I have had many partners in conversation in writing these ideas.
Special thanks to Donna Benjamin who thinks beyond the binary.
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I have been working on a paper on 'foundations of innovation'.
I have ended up with two sets of ideas. One around the original concept.
One around the process of trying to describe it and to express it.
1. Foundations of innovation
What is innovation?
Many things to many people. In the context of education and schools it is useful to talk about innovation as the kind of learning a student might undertake which might be unique to their own journey. Perhaps it might be unprecedented in the context of that school or classroom. It might be something which is new for the teacher also. Perhaps it is a recombination of known domains, or a different kind of expression of those ideas. A new language? A new perspective? Inquisitive work.
What is value?
The opportunity space for innovation has a strong relationship to the kinds of value propositions which exist within a school context and beyond that context to the education sector, communities of parents and potential employers. What is valued within a school day, what is blurry, interesting and invaluable. What is in between? What is valued at the end of a school day, week, term, year, graduation?
Open tools and collaboration
Open communities and the way that they collaborate and innovate have been a reference point for thinking about contexts where inquisitive work happens. The ideas in progress regarding education and open source software and also about collaboration are at wikiversity. Thanks to Mchua Alexanderhayes Cormaggio, Jtneill, Countrymike, Erkan Yilmaz and watiwara for their thoughts and contributions despite my wobbly wiki practice. I won't restate those ideas here, but beyond just using free open source software there is another opportunity.
Open practice.. but I dont want to be an open source geek..
It is possible to engage in the kind of practice which makes open code possible. It is possible to practice and to develop that kind of collaborative practice. Beyond participation in open source communities the skills required are useful in other contexts. The same kinds of skills are required in a wiki collaboration in any other context where different ideas meet and are worked through to find new outcomes; where there is not a predetermined right way indicated by an authoritative source, but instead are emergent truths discovered through shared practice.
Attributes of useful collaboration.
In 'emergent' or collaborative spaces we need to use different social skills to make value.
The core elements are that there is an explicit purpose, this makes it possible for participants to feel free to contribute both their individual perspectives and their more standards based, systemic or methodic work. Both can be useful and both are a part of collaborative practice. The systemic and unique flavours of contribution may be available from each participant and may be collected in the explicit purpose.
The process must also be accessible. Participants should understand and be able to comment on the method for refining and working to the purpose. Participants who are able to choose which aspects of themselves are fit for purpose.
Negotiation and winning
This is the area where the interesting collaborative skills are required; the ability to negotiate for ideas in win win kinds of ways. There are techniques for developing these skills.
Cheekily quoting Donna's facilitation and direction skills:
- Facilitating productive harmony between creative and technical people involves getting them to appreciate what they have in common and acknowledge how they are different.
- Plotting a path forward so everyone knows where a project is headed. It's about communication, and compromise. Effective group dynamics are the key to achieving productive collaboration.
- Strategies to facilitate groups becoming functional teams, using tools such as the Myer Briggs Type Indicator, Six Thinking Hats, and applying flow and team formation theory. Seeing things from different perspectives. Trying different kinds of combinations of ideas to make a best fit for purpose solution regardless of the source of the ideas.
Winning in context
But, stepping back from techniques for collaborating on divergent work, in schools there are scoping factors which determine whether the collaborative work feels authentic and useful.
- Some of these scoping ideas are the policies which have been developed to shape the school day.
- Whether the activities are valuable in context of the daily practice and pulse of the school as a flow of people and time, and also, panning back to the experience of school as a journey,
- whether the culture beyond the school day, the wider education sector, community and career context supports and recognises the kinds of thinking and participation, leadership and struggle which happen when people step beyond a known script to make something new.
Geetha Narayaran's powerful ideas
The policies which we use to map and make good learning space in a school based on industrial modelling do not necessarily serve us well in a context where we are interested in student centred learning or open communities of practice. Geetha Narayaran talked about this in her presentation about slowness and wholeness in learning.
Yes but what is really valued?
