Law Nancy, Yuen Allan, Fox Robert. Educational innovations beyond technology: nurturing leadership and establishing learning organizations

Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, 2011. - 263 p.Educational innovations beyond technology: nurturing leadership and establishing learning organizationsis an important addition to our knowledge about the effective use of learning technologies in preparing students for our twenty-first century, global, knowledge-based civilization. At present, nations face a difficult dilemma:
On the one hand, as Law and colleagues discuss, the twenty-first century seems quite different than the 20th in the capabilities people need for work, citizenship, and self-actualization. In response, each society’s educational systems must transform their objectives, curricula, pedagogies, and assessments to help all students attain the sophisticated outcomes requisite for aprosperous, attractive lifestyle based on effective contributions in work and citizenship (Dede,
2010a).
On the other hand, for a variety of reasons delineated in this book, in every country industrial-era schools have proven incredibly resistant to innovation. Of all society’s institutions, K-20 formal education has altered the least over the past century and shows few signs of dramatic shifts in practice and policy across the majority of institutions, despite massive external pressures for improvement and diminishing financial resources to support a model that is very labor-intensive (Clarke & Dede, 2009).
In contrast to the recent pundits who present visions of educational evolution unproductive because they ignore this dilemma, Law’s research develops a detailed, evidence-based conceptual framework for realistically analyzing these challenges and developing effective strategies for improvement.