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Driven by passionate innovators engaged in the proverbial "thinking outside the box," disruptive innovation creates new values and new networks...something institutions find, at best, difficult to accommodate, at worst something to fear and repress. What, then, does disruptive innovation look like inside the educational institution? What do innovative educators do with--and demand from--their students? From flipping the classroom and mobile learning to social media and students as creators, let's examine some real-life educational innovations, try out some interesting technologies, share from our own experiences, and brainstorm ways to move forward despite institutional lethargy and the chorus of nay-sayers who claim innovation is impossible.

The digital-earth.eu project examines the use of geographic media in schools and teacher education. Geo-media is the visualisation of information from different media sources and is concerned with digital content and its processing based on place, position and location. Many geographic media are widely used for navigation and routing purposes. Cartographic communication has never been so easy to implement, therefore 21st century school education needs to include geo-media into daily work. Innovative approaches to teaching and learning are needed to study environments from local to global scale. The digital-earth.eu network links innovative centres around Europe where geo-media use is well developed. Products, resources, experiences and ideas are shared between the centres and opened to the public wherever possible. A digital-earth.eu infrastructure is under development. The European Centre and an accredited network of national and regional Centres of Excellence are developing an online catalogue of materials, courses, publications, links and good practice scenarios, and are publishing a series of core publications. 

In order to investigate how social computing applications can be used in organised learning settings to enhance learning activities and promote innovation and inclusion in Education and Training, an exploratory study employing a triangulation of different

rom August 2008 to November 2009, Inspire (Innovative Science Pedagogy in Research and Education) gathered teachers from five European countries to test and analyse digital learning resources in Maths, Science and Technology (MST) education. The results a

"Chemistry: All About You Teach chemistry in a fun and innovative way"

New technologies are central to modern life and sensitive topics are often discussed on the internet rather than face to face. However, this could be potentially damaging, especially for young people. The European project Virtual Stages Against Violence (VSAV) discovers possible risks concerning the use of new technologies  and offers teaching and learning pathways for a sensible use of the internet and new technologies. The project has started in March 2011 and the project team has already developed innovative products for teachers, students, schools, youth organisations and so on.

ProActive will produce Guidelines on Creativity Enhanced by GBL and disseminate a database of learning games and related active learning culture within EU education. The main objectives of ProActive are:To stimulate the creativity of trainers working in LLP sub-programmes, developing a conceptual framework for integrating different learning metaphorsTo introduce innovative ICT-based experiences in teaching and training practice, adapting and enhancing the game editors, integrating five learning metaphorsTo implement co-design creativity sessions and pilot sites for addressing school, university and vocational education scenariosTo validate the proposed approach as a means of learning and evaluate its impact on teachers' creativity and students' outcomes.

The Project GREAT aims to provide a methodology and a way to use Game-Based Learning in education and training. GREAT "Game-based Research in Education and Action Training" is an EU Leonardo da Vinci funded project (contract number 2011-1-PT1-LEO05-08600) that provides a methodology and a way to use game-based Learning (GBL) in teaching-learning processes by transferring innovative methodologies. It started in October 2011 and will last two years.

The aim of the project is to transfer positive experience and knowledge in the use of Learning Platforms by European Organisations into the Vocational Education and Training sector. Objectives: - Carry out a survey of Education Organizations in Europe to determine their needs, experiences and preferences regarding Learning Platforms/VLEs. - Advise and support the CDVEC in selecting an organisation wide VLE solution - Share experiences with the VET sector in Ireland and a wider audience in the EU

T3 goal is to develop and validate an innovative teaching program to promote the use of advanced learning technology by university teaching staff; secondary school teachers; trainers involved in VET. Key features of the program will include: theoretical classes discussing the features and advantages of the new technologies; practical workshops, in which learners (university teaching staff, teachers and trainers) simulate learning sessions and familiarize with technologies; project work, in which learners will prepare learning projects for use in their own classes, implement the project, and evaluate the results; joint assessment of the results by participants in the program.

This book provides some theoretical background and practical guidelines for adult educators with a purpose to equip them for the challenges that they will face as roles change from "traditional teacher" to "technologically connected teacher". The tools pr

iTEC (Innovative Technologies for an Engaging Classroom) is a four-year, pan-European project focused on the design of the future classroom. With funding of €9.45M from the European Commission, the involvement of 15 Ministries of Education and school pilots in up to 1 000 classrooms in 12 countries, iTEC is the largest and most strategic project yet undertaken by European Schoolnet and its supporting Ministries.

Results of recent studies about Web 2.0 teaching and learning in Europe show that existing pilot projects at schools are often driven by single, motivated teachers in grass-root approaches and that apart from support by the school basic knowledge, motivation and inspiration of teachers are necessary for realization of Web 2.0-related innovation. The te@ch.us project sets up a web-based learning community for teachers who are novices in Web 2.0 and connects them to experts and experienced teachers for exchange of concepts, experiences and learning materials.