On 28 September, Fair Didacta Italy is going to host the national convention of the innovation movements – “Governance of innovation: the internet as a model and a resource. Compared experiences”: a shared reflection of teachers and experts on how to promote and facilitate innovation processes in the Italian school. In this field, since 2014, Indire has activated numerous experimental projects to transform the traditional educational model.  One of these is “Educational Avant-garde”, the movement which today includes more than 600 schools committed to changing the lecture-based school model.

In the interview below, Elisabetta Mughini, research director and responsible for the indire’s Innovation area, introduces the theme of the conference to be held on 28 September.

Defining the indefinable: what is innovation?

What is innovation for you?

Defining innovation is a hard task. The innovation concept is dynamic and ever-changing by nature, independently from the context in which it is applied. According to OECD, innovation must contain a certain degree of originality and produce a benefit, that is: an added value. Innovation refers to the elaboration of new ideas and strategies and is triggered off as an answer to a problem. The process is similar to action research. Moreover, innovation stems from curiosity, propensity to take risks, capacity to implement alternative strategies, and according to some, it is related to divergent thinking or even a sort of “creative ignorance”.

To what extent the educational avant-garde movement and its community can bring about innovation?

Educational avant-garde is based on the assumption that innovation is often brought about by a single person or by a particularly favourable context. In both cases change risks to be confined in the environment which generated it.

Indire’s research demonstrated that innovation is implemented through dynamics of contamination. The Educational avant-garde strategy is to create a network of people involved in the innovation process, in order to create a replicable model. The process starts from experience and through gradual steps and contamination of ideas produces a systematic change. It is the first step to overcome inertia and trigger off dynamics of change and mutual influence among schools.

Which is the role of the internet in the learning processes? Is it a model and a resource?

With the advent of the knowledge society and 2.0 web, learning processes became social, negotiated, co-built and reticular. There isn’t one centre from which contents are disseminated, but the network structure shifts the central meanings because their hierarchy is temporary and in constant redefinition. This model is, in our opinion, the most adequate to the knowledge society, in which the teacher plays the role of a facilitator of the learning processes and a mediator of the information sources which are now within everyone’s reach. Innovation is implemented and spreads in an ever-changing network.

At the national convention “Governance of innovation: the internet as a model and a resource. Compared experiences” on 28 September, at Fair Didacta Italy we are going to discuss how to govern and facilitate these processes.

I’m a teacher, how do I enrol?

Online booking to the more than 80 events of Fair Didacta has already opened! If you are a teacher you can ask schools for the recognition of the training and workshop activities as in-service training. Teachers have to book at least 4 workshops, included in the ticket, which will give 1 ECT.

Fair Didacta Italy 

Fiera Didacta Italy is the most important international event on school education, scheduled in Fortezza da Basso in Florence from 27 to 29 September. The event is sponsored by the Miur and organised by Florence Fair together with the main institutions of the territory (Tuscany Region, Florence City Council, Florence Chamber of Commerce) and Didacta International, with the support of the Italian Chamber of Commerce for Germany (Itkam) and Florence Convention & Visitors Bureau.  Indire is the scientific partner of Fair Didacta Italy and the organiser of the events. Enrolment to the workshops, seminars and events has already opened.

Programme, information and tickets

Official Hashtag of the event: #FieraDidacta

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