Innovation is Easy!

Innovation is a scary word.

I'm betting many of you are like me -- you don't think you're an innovator, you don't feel like an innovator, you doubt you will ever be an innovator, but you sure do wish you COULD be an innovator.

Being an innovator implies being revolutionary and visionary. And many innovators certainly are that way. Just check out this list of the 12 greatest innovators of all time, some of the greatest innovators of the past 30 years, and some up and coming innovators. Can you see your name associated with all those names? If you're like me, you think, "No way!"

But I have recently learned that innovating is actually not as hard as I thought it was.

I am currently doing an online book study for the book The Innovator's Mindset by George Couros. One of the things the author said recently about innovation is this -- in order to see if something is "innovative", you can ask two questions:

Is it new?
Is it better?

"New" does not have to mean totally brand new. It CAN be a new invention, or it can be an iteration. "Better" means better for your learners, but defining "better" can be tricky.

But I've seen innovation in action -- and you won't believe how easy it was!

Janine Michalak (8th grade ELA teacher) has her kids do an introduction speech each year. The kids present a culture kit to tell their classmates about themselves. In the past, this was done by handing out the papers to the kids about the assignment, having kids create a PowerPoint presentation, then assemble a decorated box full of artifacts representing their culture. The kids learned about public speaking, creating presentations, and their culture.

This year, Janine decided to up her instructional game and she said my favorite words -- "Can you help me?" She explained how she wanted to revamp this assignment to make it more tech integrated and tailored to the learners in her class. So here's how she changed the assignment:

• She converted all her Microsoft documents to Google Docs
• She shared all her documents for the assignment to Google Classroom
• She updated all the information on the documents to reflect the changes she made
• The students created Google Slides presentations
• The students created a virtual culture kit -- each student had his/her own web page on a class site where they shared pictures related to their culture
• The last slide of the presentation linked to the student's culture kit webpage
• The students turned in their final Google Slides presentation through Google Classroom

Janine didn't change the timeline for work; she didn't change the goals of the assignment. She just changed the way the students work and assemble their work.

After the first class did their presentations, she told me that she had 10 presentations scheduled, and all 10 got to do their speeches. She also said that this was the first time in over 20 years of teaching she had a set of speeches go this way. All the kids' work was in one location -- no time wasted with kids trying to find where files were saved because they were all in one central location since they were turned in via Google Classroom.

If you apply George Couros's two questions -- is it new? is it better? -- to this lesson, you can answer yes to both! It is new in that this assignment is an iteration of the previous one. It is better because the process was easier for both the students and the teacher as well as allowing students to use tools they were familiar with and provided them some opportunity to express themselves individually.

Janine Michalak is an innovator. And it wasn't hard at all. Add her name to the list -- right next to Jeff Bezos, Sergey Brin, Mark Zuckerberg, and Pete Cashmore!

Janine gave me permission to share this journey with you. She's not one to toot her own horn. In fact, most teachers like to stay in the shadows and not draw attention to the cool things they do in their classrooms. But I'm offering you a challenge -- can you do one of these things?

Challenge 1 -- share with me something innovative you have done/are doing/are getting ready to do. Share not to be a "show off" but rather to be a role model, and inspiration, and a helper to your colleagues!

Challenge 2 -- pick a lesson that you want to innovate! Choose something that you already do -- you absolutely do not have to re-invent the wheel! Then send me my favorite words -- "Can you help me"? and we will innovate together!

Are you brave? If so, share which challenge you're accepting in the comments below for the whole world to see!

Are you not so brave yet? Send me an email to share which challenge you accepted!

Ready, set, INNOVATE!