EDUCATIONAL INNOVATION AND TECHNOLOGY: THE NEED FOR INTEGRATION

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to discuss why and how pedagogical
practices and technologies need to be integrated at all levels in order to improve
meaningful student learning. The first attempt to define pedagogical innovations
with reference to the Creative Class Room (CCR) structure is presented. Within the
CCC, innovation is seen as a deliberate activity taking place in a specific social,
economic, technological, organizational and cultural context, designed to solve
unresolved problems, and involving complex interactions between different actors
who actively seek to learn from each other. From this perspective, pedagogical
innovation, given the technological and digital learning environment, is a matter of
integrating different levels of analysis, from the individual to the social and from
traditional to the most innovative teaching and learning practices. It also discusses
the need for a better understanding of how people learn and how technology should
be used to enhance that learning, and concludes with a discussion of how creativity
and innovation should face the “mundane” everyday challenges in the educational
environment