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130 Daanen & Facer (2007:26)
131 www.futurelab.org.uk
132 Kirkland & Sutch (2009)
The existing pressures on teachers and
schools, the sluggishness of top-down
education reforms, and the freedom
and vibrancy of existing extra-curricula
initiatives, are all reasons why nonclassroom
environments are sometimes
the more feasible and proactive way of
fostering innovation.
The take-up of information and
communication technologies (ICTs) is also
an important factor that enables a school’s
innovation capacity. Organizations like
Futurelab and Becta in the UK are designed
to assist teachers in embracing technological
innovations and making use of new digital
resources. This kind of technological change
is only increasing, and schools are still finding
ways to effectively engage with it. In a 2007
report entitled, 2020 and beyond: Future
scenarios for education in the new age of
new technologies, Daanen and Facer predict
that we are rapidly moving towards an
environment in which:
Interaction with digital technologies will
be more pervasive, seamless and invisible
than today and will facilitate much of
our everyday lives – enabling ongoing
interactions with people, buildings and
materials and with a constantly connected
network. We will be able to tap into
unimaginable computing power and
reliable storage capacity on the network,
which will enable us to interact with more
intelligent (and responsive) technologies, to
‘outsource’ memory, and to use simulations
and visualisation tools to solve problems,
experience alternative realities and prepare
for new experiences. 130
To keep pace, a number of research and
initiatives have been set up that allow
schools to take advantage of existing Web
2.0 technologies and provide the ‘stories of
practice’ from digitally enhanced classrooms.
Futurelab, for example, established the
program Teachers and Innovations, in
order to “develop prototype technologies,
tools, techniques and exemplars to support
innovation and model new and dynamic
educational practices.” 131 The rigour and
investment in such programs helps education
institutions to avoid being left behind. Some
educational authorities, however, have
imposed firewalls for schools, which inhibits
the use of ICT’s in classrooms or formal
learning situations. While these policies
are often about protecting students, they
can sometimes read like censorship or an
unwillingness to enable innovation.
2.4 Fostering a culture of
innovation in schools
A school’s capacity and support for
innovation is usually determined by seven
factors: perceptions of innovation itself; the
health of a teacher’s social network; levels of
risk aversion amongst staff and students; the
nature of the formal school environment;
the type of leadership style; the existence of
a shared vision; and processes for managing
change. These seven factors were identified
by Kirkland and Sutch in their 2009 literature
review Overcoming the barriers to educational
innovation, 132 which reveals the range of
practical and philosophical inhibitors played
out in micro to macro education contexts. To
paraphrase, the factors can be understood
as follows:
The capacity for innovation in schools
depends heavily on how innovation itself
is perceived or constructed within the
school community. The value or success
of any specific ‘innovation’ initiative is
usually forged by establishing a shared
understanding of its distance from current
practice (how far or close it is from existing
pedagogy), and its dependence on un/
available resources (its viability and impact).
Kirkland and Sutch observe that the kinds
of innovations most likely to be adopted
and supported will be those that can be:
replicated easily within local conditions,
used by different practitioners, and that
also offer longevity. Otherwise, the effort
and the innovation are often perceived as
too wasteful of time and too cumbersome
to trial.
Innovation in schools is strongly determined
by the health of a teacher’s informal social
support network: students, colleagues,
friends, and the personalized learning
networks in and out of school. If these
networks provide an atmosphere of
creativity and innovation, a culture of
sharing new knowledge practices, and/
or the spirit of a cohesive team, then an
educator’s own enthusiasm, capacity and
resources to try out new ideas will increase.
Growing future Innovators: a scoping study 29