From Educational Innovation towards Systemic Impact: a New Discourse for Networks of Practice

1. From Educational Innovation towards Systemic Impact: a New Discourse for Networks of Practice Social Applications for Lifelong Learning SALL 2010, November 4-5 Patra, Greece Dr. Cornelis Adrianus (Kees-Jan) van Dorp European Association of Distance Teaching Universities (EADTU) European Society for the Systemic Innovation of Education (ESSIE)

2. Agenda • Change drivers • Demand for systemic innovation • Cases of systemic Innovation • Creating a new discourse • Other cases • Questions

3. Change drivers • Acceleration of the pace of change in our society • Acceleration of the pace of change in our labour market • Acceleration of the pace of change in our educational system • Labour markets and the skills people need are evolving ever faster • Globalisation • Migration • Greying populations • Urbanisation • Evolution of social & health care structures • Information and communication technologies • Biotechnologies • Nanotechnologies • Green sustainable technologies Society Labourmarket Education

4. Change drivers • New domains and growing diversification of professional qualifications • Rapid change of work and profession across sectors & occupations • Future jobs: higher levels of education combined with a different mix of • skills and competences, as well as totally new ones • Most jobs on the market in 2020 will require high and medium-level • qualifications • Net job creation projections (20 million), in favour of high-skilled jobs • High demand skills in Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics • (STEM)

5. Change drivers • The economy is interconnected and global economy • Restructuring and displacement occurring more frequent • Crises tend to metastasise abroad to have systemic impact • Bank crisis, followed by Euro crisis, sovereign debts, Euro-zone bailout • Short term upgrading of lower skilled must be seen as priority to maximise • employment and self employment opportunities • Long term reform of the education system to provide for adequate skills • could increase the GDP by as much as 10 % • Debts and repayments force national governments to make trade-offs • Cutting in future education spending, now that changes & challenges for • education are so big already

6. Changedrivers • Heterogeneous, ageing, decreasing, and more inflexible workforce • Act to meet the high standards of a modern competitive knowledge-based • society • People should be able to participate in lifelong learning and adapt to a variety • of new tasks over their working lives • People require more transversal skills and competences like analytic skills, self • management and entrepreneurial skills, which can be addressed in times of • uncertainty • Anticipatory and condition-creating measures, aligning economy and • self-realisation of individuals in a changing society • Majeur changes in our society with systemic impact: lifelong learning • Formal, informal and non formal educational innovations

7. Demand for systemic innovation • Structural changes in our society e.g. • demographic ageing • composition of population & migration • call for new technologies • Education systems themselves to innovate and make structural changes • Value must be added to education to meet new demands • Identify & evaluate new innovative education designs and ICT arrangements • Increase the social and professional integration and mobility of people • Enable larger share of population to participate in knowledge-based society • Expect European education to be able to structurally migrate to a higher level • Self fulfilment and associated empowerment

8. Systemic Innovation • Systemic innovation is considered any kind of dynamic system-wide change that is intended to add value to educational processes and outcomes (OECD, 2009) • Searching the space of discourse! • Education and/or learning (formal, non-formal and informal)? • Publicly available innovations and/or private ones? • System: various aggregation levels? • Address and elucidate system boundary relations?

9. Cases of Systemic Innovation • Employers’ difficulty in recruiting staff with VET qualifications • Devising of an education and training solution • Australian context of large distances between urban areas • The difficulty of training/studying in remote areas • The socio-economic imperative to bridge the urban-rural divide • Majority VET learners work: target training to needs of working learners • Development of a national e-learning infrastructure for VET • Condition: include high quality training delivered in an open manner, • with flexible hours, content and location Flexible learning in Australian VET (OECD, 2009)

10. Cases of Systemic Innovation Flexible learning in Australian VET (OECD, 2009) • ICT with unprecedented opportunities for flexible delivery i.e., • location and timing of lessons • As well as learning content which can be adapted and reused • to serve different learning communities • Mainstreaming e-learning across the VET system in different configurations • e.g., distance learning, blended learning & individual class-room assignments • New technologies and the co-creation of learning objects • Make it sustainable without government funding? • Australia is a large exporter of education • Royalty & licensing possibilities to be exploited across other countries

11. Cases of Systemic Innovation Remote placements/virtual internships (EADTU, 2006) • Remote internships for professional development of off-campus students (ODL) • Copenhagen declaration on the modernisation of European education & training • Flexible professional training and acquisition of skills and competences • To experiment with technology-enabled access to work experience • Sensitise mainstream HE to the contribution of virtual/remote internships • Some innovative components that merit scaling up: • - increase of training opportunities • - exposure to not/never-thought-of occupations • - integration of disadvantaged, and preparation of, supplement to • or blending with physical placements

12. Cases of Systemic Innovation Remote placements/virtual internships (EADTU, 2006) • Pilots conducted with different didactical and pedagogical configurations • - Distance didactics within remote outplacement module • - Regular integration within existing study courses • Utilisation of free and mandatory study spaces • With regard to pedagogy i.e., the strategies used for learning • - traditional student/supervisor pedagogy & autonomous working • - collaborative pedagogical relations and socio-constructive learning • Remote internships are transversally applicable across education sectors • Steadily integrated into curriculum ODL, mainstream universities & polytechnics

