On the occasion of its 20^th anniversary of activities, European Schoolnet published the first “Open Book of Educational Innovation“, a collection of the best European initiatives supporting innovation of the educational system. For many years EUN has been committed to promoting and supporting transformational processes in school education, encouraging dialogue and confrontation among the Ministries in charge of education in 31 countries of the European Union.

The book presents more than 100 innovative initiatives which have been carried out successfully in Europe. As Giovanni Biondi, President of Indire and Chairman of European Schoolnet and Marc Durando, Executive Director of  EUN stated: “ “to explain innovation in education is a real challenge: it is difficult to identify it and to know when it can be considered mature enough to be evaluated. It is often delimited, contextualised and too small-scale to attract widespread attention. There are many variables that affect the dissemination of innovation, starting from the concept of innovation that is often inflated or regarded in a suspicious light, to continue with the process which enabled the implementation of the innovative idea, and to the ability of educational institutions to incorporate, sustain and spread change.” The aim of this publication is to make innovation more visible, bringing it to the attention, not only of the teachers engaged with commitment in their daily educational mission, but also to the attention of policymakers who can help to create the right conditions to implement change.

The projects gathered together in the Open Book of Educational Innovation present new ways of intervention on key aspects of learning, including teaching methods, the organisation of time and space of learning and teaching and educational strategies. As far as the Italian contribution to the book is concerned, the Indire’s projects included in the book were:

• In3Dire the repository created by the Inidre’s researchers offering a selection of useful resources, free of charge, for 3D drawing and printing, to teachers and students.
• Coding@school, the project researching on the possible integration of computational thinking in everyday teaching and its effects on the learning process.
• Newly hired teachers, the training model supporting newly appointed teachers and teachers who have been recently tenured, carried out through a dedicated online platform.
• 1+4 Educational spaces, the Indire’s proposal for the reorganisation of school spaces for a poli-functional, innovative and flexible school.
• Maker@school, the experimentation of the maker approach at school and the use of 3D printers in primary and infant schools.
• Educational Avant-garde, the movement made up of 630 Italian schools, steering systemic innovation in School education.

The book aims to create a common space for dialogue and confrontation to trigger off a virtuous cycle of innovation in Europe.

The Open Book of Educational Innovation