How can you tell if an innovator is pulling your leg? Their lips are moving. Or their fingers are typing. I write that knowing fully well that it says a lot about my current title of “learning innovation coordinator.” To come clean about that title: we were allowed to choose them to some degree. I chose that one for pure political reasons. I knew that if I wanted to help bring some different ideas to my university (like Domain of One’s Own, Learning Pathways, Wearables, etc), I would need a title beyond something like “instructional technologist” to open doors.
But beyond a few discussions that I have on campus, you will rarely hear my talking about “innovation,” and I reject the title of “innovator” for almost anyone. Really, if you think any technology or idea or group is innovative, put that technology or idea into Google followed by “Audrey Watters” and get ready for the Ed-Tech history lesson the “innovators” tend to forget to tell you about.
In a broad sense, many would say that the concept of “innovation” involves some kind of idea or design or tool or whatever that is new (or at least previously very very “popular”). Within that framework of innovation, disruption is no longer “innovative.” Disruption is really a pretty old idea that gained popularity after the mp3 supposedly “disrupted” the music business and/or the digital camera disrupted the camera industry.
Of course, that is not what happened – mp3s and digital cameras just wrenched some power out of the hands of the gatekeepers of those industries, who then responded by creating the “disruption narrative” (which is what most are referring to when they just say “disruption”). And then proceeded to use that narrative to gain more control over their industry than before (for example, streaming music services). Keep this in mind any time you read someone talking about “disruption” in education. Who is saying it, what do they want it to do, and how much more control do they get over the educational process because of their disruption narrative?
Of course, there is debate over whether disruption is real or not. Both sides have good points. Regardless of if you believe that disruption is real or not, our current disruption narrative has been around for over two decades now… probably long past the expiration date that gets slapped on any “innovative” idea. If you are still talking disruption, you are not an innovator.
If you want to convince me that you are an innovator, I don’t want to know what cool ideas or toys you have. I want to know who you read and follow. Are you familiar with Audrey Watters? Have you read Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak’s Can the Subaltern Speak? Are you familiar with Adeline Koh’s work on Frantz Fanon? Do you follow Maha Bali on Twitter? If I mention Rafranz Davis and #EdtechBlackout, do I get a blank stare back from you?
If you were to chart the people that influence your thinking – and it ends up being primarily white males… I am not sure how much of an innovator you really are. Education often operates as a “one-size-fits-all” box (or at best, a “one-set-of-ideas-fits-all” box), and that box has mostly been designed by white males. Usually a small set of white males that think all people learn best like they do. How can your idea or technology be that “new” if it is influenced by the same people that influenced all of the previous ones?
So what has this “one-set-of-ideas-fits-all” box created for education? Think tanks and university initiatives that sit around “innovating” things like massive curriculum rethinking, “new” pedagogical approaches, and “creative new applications of a range of pedagogical and social technologies.” They try to come up with the solutions for the learners. Many of these are probably some great ideas – but nothing new.
Why not find ways to let the learners set their own curriculum, follow their own pedagogical approaches, or create their own ways of applying technology? Instead of walling ourselves up in instructional design teams, why not talk to the learners themselves and find out what hinders their heutagogical development? Why not look to learners as the instructors, and let them into the design process? Or dump the process and let learners be the designers?
What I am getting at is helping learners create and follow their own learning pathway. Each one will be different, so we need massive epistemological and organizational shifts to empower this diversity. Why not make “diversity” the new “innovative” in education? Diversity could be the future of educational innovation, if it could serve as a way to humanize the learning process. This shift would need people that are already interacting with a diverse range of educators and students to understand how to make that happen.
I would even go as far to say that it is time to enter the “post-innovation” era of Ed-Tech, where any tool or idea is framed based on whether it supports a disruption mindset or a diversity mindset. What does that mean about emerging ideas like big data or wearables? Post-innovation would not be about the tool or the system around it, but the underlying narrative. Does this “thing” support disruption or diversity? Does it keep power with the gatekeepers that already have it, or empower learners to explore what it means for them to be their one unique “human” self in the digital age?
For example, if “big data” is just used to dissect retention rates, and then to find ways to trick students into not dropping out… that is a “disruption” mindset. “We are losing learners/control, so let’s find a way to upend the system to get those learners back!” A diversity mindset looks at how the data can help each individual learner become their own unique, self-determined learner, in their particular sociocultural context: “Based on the this data that you gave us permission to collect, we compared it anonymously to other learners and they were often helped by these suggestions. Do any of these look interesting to you?” Even of the learner looks at these options and rejects all of them, the process of thinking through those options will still help them learn more about their unique learning needs and desires. It will help them celebrate their unique, diverse human self instead of becoming another percentage point in a system designed to trick them into producing better looking numbers for the powers that be.
This is also a foundational guiding aspect of the dual-layer/learning pathways idea we are working on at the LINK Lab. It is hard to come up with a good name for it, as we are not really looking at it as a “model” but something that turns the idea of a “model” or “system” inside out, placing each individual learner in the role of creating their own model/pathway/system/etc. In other words, a rejection of “disruption” in favor of “diversity.” We want to embrace how diversity has been and always will be the true essence of what innovation should have been: each learner defining innovation for themselves.
Matt is currently an Instructional Designer II at Orbis Education and a Part-Time Instructor at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley. Previously he worked as a Learning Innovation Researcher with the UT Arlington LINK Research Lab. His work focuses on learning theory, Heutagogy, and learner agency. Matt holds a Ph.D. in Learning Technologies from the University of North Texas, a Master of Education in Educational Technology from UT Brownsville, and a Bachelors of Science in Education from Baylor University. His research interests include instructional design, learning pathways, sociocultural theory, heutagogy, virtual reality, and open networked learning. He has a background in instructional design and teaching at both the secondary and university levels and has been an active blogger and conference presenter. He also enjoys networking and collaborative efforts involving faculty, students, administration, and anyone involved in the education process.