Abstract
While innovation is the buzzword of the decade, it is hard to know what it means, particularly if you look across disciplines. From the bird’s eye view of the National Center for Technology Innovation (NCTI), we wanted to explore this concept. Borrowing from the New Schools Venture Fund (Smith, 2009), we take innovation to mean “a new approach that brings improved results...a product, platform, process, or idea...” This definition makes clear that innovation is not merely synonymous with “new” or “creative.” The “new approach” and “improved results” of the definition make it imperative that an innovation contains two key elements. First, the innovation must be put into action in a real-life setting. Second, the innovation needs to include an evaluative element to confirm the improved results. Through an ongoing series of interviews and profiles published by NCTI, we have studied innovators in educational and assistive technology for many years. This chapter explores the minds of innovators across a number of disciplines, people who have changed the game, made breakthroughs, and implemented changes that result in new approaches that make a difference.
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Silver-Pacuilla, H., Gray, T., Morrison, E. (2011). Exploring the Minds of Innovators. In: Gray, T., Silver-Pacuilla, H. (eds) Breakthrough Teaching and Learning. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-7768-7_8
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