I've been pondering how best to implement this backchanneling into the high school classroom. I'm thinking it will have to be scaffolded, so where you all flew off into it, I will have to provide a prompt and allow time for response. We will likely use Meeborooms. I think the metacognitive value is too great to skip this. As the year progresses, less and less structure will be necessary. Now if I only have middle school....we will see. Your ideas?
I agree. The fact that change can be negative, it can't be as strong as innovation.
It would be wonderful to hear about you talk on how our schools will innovate
Nice post. I'm sure your talk about how our schools will innovate will make a great impression to people. It's indeed logical to make it more specific compared to change which is general.
I used to think that any type of semantic shift was fluff, filler--the stuff of ad men and marketing gurus. However, just look at how much of a shift it triggered in your ability to express a new outlook. Just the turn of a word, from change to innovation, immediately opens doors, sheds light, and moves us in a positive direction.
Change connotes uncertainty, while innovation has a clever twist to it that people admire. At the core, it's similar, but in our business, where there are layers of mistrust and fear to sift through, any shift, semantic or not, is something worth looking at.
My move in this direction? Renaming every course I teach removing any direct mention of the word technology. In its stead, I am inserting traditional teaching buzzwords: literacy, collaboration, differentiation, etc. Sometime around December I should know the results.
The word Innovation resonates with me as I struggle with how to further approach and work with my peers. So many times I think that we are just spinning our wheels and that their is no innovation in shifting what we do.
Innovation involves risk. Often times it is calculated risk and has been taken by others before. What I love about my network is that I have access to wonderful, helpful, thoughtful and wise people. When I get stuck, I reach out to others. Innovation requires inspiration and overcoming barriers. My network sometimes helps provide the inspiration and solutions to barriers, but shouldn't both my peers in my area do the same?
I do we get people to realize that we need to innovate when they are so comfortable in what they have always done?
Chris -- thanks for sharing this thought. I agree with the embrace of innovation as the primary driver as opposed to change. Next we need to start thinking about what innovation actually is (and isn't) -- otherwise, it just gets used as a another word for change.
If you have a minute, please see my blog post at http://indivisualizek12.blogspot.com where I write about the need for a culture of innovation in our schools as a prerequisite for teaching innovation to our students.