On becoming the next new smartphone: The life and times of educational innovations

Abstract

We all tend to recognize innovation when we see it. It’s not just the development of new products and services. It’s the sort of thing that crosses boundaries once faced and that takes the field beyond where it’s previously been. It introduces new ways of thinking about old problems, and may even bring to light issues never before considered. But as keynote speakers Sue Allen and Joan Ferrini-Mundy emphasized the first night of this year’s DR K-12 PI meeting, even this newness contributes to only part of the success of an innovation—the other part is sustainability. The sustainability of innovation underscored the theme of their presentation, Crossing Abysses. By abysses, Allen and Ferrini-Mundy meant the gap between funders, researchers, developers, and their audiences. The gap is not, as the recent PCAST report suggested, due to our emphasis on research at the expense of development. In fact, we do attend to issues of processes, models, and tools in development. Rather, as Allen and Ferrini-Mundy insisted, the problem is that we lack a language to describe how our development efforts get taken up at a wider level—how our impacts move beyond singular research publications and are sustained in the communities they intend to serve.