New format for the documentation of the experiences of innovation activities is an INDIRE research project that investigates useful tools to document effective innovation processes in the school world in order to disseminate them, paying attention to their specific characteristics.

Its activity is in line with the history of the Institute, created in 1925 as a national educational exhibition, collecting innovative educational experiences of that time. In current educational practices, the audiovisual language offers many documentation possibilities.

The educational and organisational school models transformation processes are dynamic and multi-dimensional and involve multiple subjects (students, teachers, managers, families, stakeholders etc.).Up to now, written reports don’t seem to be able to document this complexity.

Written material is also a key element of the old lecture-based school model.  INDIRE is committed to changing this model which has proved to be inadequate to the knowledge society’s needs.

Audiovisual and multimedia technologies allow new forms of expression and narration to document didactic innovation based on active learning and creativity, easing the understanding and transmission of new teaching models.

The project wants to define formats to promote the convergence of three different documentation approaches:

1) databases, lists, unstructured texts, good practices repositories

2) storytelling and case studies;

3)“social text“, a document conceived as an ongoing multi-authored process more than as a final product. This activity is particularly relevant in education as correction and re-elaboration have always been part of the learning process.

In this framework, the project aims to create an interactive multimedia documentation system, to generate, support and disseminate educational innovation. To achieve this goal, the research is focusing on the most efficient formats (audio-visual, multimedia, human-machine iteration, social relationship) to document dynamic and polydimensional processes, such as those related to didactic and organisational transformation models for schools, and to identify the best formats to disseminate innovation.