As part of this week’s activities, we were asked to try to come up with a definition of innovation and how it applies to one of the OLnet tools. I chose iSpot, as I have often been interested by nature.
I am still in the process of refining my definition of innovation, but I am thinking of something along the lines of “experimenting; trying new or different approaches, either using new or established technologies or practices”.
Measured against this definition, the iSpot project would seem to me to be an innovative one. Users can upload their photos of plants or animals that they have encountered in nature, in order for other users to identify and classify species. Users tag the geographical location where the photo was taken, so a map can be populated with all the observations in a particular area, and thus provide data for the spread of populations of certain species.
Thus the iSpot project in some sense kills two birds with one stone. It provides users with the means to learn about their local ecosystems, while it provides researchers with valuable data that would otherwise be costly to collect. In this sense I would classify it as an innovative project.
As with all of these types of project, however, it relies on users to actively participate in the project for it to be worthwhile. Most of the observations of mammals seemed to be from 3 years ago or longer, which makes me wonder if the project is on the decline.
This raises an issue for me that I have often feared in analysing innovation: with technologies and the way in which users interact with those technologies constantly changing and developing, is it a good use of time, effort and money to develop innovative learning projects if their lifespan is limited to 3 or 4 years? If practitioners’ time is precious (and in my experience, it increasingly is), are cost-benefit analyses required before implementing innovative projects? Should high-risk projects which require a constant large active user base be evaluated on this basis? Will this dampen innovation?
Lots of questions to think about! I’d love to hear your thoughts, so please leave me a comment!
thebrodieset 
Interesting summary of the the iSpot project Andrew!
Although technology is constantly changing, as well as its usage, I don’t think it is useful to evaluate innovation using a cost/benefit analysis. What might seem like a costly exercise initially, may turn out to be the next biggest thing a year or so later. Look at the introduction of virtual learning environments (VLEs).
Introducing a platform such as Blackboard within an institution was an extremely (and continues to be) a very expensive idea. However, by taking a risk and exploring ways of embedding its usage within the curriculum, VLEs have become a standard fixture within pretty much all Universities, as well as most schools nowadays. Learners are growing up in a world where VLEs are common place and expect to access one during the course of their studies.
In order to innovate, it is often required that a risk is taken. This risk could simply be just the wastage of time trying to establish the innovation, through to the spending of millions of pounds. However, if everybody was risk adverse we would not be using the technologies and the developments that have become a fundamental part of our world.
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Thanks, Danny! I tend to agree with you. I like to think of innovation in education in the same way as scientific experimentation: you need to try it out to see if it works, and even if it doesn’t, it was worth trying! I suppose what I feel is that this is not recognised and appreciated in education. We need to think of ways to give practitioners the time, resources and recognition to experiment with their practice, even if it doesn’t necessarily lead to radical transformation immediately!
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