13. Cases of Systemic Innovation Open Educational Resources (MIT, 2002) • Open Educational Resources (OER) are defined as ‘teaching, learning, and research resources that reside in the public domain or have been released under an intellectual property license that permits their free use or re-purposing by others. • OER is a pedagogic resource to be (re)used, modified, remixed and distributed • OER have opened and reshaped global access to higher education content • MIT, Harvard, Stanford (US) and Oxford, Cambridge & OUUK (UK) releasing • materials through platforms iTunes U, youtube.com/edu and own sites, like • Open Yale Courses and OpenLearn • In September 2005, the OCW Consortium members articulated the mission: • ‘to advance education and empower people worldwide though Open • CourseWare’. • EADTU working on dissemination of self-learning resources with UNESCO, ICDE, Ibero-American AIESAD, African ACDE, Asian AAOU, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, & others

14. Cases of Systemic Innovation Open Educational Resources (MIT, 2002) Universities and OER Providing high-quality academic educational content to educators and learners for whom the materials can make the most difference e.g. Utah State University http://ocw.usu.edu/ Community colleges: Obama’s $500 million for OER President Barack Obama committing $500 million for the development of open online courses for community colleges as part of the American Graduation Initiative: Stronger American Skills through Community Colleges http://oerconsortium.org/ K12 education initiatives Non-profit organisations with the mission to reduce the cost of textbooks for the K-12 market, using an open-content, web-based models, pioneering the generation and distribution of high quality educational content http://about.ck12.org/

15. Cases of Systemic Innovation • The history of Digital Learning Resources (DLR) is one of trial and error • In Denmark, the government has been strongly involved in ICT: • From a focus on computers • To internet connections • To development of DLR, towards • Integration of ICT in subject matter & • Making ICT an integral part of daily school life • A special government body, has been very active in distribution of DLR • Herewith however also hindering commercial markets to develop • Publishers experienced problems to plan, produce & sell DLR to schools Digital Learning Resources (OECD, 2009)

16. Cases of Systemic Innovation • A private DLR developer devised the solution of annual subscriptions for schools • Subscriptions for schools consisted of a package of different DLR • Allowing producers to financially plan DLR products more systematically • Succes also due to the universal login by which a pupil or teacher only has to login • once to obtain access to all the web services subscribed to by the school • It has created a sustainable market for online learning materials for schools with • proper supply and demand and affordable pricing • However, • “The idea of subscribing to DLR and its availability and affordability have however not led to any didactical and pedagogical innovation in schools. DLR in schools are by large used as digital replica in traditional school teaching” (OECD, 2009). Digital Learning Resources (OECD, 2009)

17. Cases of Systemic Innovation • The innovation driven economy depends on entrepreneurs • Welfare economies rather diminished the personal/financial necessity • Recognising entrepreneurship as a transversal competence • Implementation throughout curricula, pedagogies and qualifications • But also (!) remain entrepreneurial throughout working life • Demographic ageing: signals the need to start addressing the adult population • This cohort is even identified by the Kaufmann Foundation to be more entrepreneurial • Curricula should be reinforced, restructured and more flexible, with such • requirements in mind Flexible entrepreneurship (EADTU, 2007)

18. Cases of Systemic Innovation • Effectuating developments in ODL and traditional universities • Universities from Spain, Estonia, Hungary, Italy, and Poland • Entrepreneurship curricula in a novel way: off-campus & blended • flexible, didactically innovative & pedagogically rich learning framework • collaborative platform for virtual business planning • multipurpose, multimodal & multilingual Masterclasses • student business planning configurations, and • business planning assessment methods • The framework has innovative features • Merit scaling up to obtain systemic impact Flexible entrepreneurship (EADTU, 2007)

19. Creating a New Discourse Lift education to higher levels

20. Creating a New Discourse Lift education to higher levels • Different View on • Communities & Networks of Practice (CoP / NoP) • Systemic Innovation: • - Discourse about the whole educational chain • - Inclusive all the processes of learning • Throughout personal and professional life • Formal, informal and non-formal • Bundling of organisations, talent and expertise • Bridging sectors, domains and disciplines • Stakeholders, accelerators, public and private

21. Creating a New Discourse Whilst not usually applied to mixed relationships between organisations and persons, there is no reason why such a group cannot come together as a network of practice if they have shared practices and possibly joint or mutual goals http://www.essie-society.org/

22. Other Cases • Green innovation • Sustainable development • Transversal throughout curricula • Entrepreneurship • Recognised as transversal skill • Incorporated inside programmes • Informal learning innovations • Social applications, Internet safety • Home pedagogy, safe content • Harmful user-generated content • Being bullied online • Parents don’t realise • Risks increase with age • Also (institutional) cases: • European Credit Transfer & Accumulation System (ECTS) • Erasmus Student Mobility & Placements • Maybe forgotten: but all systemic!

23. From Educational Innovation towards Systemic Impact: a New Discourse for Networks of Practice • Thank you for your attention! • Kees-Jan.vanDorp@EADTU.nl • Kees-Jan.vanDorp@essie-society.org