Innovation understood as ‘doing something different’ can have very dissimilar drivers. Three of them concerning education are:
Ethical drivers: Education is considered as a basic human right and stated as such in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Any innovation - technical or other - which helps to making education accessible to a wider audience which has previously been excluded from it should naturally find a driver in the governments, institutions, and otherwise organized individuals who claim to to adhere to this declaration.
Economical drivers: Innovations can help reducing costs of providing education, offer new opportunities to attract learners and gain market share, or raise an institutions profile. As educational institutions are acting in a more and more competitive environment, the capability of influencing these factors will necessarily favor respective innovations.
Emotional drivers: Change is usually embraced by some and rejected to others. Curiosity, inquisitiveness, fear can help or hinder innovations. This is especially relevant in the educational context, because changes usually not only create new training needs which need not only be met for those who are keen to learn, but - more challenging - for those who have difficulties keeping pace with technological developments.
2) Does an innovation have to be useful for the learners?
Innovations are not necessarily useful to the learners. Economical drivers might lead to innovations which are beneficial to learners (lower fees, broader access, higher quality, better support, etc), but need not necessarily be. A good example was given by Alessandro Saroli in the tutor forum: advanced learning analytics can lead to institutions/tutors focusing on successful learners and trying to avoid statistically weaker (in whatevher respect) ones.
3) Should innovation lead to far-reaching changes in practice for the learners or the teachers? Or both?
It very much depends on the context whether innovations lead to far-reaching changes in practice and who is affected by it. But according to my undestanding of innovation (see blog entry of 11 Feb 2013), it should have at least lead to a change in a learning-relevant area. To judge this, I did find John Baglow’s approach (in H817 forum) to use criteria of other, established learning situations, as for example from Jones, B.F., et al. (1995) for classroom teaching:
learners should be engaged in authentic tasks
assessments should be based on learners’ performance of real tasks
learners should be interacting with each other
they should work collaboratively
the teacher is a facilitator in learning
learners learn through exploration
If one of these areas undergoes a change in common practice it can be called an innovation - affecting the learner, the teacher, or both.
Innovation drivers for elearning projects
(H817 - block 1, activity 7)
1. What drives innovation?
Innovation understood as ‘doing something different’ can have very dissimilar drivers. Three of them concerning education are:
Ethical drivers: Education is considered as a basic human right and stated as such in article 26 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Any innovation - technical or other - which helps to making education accessible to a wider audience which has previously been excluded from it should naturally find a driver in the governments, institutions, and otherwise organized individuals who claim to to adhere to this declaration.
Economical drivers: Innovations can help reducing costs of providing education, offer new opportunities to attract learners and gain market share, or raise an institutions profile. As educational institutions are acting in a more and more competitive environment, the capability of influencing these factors will necessarily favor respective innovations.
Emotional drivers: Change is usually embraced by some and rejected to others. Curiosity, inquisitiveness, fear can help or hinder innovations. This is especially relevant in the educational context, because changes usually not only create new training needs which need not only be met for those who are keen to learn, but - more challenging - for those who have difficulties keeping pace with technological developments.
2) Does an innovation have to be useful for the learners?
Innovations are not necessarily useful to the learners. Economical drivers might lead to innovations which are beneficial to learners (lower fees, broader access, higher quality, better support, etc), but need not necessarily be. A good example was given by Alessandro Saroli in the tutor forum: advanced learning analytics can lead to institutions/tutors focusing on successful learners and trying to avoid statistically weaker (in whatevher respect) ones.
3) Should innovation lead to far-reaching changes in practice for the learners or the teachers? Or both?
It very much depends on the context whether innovations lead to far-reaching changes in practice and who is affected by it. But according to my undestanding of innovation (see blog entry of 11 Feb 2013), it should have at least lead to a change in a learning-relevant area. To judge this, I did find John Baglow’s approach (in H817 forum) to use criteria of other, established learning situations, as for example from Jones, B.F., et al. (1995) for classroom teaching:
learners should be engaged in authentic tasks
assessments should be based on learners’ performance of real tasks
learners should be interacting with each other
they should work collaboratively
the teacher is a facilitator in learning
learners learn through exploration
If one of these areas undergoes a change in common practice it can be called an innovation - affecting the learner, the teacher, or both.
References
Jones, B.F., et al. (1995) 'Plugging In'