Lifelong Learning

The International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning, Vol 8, No 3 (2007), ISSN: 1492-3831

November – 2007

David Annand
Athabasca University – Canada’s Open University

Abstract

University education is still generally conducted within pre-Industrial Age organizational structures. As a result of their inability to evolve the predominant cohort-based classroom structure to more cost-effectively meet the aspirations of burgeoning worldwide populations for higher education, universities may see substantial organizational changes imposed on them over the next decades by external forces. Emergent forms of university organizational structures are examined that may affect this needed transformation.

Keywords: Fordism; industrialization; innovation; Luddite; university change

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Matthew Pearson¹ and Steven Naylor¹

Matthew Pearson (Corresponding author) Email: m.pearson@mmu.ac.uk

Steven Naylor Email: s.j.naylor@mmu.ac.uk

Published online: 16 September 2006

Abstract This paper examines data from a series of visits to secondary schools in England which have been identified as doing innovative work with ICT. The paper argues that stable definitions of innovation are difficult in this context and require an understanding of both the technological contexts of innovation and the concept of a school as a dynamic learning community. Data is presented in the form of vignettes to demonstrate how the school visits formed a kind of “performance” in relation to the schools’ own claims about innovations and the enquiries of the research team. Discussion of the data focuses on three key themes which emerge: the changing roles of teachers; new technologies/new pedagogies and the public face of the school. The paper concludes with the observation that innovation is necessarily complex but pupil agency and creativity should always play a vital part.

Keywords Secondary education - Innovation - Teacher identity - Networks - Digital technology

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