There is a disconnect between the kinds of value which student centred pedagogy suggests and the line of sight of the wider education system. This means that management of space(OH&S), information(copyright), activities(learning for testing), time(timetable), costs, insurance are defined in ways which are about management of risk. If there is a line ball decision between learning opportunities and reducing risks the risks proposition is likely to win. This means there is always a threat of being out of bounds in doing work which is innovative or unprecedented. In this kind of context it is not surprising that it is difficult to encourage new thinking and practice.
This is specifically aggravated in contexts where the line ball decision is expressed in a one size fits all from a central system rather than from the line of sight in the classroom which might involve an appreciation of the student, the fit for purpose of the learning opportunity, and dialogue with parents regarding trying new things.
Science, computing, creativity, innovation.
There is a correlation between a culture of inquisitiveness and sharing, and the kind of thinking which makes science, maths, technology, innovation, art, strategic thinking possible. ie We are likely to be trading efficient processing and measurement of students-as-product for the ability to make room for innovative thinking and the ability to value diversity and creative inquisitive minds.
School is currently largely structured as an efficient mechanism for sorting students and also for encouraging habits which fit well with industrial models of work. Compliance, working to rule, delivering to tests, responding with correct answers. These are still useful skills. But they are not the only skills. There are other things we need to practice if we are interested in developing inquisitive minds. If we are interested in being a country where innovation, science and collaboration are a part of our culture.
Balancing economies of scale with room to move
Tolerances for variable time, space, doubt, mess, mistakes, tangential thinking are difficult to manage at scale. With technology also becoming a part of the picture we are managing the scale and complexity of our education system through keeping the structures and results predictable and defined from a centralised perspective. This provides a reliable context for both students and teachers.
Complexity and diversity
Working in experimental ways with students is likely to be more complex. Some students themselves may be more comfortable with a structure which has a known path. It is sometimes nice to know what the target is and to aim for it. There probably needs to be a balance between doing things in ways which are predictable for kinds of learning which does cover a predictable journey, or for students for whom that mode is most useful. There also need to be other ways to be valuable and to learn.
This creative stuff is a waste of time it wont get me into ......
School offers a range of experiences as prerequisites for higher learning and working life.
Some employers are starting to recognise student participation in open source and collaborative practice as an indicator of useful workplace skills. Which kinds of experimental or student centred learning are of interest to which students? How can students tell in advance about the kinds of outcomes which will or *will not* be expected. How is creative work expressed and valued in higher education or industry, how might the techniques which apply out of school be used within a school setting to make this facet of learning. How does creative work evolve when it is made for its own sake as an enjoyable process without assessment? What are the motivators in that context? Is it core learning if it is of personal value?
Cultural exchange
Much of the interesting scope in open collaboration happens when it is possible to share ideas with people who share your niche interest. Speaking in languages to students internationally who are exchanging learning from another culture is a vibrant and exciting possibility. The ability to engage in this kind of open practice is challenged by the risks of interacting with people who are outside of the local education system.
I feel that rethinking the model of education will enable us to develop new strategies for these kinds of situations by including parents, students, teachers and the partners who participate online in the shared responsibility for the learning context. Use spaces which are loggable and generate safety through support.
People v government
The habit in our public information spaces is to look at education as an inert industrial system.
Participants both within the model and people who engage with it from a more maverick counterpoint perspective, commonly define themselves in a kind of yin yang around ideas which relate to the idea of the school as an industrial structure and individuality and freedoms as ungovernable counterpoints to systemic control. There is truth in those positions but there is also a kind of stasis. The people who are charged with being responsible are more defensive and the people who identify with expression and liberty see publically funded works as target practice. The infrastructure is our own. The public both within and without the system need more interesting dialogue and different ways to work together.
With us or agin us
Part of that process is shifting new participants from a perspective where they believe that being an individual in an open context requires that they kick until they have right of way. This kind of energy is very loud in our wider communities. It comes to us in the ways that trade, war, television, and politics are often expressed. With us or against us binary thinking.
I appreciate that the idea of edupunk emerges from the online experience of free speech and participation which is an expression of life and passion and which contrasts with the ways we are currently scoping education. The maverick or rescuer is a role which is particularly powerful in Australian culture, honoring the underdog is an explicit part of our psyche.
But I think we need a shift from the system, its victims and rescuers (Karpman).
