Design-Driven Innovation
A while back I received Design-Driven Innovation by Roberto Verganti in the mail. Design-Driven Innovation is an approachable 230 pages, and is an easy, and pleasant read. Roberto Verganti is Professor of Management of Innovation Politecnico di Milano and the founder of PROject Science. If you’ve read books on innovation, they’ve probably been treatises or essays on the topic from a traditional process or strategy angle. Design-Driven Innovation is something different. Design-driven innovation is more about understanding the real meanings that users give to things then about understanding their needs. The book is broken into three main sections: StrategyProcessBuilding Capabilities Here are some of the core principles from the book to spark your thinking: I would love to hear what you think in the comments (especially if you’ve read this book).
Building a Positive School Culture - WeAreTeachers - Boys Town
Positive School Culture: How one school transformed from violence to haven by Jennifer L.W. Fink Christian Fenger High School had a bad reputation. Located on the south side of Chicago in a neighborhood known for crime, poverty and violence, Fenger had long been a less-than-ideal educational environment. Robert Spicer came to Fenger in late 2009 as the Chief Dean. The administration knew it was time for a new approach. “When they met us, their team shared some of the struggles they had gone through at their alternative school in Nebraska, and how they were able to develop a plan to bring stability, character building and a sense of belonging and purpose back into the lives of young people,” Spicer says. Changing the Culture Like many schools in crisis, Fenger had lost its way. Creating a new culture, though, required some radical change. “You can’t hold kids accountable for something you’ve never told them,” says Erin Green, Director of National Training at Boys Town.
Educational and Assistive Technology Consulting Services — EdTech Associates
ucation Innovation Clusters | Office of Educational Technology
By accelerating the pace of innovation in learning sciences and technologies, the United States has the opportunity to close the achievement gap, improve national competitiveness, and drive economic growth. Accelerating the pace of innovation requires a fresh approach to research and development and the infrastructure that supports it. Education Innovation Clusters Creating a new education innovation ecosystem requires new types of partnerships that cross traditional domain silos. The US Department of Education seeks to identify forward-thinking regions where commercial, academic, and education partners have come together to form an innovation cluster focusing on a specific challenge that their region is uniquely suited to address and solve. Elements of an Education Innovation Cluster Educational partners would provide the environment where emerging learning technologies could be piloted and new solutions could be developed with input from students and teachers.
STEM Mom
The Elements Of A Digital Classroom
What are the components of a digital classroom? From eBooks to smartboards, iTunesU implementation to online learning, the classroom as we know it is changing. It’s true that a digital classroom is a vague idea. And subjective–one educator’s cutting edge learning laboratory is the next educator’s been there, done that. The following inforgraphic looks at some of the more common elements of a digital classroom, including: eBooksBook rental via KindleiPadsOpen Source softwareiTunesUDigital cameras, projectors, and headphones Feel free to storm the comments section below to fill in what’s missing.
Does Our Current Education System Support Innovation?
Flickr:Flickingerbrad By Aran Levasseur Innovation is the currency of progress. In our world of seismic changes, innovation has become a holy grail that promises to shepherd us through these uncertain and challenging times. And there isn’t a more visible symbol of innovation than the iPad. In education it’s been widely hailed as a revolutionary device, promising to transform education as we know it. The profusion of digital technology at work, home and everywhere in between is evident to even the most causal observer. We can’t just buy iPads (or any device), add water, and hope that strategy will usher schools to the leading edge of 21st century education. In light of this dynamic, two critical questions need to be asked and provisionally answered when integrating technology into education. The second question is equally important and often more elusive: “Do the current systems and processes support the integrative and innovative goals?” Adapting Teaching To Technology
Six Best Practices in Credit Recovery | Edmentum Blog
Credit recovery is vital to the success of your students. However, it can be difficult to determine the best way to provide a credit recovery program. Here are six best practices to implement a successful online credit recovery program: 1. Planning When you are planning your online learning program, make sure you consider the following: What are the goals of the program? 2. How will you define which students will be brought into the online learning program? 3. Make sure everyone involved in the program (administrators, teachers, learners, and parents) know the expectations of the program. 4. Set dates to monitor students’ progress. 5. This best practice can seem obvious, but can sometimes be overlooked. 6. Make the course work for your school. Want to learn how Edmentum can help you provide proven, engaging courseware for your credit recovery program?
The 21st century pedagogy teachers should be aware of
Interpersonal learning , personalized learning, second life learning , 3d learning, collaborative learning and virtual learning , these are just some of the few buzz words you would be be reading so often in today’s educational literature. Things have changed , old methods and pedagogies are no longer relevant. The teacher-controlled learning where pre-constructed information is presented in a formal and standardized classroom settings becomes very obsolete. The urgent questions we should , as educators , ask ourselves are : what are the driving factors behind this huge transformation in learning ? and Do we need a new pedagogy to better enhance learning ? Advancements in technology and particularly social networking technologies are changing the whole educational framework . It is evident now that we are in front of two different versions of learner one is labeleed the the 20th century learning and the second is called the 21st century learning. 20th century and 21st century teachers
Why Every School Needs an 'Innovation Day' - Education
Google’s policy of 20 percent time—giving employees plenty of free time work on whatever they want—is world famous for being the birthplace of innovative products— most famously, Gmail. But what would happen if schools gave students a similar amount of unstructured free time and allowed them to take control of their own learning? This spring Matthew Bebbington, a high school physical education teacher in the U.K., decided to find out. He organized a school-wide "Innovation Day" that let 80 students between the ages of 11-15 choose what and how to learn. Bebbington writes on The Guardian’s Teacher Network blog that far from taking an extended recess the students "worked solidly for six hours, cross-pollinating across different projects, ages and abilities." As a result, they made everything from art related projects like album covers and Manga to more tech-oriented projects like a remote control car and rockets.
