Support Innovation in Educational Technology
Innovation in educational technology should be developed by the faculty before wider adoption.
As technologists and not educators, CIOs are often hesitant to implement new technology because of:
- High implementation costs
- Low adoption and use by faculty
- Technical challenges and resource limitations
Our Advice
Critical Insight
A structured community of practice (CoP) can foster innovation among faculty at a smaller budget and provide better evidence for which technology should be made available for wider adoption and which should not.
Impact and Result
- Work with your experts in pedagogy and instructional design to develop a CoP for innovation in educational technology.
- Support faculty to collaborate, innovate, and share insights and promote the effective integration of technology in teaching methodologies.
- Gain stronger internal evidence of the value of new technologies and confidence in their adoption rates among faculty.
Support Innovation in Educational Technology
Innovation in educational technology should be developed by the faculty before wider adoption.
Analyst Perspective
Empower educators to develop innovation.
Advances in technology are rapidly altering the way we work, communicate, and socialize. It is imperative that our education reflects those changes in the classroom. However, this requires innovation in educational technology which has notoriously low rates of adoption and is usually wasteful of the scarce funds.
A community of practice (CoP) is one useful approach to efficiently using funds for the widest possible adoption rate. In a CoP, faculty can pool their professional expertise, share costly technologies, and collaborate on innovative approaches. In a CoP, challenges are shared, discussed, and addressed together, often encouraging an innovative culture that explores new uses of technology in education.
Although there may be upfront costs, this commitment to continuous improvement ultimately saves costs by streamlining processes and increasing learner engagement, resulting in better educational outcomes.
Although IT is not leading this initiative, it still has a crucial role in providing technology support. Additionally, when the institution supports a CoP for innovation, IT is no longer responsible for deciding on the purchase of expensive educational technology.
Mark Maby
Research Director for Education
Industry Practice
Info-Tech Research Group
Executive Summary
| Your Challenge | Common Obstacles | Info-Tech's Approach |
| A major challenge in the education sector for the technologist is the effective integration and adoption of emerging educational technology by educators.
The varied needs and costs involved in implementing new technologies serve as significant hindrances. IT does not want to be the arbitrator of whether certain technology meets the requirement of educational value and warrants the financial cost to the institution. |
As technologists and not educators, CIOs are often hesitant to implement new technology due to concerns about:
|
Work with your experts in pedagogy and instructional design to develop a community of practice (CoP) for innovation in educational technology.
Support faculty to collaborate, innovate, and share insights and promote the effective integration of technology in teaching methodologies. Gain stronger internal evidence of the value of new technologies and confidence in their adoption rates among faculty. |
Info-Tech Insight
A structured CoP can foster innovation among faculty at a smaller budget and provide better evidence for which technology should be made available for wider adoption and which should not.
Consider the challenges faculty have with the integration of technology and pedagogy
| The faculty need: | IT should: | |
| ... a simple tool. They need a simple tool that integrates with their existing pedagogy. |
... provide them with a tool. This is primarily a procurement issue. If the cost is small enough, then there should be a process to support the faculty. If it's a large expenditure, then there should be a pedagogical benefit. |
|
| ... support with existing tools. They struggle with the increased prevalence of technology in instruction and the demands to support remote and hybrid delivery of instruction. |
... identify their service requirements. A CoP is beneficial to support instructors with their struggles in effective use of the tools for instructional objectives. IT's role will be to identify the service requirements to support instructors with their needs. |
Faculty Community of Practice for innovation in educational technology |
| ... technology innovation. They are interested in adopting new technology to enrich and transform their pedagogy. |
... collaborate with the experts in pedagogy. IT will be concerned that technology proposed for wider adoption will be worth the cost and resources. A process for allowing faculty to experiment relieves IT of having to assess the pedagogical merits of technology requests. |
IT should support technological innovation in education and not be the gatekeeper
Trends in educational technology are unpredictable.
- The word cloud on the right shows the trends in educational technology over the last decade.
- As with all technology trends, some have become standard in classrooms, some seem dated, and some are new and have a certain amount of buzz.
- IT departments are justifiably reticent to adopt what is new and trending. Technology is expensive, requiring resources to service it, and most new does not achieve wide adoption.
- The challenge is that reticence on the part of the IT can be perceived as interference in the faculty member's mandate to deliver engaging pedagogy.
Source: "Identification and Evaluation," Education and Information Technologies, 2022
Info-Tech Insight
IT departments benefit from having a process to approve pedagogically sound, small-scale innovation in educational technology.
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Unlock Sample ResearchContributors
- Scott Fossenier, CIO, Regina Catholic Schools
- Carol Miles, Senior Curriculum Management, Academic Development and Educational Technologies Specialist