available across the school via email and chat.