Innovation in Education
I’m currently reading Disrupting Class, How Disruptive Innovation will Change the Way the World Learns. I had wanted to read the book ever since watching Scott McLeod’s K12 Online Conference presentation, Current leadership models are inadequate for disruptive innovations. That presentation was based on the book I’m reading and the previous one, The Innovator’s Dilemma. The presentation is about twenty minutes and worth every minute.
The premise of both books rests on how innovative ideas/products move into the mainstream. Think about things you see all around you, that in the past you never would have expected. How does that happen? How do my grandparents end up with cell phones? How am I helping my mother-in-law learn to use a webcam? How am I discussing Skype with my 92 year old grandfather-in-law? These are things that a few years ago would have seemed like a walk in fantasyland!
In my opinion, the Disrupting Class book is a must read for anyone involved in education. This includes teachers, leaders and parents! For years, technology has been getting into classrooms, but not much has actually changed. We’ve been trying to fit technology into the existing model of education and it’s just not working. There is hope, however, that technology is actually the disruptive innovation for education. It may turn out to be the very thing that helps learning become individualized, customized, and student centered.
If you don’t have time to read the book right now, check out the Disrupting Class blog. I like the blog because it extends what I’m reading, but it can also serve to provide current information about the path of disruption. Where it stands and where it’s going.
One example I’ve seen recently is the Kaplan University commercials. Watch the ad below and read the Wall Street Journal writeup.
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Interesting. I feel we are moving in that direction, but not fast enough. I’m not sure how to make it move faster. I, too, am feeling frustrated, but not hopeless. I expect things to begin moving faster as we all get more comfortable with the new methods of instruction and share with each other collaboratively rather than in a formal, “instructional” manner.
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Hi, Michelle!
A thoroughly enjoy reading your blog and subscribe to your bookmarks via diigo. I am writing to let you know that you have been tagged in the meme: 7 Things You Don’t Need to Know About Me. :)
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I hadn’t seen that commercial yet, and I am glad you posted it. This is definately the movement education needs. We need to change how we deliver instruction and how we expect students to interact with the world. Education is truly seeping beyond the bricks and mortor.
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