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It was more time to spend with individual students to help them conquer

It is hard to find a teacher who has tried flipping and doesn't prefer the method to the traditional lecture. In general, they say flipping helps them connect better with students.

"Almost every teacher you talk to about this says they know their students better than they ever had," Overmyer said.

By the second semester, Strong said her son finally understood that this was a class where he had more responsibility to learn.

Yet while networked communications and marketplace experiments add useful information, breakthrough ideas still come from individuals, not committees.

There is nothing democratic about innovation,” says Paul Saffo, a veteran technology forecaster in Silicon Valley. “It is always an elite activity, whether by a recognized or unrecognized elite.”

Apple’s physical world is far different from Google’s realm of Internet software, where writing a few lines of new code can change a product instantly.

Apple product designs may not be determined by traditional market research, focus groups or online experiments. But its top leaders, recruited by Mr. Jobs, are tireless seekers in an information-gathering network on subjects ranging from microchip technology to popular culture. “It’s a lot of data crunched in a nonlinear way in the right brain,”

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.

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

ome teachers get whiteboards and dazzle themselves, while the students, for the most part, crave the media-rich environments in which they live when they are not in class. It is a conundrum to say the least.

Allowing teachers to fumble along implementing technology experiences haphazardly is no longer productive or effective.

"harbinger of innovation" meaning someone who keeps up with new educational technologies by attending conferences and staying connected with other knowledge brokers.

Second, he/she must have time to develop classroom (or outside of classroom) technology-related activities.

Third, these select individuals must be excellent teachers and know how to explain complicated technology to digital immigrants.

Fourth, knowledge brokers have to be available to help the teacher learn the technology, help introduce it to the students (or stand by while the teacher does the introduction to help with the expected problems), and be willing to return calls - shouts - for help immediately.

Finally, knowledge brokers need to be catalysts for change in the school environment which means that they have to be able to assume all four roles PLUS coordinating all the present and future technology integration. In other words, they have to love it and embrace it and get the teachers to feel the same way.

A huge problem with Twitter for some is understanding who is getting the message. Remember Twitter is Social Media and is based on social interaction. If you walked into an auditorium full of people and started talking without engaging someone first, no one would be listening. You would be talking out loud to yourself.  If you introduced yourself to someone and then began a conversation you now have someone listening and interacting. You would then do the same with a second, third, and fourth person. You have connected with those people and selected them as persons you may interact with, and they have selected you as well, based on your intelligent contributions to the discussion. As that works in life, so it works in Twitter.

Twitter is only one component of a comprehensive PLN. There are many Social Media applications that serve educators well for communication, collaboration, and creation. All of these applications are constantly evolving or disappearing, to be replaced by new applications. We need to buy into the method and not the tool. Tools change, but learning continues. To be better educators we need to be better learners.