Presentation at the 7th EDEN Open Classroom Conference, Porto, October 15, 2009.

1. Innovating in
Education,
Educating for
Innovation
OCTOBER 15, 2009
The European School 2.0 – The seventh
EDEN Open Classroom Conference
EDEN – European Distance and E-Leaning Network

2. How can we incubate creativity?
How can we develop in our children
the capacity for innovation?

3. After more than 25 years of experience
in the use of technologies in education
why have we progressed so little
in developing creativity and
innovation in our schools?

4. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
4. A SOLUTION
5. CONCLUSIONS

5. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
4. A SOLUTION
5. CONCLUSIONS

6. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
Two radically different
types of innovation:
incremental innovation
disruptive innovation
If we mix them up,
innovation doesn’t happen

7. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
INCREMENTAL INNOVATION
Incremental innovations build on
existing thinking, products, processes,
organizations, or social systems
They can be routine improvements
or they can be dramatic breakthroughs
but
they address the very core
of what already exists

8. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
INCREMENTAL INNOVATION
Examples of incremental innovations:
• Airplanes that fly farther
• Batteries that last longer
• Televisions with clearer images
• Computers that process faster
• Schools where students learn
better by regularly using the Net

9. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION
Disruptive innovations are addressed to
people who do not have any solutions
They take root in simple, undemanding
applications that are not breakthrough
People are happy to use them, in spite of their
limitations, because no other solutions exist
They do not compete with anything

10. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION
But as they gain strength in the
realm of non-competition
they evolve very fast
and end up replacing
the traditional solutions

11. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION
An example of disruptive innovation:
The personal computer is an example of a disruptive innovation
In the 1970s the professional computer market was occupied
by 100,000 € minicomputers produced by Digital
Equipment Corporation (DEC), Data General and HP.
The first personal computers (like the Spectrum
and the Apple II) were ridiculously limited,
and completely out of that market.

12. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
DISRUPTIVE INNOVATION
They were supposed to be used mainly
as toys by children and their parents.
But they quickly grew up, in this unexplored market
Ten years later, in the 1980s, they were much more
powerful, and starting to erode the minicomputer market
Twenty years later, in the 1990s, the minicomputer
market collapsed in favour of the PC market
DEC and Data General don’t exist any more

13. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
4. A SOLUTION
5. CONCLUSIONS

14. 3. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
From the point of view of
the sociology of innovation
educational systems
are networks of actors
that reinforce each other
into stable configurations
These stable configurations
tend to prevent change

15. 3. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION

16. 2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
Some experts in innovation claim that
in such conservative echo-systems
it is impossible to produce
innovations with lasting effects
the inertia of the system dilutes
or distorts the innovations
and converts them
to the reigning uniformity
It is like pouring water in the desert

17. 2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
I don’t share this radical view
Incremental innovation in
educational systems has
a high failure rate
but it can be explored
if sound innovation strategies
are crafted and managed
relying on dependable social theories,
such as Actor-Network-Theory
Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2005

18. 2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
The promising path to innovation
in the educational systems is
through disruptive innovation
that quietly grows in the margins
of the system, unobtrusively
until it starts changing
it, irreversibly
Clayton M. Christensen is an
inspiring author on this topic
McGraw-Hill, New York, 2008

19. 2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
Examples of disruptive innovations in the school systems:
• Courses provided on-line to a region
or a whole country, namely:
• courses for gifted students
• enrichment classes for
special-needs children
• optional courses in the languages,
arts, humanities, economics
• distant support to homebound
and home-schooled students
• private tutoring

20. 2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
• Pilot schools trying out
new school models
• Special schools for students wishing
to follow project-based learning
• Experimental schools aimed at changing
transformationally the degraded social
communities to which they belong

21. 2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
These are examples of opportunities for
disruptive innovation that don’t clash against
the mainstream educational echo-system
In this way, innovation can
incubate at leisure until it
matures up to a level where
it can be transposed to the
mainstream system

22. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
4. A SOLUTION
5. CONCLUSIONS

23. 3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
Educating a creative and innovative
generation requires other concerns
besides those related to
language, maths and science
Ten years ago, in the early days of the
Blair government, a commission led
by Sir Ken Robinson produced

24. 3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
Educating a creative and innovative
generation requires other concerns
besides those related to
language, maths and science
Ten years ago, in the early days of the
Blair government, a commission led
by Sir Ken Robinson produced
a 240-page report on how to make
progress in the creative and cultural
development of young people
NACCCE, UK, 1999

25. 3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
Unfortunately, the report
has been ignored
Last May, the BBC celebrated
the 10th anniversary of its neglect
Studies and research reports keep
being produced all over the world
insisting, for instance, on the
importance of the epistemologies of
Design and of the Visual Arts
Arts Council England, UK, December 2008

26. 3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
The formative role of the engineering
paradigms is also critical
The distinct epistemologies of science
and engineering should be understood:
“science explains what exists”
“engineering creates what never existed”
Theodore Von Kármán
Children should learn to “explain
what exists” but they should also learn
to “create what never existed”
National Academy of Science, USA, 2009
That’s creativity and innovation!

27. 3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
Very innovative experiments,
engaging thousands of
teachers, are under way
such as those conducted by
Kieran Egan’s Imaginative
Education Research Group (IERG)
But they all have
one thing in common:
Yale University Press, 2008

28. 3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
If they remain at the margins of the
conventional educational echo-system
following a disruptive path
or if they are based on
very cautious, strategically
managed, incremental innovation
they succeed
and produce lasting effects

29. 3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
Otherwise
and that’s what we
witness most of the time
they fail
and leave no lasting effects
HOW CAN WE IMPROVE
THIS SCENARIO?

30. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
4. A SOLUTION
5. CONCLUSIONS

31. 4. A SOLUTION
STILL ONE PROBLEM:
In a world that keeps changing,
who knows how to progress?
Who teaches who?
How can we set up an organic,
reflective follow-up process,
that analyses difficulties,
assesses consequences, and
clarifies how to progress?

32. 4. A SOLUTION
MY ANSWER:
By establishing lasting partnerships between
research units and school communities
around action-research and design-research
projects conducted by mixed teams of
academic researchers and school teachers
in a reflection about how school
curricula and pedagogical practices
can evolve in this changing world

33. 4. A SOLUTION
These projects should be financially
supported and assessed on the basis
of their contribution to sustained:
• system innovation and cultural change
• enhancement of didactical approaches
• improvement of educational practices

34. 4. A SOLUTION
The national and international publication
and presentation of the results of these
projects, by members of the mixed teams
and the dialogue and mutual help:
• face-to-face (at conferences)
• at a distance (in social networks)
strengthens sustained reflective practices
and further mobilizes all the parts

35. 4. A SOLUTION
These projects also provide:
• contextual alternatives
to teacher training
• opportunities for MScs
and PhDs “in the field”
• “authentic” opportunities
for teacher assessment

36. 1. TYPES OF INNOVATION
2. INNOVATING IN EDUCATION
3. EDUCATING FOR INNOVATION
4. A SOLUTION
5. CONCLUSIONS

37. 6. CONCLUSIONS
If we want lasting innovation in the educational systems
1
and our children to be more creative and innovative
we need to reinforce our emphasis
on disruptive innovation projects
These should be action-research and
2
design-based research projects
conducted by mixed teams of school
teachers and academic researchers

38. THE END
The slides will be available at:
Innovating in
Education,
Educating for
Innovation
http://www.slideshare.net/adfigueiredo
OCTOBER 15, 2009
The European School 2.0 – The seventh
My Webpage:
EDEN Open Classroom Conference
EDEN – European Distance and E-Leaning Network
adfig.com