To something where we all take responsibility for ourselves, for our impact on others, and for doing useful things. (Thanks Joan Russell)
Beyond the binary
I agree with Donna that either or solutions are not the only truth possible.
Open collaborative communities find common purpose through negotiation.
They develop their ettiquette, habits and culture through negotiation.
Some of those negotiations are around the best kinds of systems and open standards to comply with in order for the work to have long term and broadbased value. Agreed systems are still important even in open practice. Sometimes the negotiations are around more subtle and personal and transient aspects of participation and value. Sometimes it is about fun and friendship in the process; about trust and what it feels like to be a part of the conversation.
If we are each both system and individual
It is possible to share responsibility as a community. It often involves contention, especially in stages where there are lots of new participants who are learning the ropes.
I can win some things. Our team progress is important.
Using more adaptive frameworks which help us all to share responsibility for our learning and impact on others through that process is the journey we need to make in order to make effective open practice a skills based answer to the challenges and risks we face, and enable a shift from the closed fence based and externally effected management of risks and opportunities.
Teflon systems and negotiating with trains
I appreciate that often negotiation of freedom is subsumed by the sheer mass and momentum of education as a social engine and flow of people and resources; as a system under law; as part of an economic rationalist economics. But I feel that we need to step out of the traditional roles and experiment in partnership with students, parents and the wider community to make a different pattern.
Some questions
What choices can students make?
What happens if we re-examine copyright and look for new ways to make value?
How do students learn to express constructive collaborative power and voice?
What happens if some students are wikipedia bureaucrats who have developed excellent skills through practice. Can we value and build on those skills? Can we learn from them? Do they want to mix school and wiki life?
What happens if there are community languages and ideas which might be useful to hear in Australian schools? Indigenous languages? The ways that the mix of cultures makes us who we are.
What happens if school architecture is renegotiated?
What happens if parents teachers and students work together with mentors and other students overseas to make the internet a tool for bridging understandings and making friendships in other nations?
Can we be patient and work through the questions and find other ways?
If yes then how?
If we have a preference for 'yes' in terms of making opportunity, how do we shift our 'blame' conversations so that we let go of the provider consumer division.
Is it possible for us as Australian citizens to understand public infrastructure as a powerful mechanism which supports our diffuse interests and to find the aspects of it which are useful and to partner with it.
Is it possible for those of us who work in the sector to find ways to make a commonly valued step forward from diffuse opinion? How do we refine those skills and processes?
What if gov is more meshy
These pieces of infrastructure are the tools we have for making things 'in the public interest'.
The popular dialogue around them is very polar partly because the role of government is not fashionable in an economic rationalist dialogue. There has been a reduction in the real value and practice and the clarity of purpose around government and public practice. I feel that there is a revival through the kinds of commitment that the current government is contributing to try and deliver on their goals. To invest in infrastructure, community capacity. These are useful things. Our public mechanics need to be healthy and supported to be useful in maintaining open standards and infrastructure for open practice. For helping us negotiate a complex society.
Honesty regarding scope and intent
If these ideas are too hard then we need to at least be aware of the shapes of the patterns we are making and to be honest and authentic about what we intend and what we effect with the choices we make around risk and value. We need to accept the consequences of those choices for our ability to manage diversity and innovation.
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2. Sharing these ideas
So all of that is the first part. The concept.
The second part of the learning through this process is that I am struggling to express these ideas in ways which feel useful for other people. I have found it tricky to negotiate well. I realise this is a supreme irony, but I am happy to recognise that I am a work in progress. That even with some experience in collaboration I am finding it hard to read the cues or to be clear about what my purpose is, where it might overlap for others, where it might be divergent. Where divergence is just fine. Thanks to the wikiversity people for patience..
This is what I am learning as a part of my trying to do something new. To think something new, and to share it and try and make it useful. I value the opportunity to make these mistakes and hopefully to learn from them.
To work towards being a useful collaborator and to seek out people with similar goals and practices.
I think the contention is worth the potential shift in model as I think it does provide us with the foundations for innovation, but also for open participative communities and cross cultural dialogue.
We need the skills to be able to hear diverse perspectives and to negotiate with those perspectives in ways which take into account the consequences of our choices. As a global ecology. As a global society. How we share leadership and how we negotiate different kinds of winning.