#IMMOOC: Go and Find Out


flickr photo shared by masondan under a Creative Commons ( BY-NC-SA ) license

Thanks to Sheri Edwards, I am hopping back into another MOOC. This time, it is the IMOOC (or Innovator Mindset MOOC), and I am curious. It is co-facilitated by Katie Martin, whom I don’t know, and George Couros, whose name is well known to me but with whom I have not interacted (as far as my addled brain can remember) before this weekend.

Already, I find myself wondering about the term “innovation” and what that looks like in the classroom. I know, I still have to read George’s book — The Innovator’s Mindset — I’ve just started it. Sometimes, we get so bombarded by terms that they lose their meaning. Disruption. Innovation. Change. Action Research. Inquiry-based Learning.

So I am happy to dig into the term and the ideas with others in the MOOC, and see what there is to be seen below the surface. And I see, after reading just the start of the book, that this is a central question that George hones in on.

Defining Innovation #immooc

For myself, I see innovation in my classroom has a slow-moving thing. It evolves over time, not in some sudden herky-jerky motion. And stand-deliver professional development is not going to cut it, either. We educators have to dive in, experience it, react and reflect, and wonder about it. We have to live it ourselves before we ask our students to live it. Or, we have to pay attention to the lives of our students, and innovate from there. This is the heart of the Connected Learning MOOC (CLMOOC) experience.

The reason for the slow bubbling is that I need time to reflect on changes that I bring into my classroom. I need to react, and wonder, and tinker. When I think of the term, innovation, I often think to technology that causes the world to reconsider what has come behind us and wonder what is coming ahead. I also know that innovative ideas do not have to revolve around technology but tech is the first thing that comes to mind these days. Perhaps we need to uncouple those terms from each other, in order to broaden out our understanding.

And, despite my conceptual thinking of instant disruption, innovation is not often all that sudden. Not that dramatic. Maybe it is really is more about a slow revolution. What does that look like in my classroom?

I think back to a picture book project with my sixth graders that has evolved into something completely different over time through innovative practice, brought on by curiosity and a shifting landscape of platforms. Our picture book project began in my first year of teaching (15 years ago), with colored pencils and paper, and a stapler as the binder. We shared with each other.

Then, about four years later, we moved to Powerpoint, to create slideshows that were really picture books (slides were pages), and we wove in science and math themes as part of the storytelling devices. We shared with each other, and younger grades in our school, and families.

Finally, about five years ago, we shifted to creating and publishing science-based video games, keeping our focus on literacies and science, but using the lure of video game design to hook students as creators and makers of digital content for an authentic audience. We shared with each other, other students in our school, families and to the larger game-playing world (in Gamestar Mechanic).

Notice how this shift took many, many years to make. Part of it was technology — could I have had students designing and publishing video games early on? I don’t think so. The technology wasn’t available for what I needed to do, and for the entry points needed for my sixth graders.

And I wasn’t ready for it, either. I needed to immerse myself into gaming, and think through what it might look like in the classroom. I had to make my own video games, and then envision the learning moments. (See our website where we shared resources on video game design and tracked our first year of the project)

I wonder: what’s next with this idea? Where do I go from here? And, as important, do I? Should I even innovate further? I’m nowhere ready for it, but Augmented Reality might be a logical innovative step forward (or perhaps it is just another false excitement) for our science-based storytelling. Could we make Google Cardboard goggles and create some interactive science/storytelling experience? How in the world would I even approach it, though? I don’t know. Not yet.

That’s one of the interesting elements of being an educator. We go and find out. And then we innovate.

Rikki Tikki: Go and Find Out

Peace (dipping in),
Kevin

4 Comments
  1. The elements of exploration, experimentation and even thinking about change (as well as flowing into it!) are all part of innovation, yes? Love the evolution of your picture book project. 🙂

  2. What I think is key to this success is the collaboration with other teachers. Without that willingness to design instruction together, would the project have developed in such a complete way? Kudos to you and your colleagues. Innovation is not an isolated activity, and this marvelous project shows why.

  3. I start my school year with incoming freshman with an exploration of how creative ideas come into being. Need to write a blog post to elaborate how I go about it. We read, annotate, do research, peer review, crowdsource, and try various ways to become idea machines. Thanks for sharing this. Not sure if I will join in. I have deathly bias against educational word trendificationistics.

    Antispamo-trendificationistic-ality: at duress–Google Maps said that I was at the corner of Duress Street and ArmTwisting Alley. Really? Google has a sense of humor. Who knew? Then the whole world exploded.

    • I admit … I am not sure about the IMMOOC yet either, but it hasn’t started yet (well, today, I guess). It’s interesting to connect with a whole other world of educators, though. It makes you understand how many silos we find ourselves in, but only when you seep into another silo for a stretch of time. I keep getting this nagging spidey sense that the MOOC is all a book marketing thing designed as connected experience. But I like George Couros ideas across social media and approach to getting administrators thinking different(ly). We’ll see how it goes … you know I am a sucker for connections, and I have my filter for what is meaningful to me.

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