now coming up with creative new ideas can be challenging but there are a range of techniques that we can utilize to support the creative processes now the first of these is brainstorming coming up with new ideas but there are some particular strategies around brainstorming that you can utilize so I've given you in the notes some approaches to applying brainstorming um and some different techniques that you can utilize so go through the brainstorming process there are a range of different subtypes of brainstorming but generally it's putting down as many ideas as you can as quickly as you can trying not to privilege any particular ideas try not to dismiss any ideas of course they're just too ridiculous but just get as many ideas down as you can then start looking at those that might be particularly effective you could group ideas into various classifications you could then explore some combinations of ideas which is a very important technique where you look at how two ideas may form a new idea so give uh essentially brainstorming goes through four steps setting a clear objective what it is you're trying to solve so the last section we looked at different opportunities that exist within educational technology so that may frame what you're trying to actually achieve then you need to go through what's called a free-forming idea generation stage just skip down as many ideas as you can then you go through a refinement stage where you can group them and classify them and dismiss some and so forth and then you'd slowly narrow down your ideas until you get a smaller set and from that you then choose which ideas you're going to progress forward with so that's brainstorming another similar approach is mind mapping now this is once we get our ideas rather than just classifying them in sort of groups and so forth we try to actually form formal structures of how those ideas relate to one another and we developed that as what's called a mind map or concept map or thinking map that you place your ideas down now generally in the middle you have your key idea what is the problem you're trying to solve then you might put a whole range of different educational Technologies around that that might relate to that problem and then there might be a whole lot of issues related to those educational Technologies things like cost or availability or Effectiveness and you associate those different ideas with those Concepts and you draw lines between them to show those relationships and you build up your mind map um through a whole range of branches so ideas and branches and it's mostly about the relationship between different concepts and that can often Identify some gaps so where there's not a lot of branches occurring maybe no one's really looked into that particular area and there might be opportunities then for you to explore that or there may be some really significant issues being identified by some educational Technologies in relation to your concept you're trying to solve but there's no really existing technologies that are available to do that and so that might indicator that's an area that you could explore and try to see if you can find a technology that can address that really strong need in relation to the issue that you're trying to come to groups with then we have a process called scamper so this is where we think about the technology that we're going to utilize and we look at how we could um maybe substitute new technologies for existing Technologies or we could look at what part of an existing technology we could replace with something else so maybe it's a um an educational computer game and we could replace the screen interface with the virtual reality interface or we could look at instead of using interactive whiteboards we could use interactive tables or again virtual reality headsets or just replacing one thing with something else that's called substitution we could also look at adoption where we make changes to the use of something so again maybe looking at virtual reality headsets and they've got speakers on them so maybe we could use those speakers to allow students to have listened listening State stations where they listen to um someone speaking a language and then having to repeat back that language so again we're adapting the use of the virtuality headsets to a listening station microphile headphone type station so it's where we're adapting one technology for another use say for use of mobile phones um in the classroom let's say we're teaching art and we're using the GPS system or the motion tracking system in their mobile phones to act as paint brushes and we can have what's known as um light painting where students are painting with their mobile phones in a virtual Camp uh canvas that represents their um artwork as it's been created so there's a range of different adaptations of existing Technologies and using them for purposes that they hadn't been thought of for use before then we can modify Technologies so this is where we take a technology and we change it to be more useful in new ways now again remember you don't have to do this yourself you can just propose that it's done and you can assume you've got a whole lot of programmers that can make the changes that you envisage are needed for your modification so it may be taking a learning management system and modifying it with an Adaptive Learning System and an AI system that tracks student learning and achieves a new educational outcome as a result of that modification we can also put things for other users so taking an existing technology and adapting it for a new use let's say driverless cars we could adapt that for driver training where the driverless car is giving feedback on the road and what the car should do and we could map that to what the student driver is doing and seeing how the differences between the student driver and the driverless car in making decisions about what's occurring so there we're taking in a technology driverless cars and we're adapting its use to an educational purpose sometimes we might want to eliminate things um so let's say we're looking at Learning Management systems and all of us and we started to eliminate test taking so taking the testing aspect out of that of course we proposition that that aspect is detrimental to the learning process that students are engaging in the learning of course they're too focused on the test taking so that's the idea of eliminating elements out of and existing technology and so all of those The Substitute adapt modified put to another use and eliminate form the scamper framework of thinking about how to use technology in different ways now another technique is called reverse thinking so this is we take an existing idea approach and we reverse it so having an anti-social media platform where the idea is to have a a platform that doesn't allow us to engage with other people but it still allows us maybe to put posts up and to share things but they may be only for our own personal use maybe as a reflective diary so we're using the concept of social media but we're taking out the social aspect um so there's things like anti-digital anti-digital learning tools so where we don't want to use any digital Technologies but we still want to use the idea of a online learning platform that take away the online learning aspect um which seems a bit strange but it's looking at what is the fundamental elements of these tools and can they be used in a way that is done completely differently to how they're originally envisaged so this is the idea of reverse thinking try to look at an existing process and if we completely upended it and did it in a completely different way could new ways of learning emerge from that approach and then we've got analogies so this is looking at how we can utilize an educational technology in a new way by thinking through the purposes of that technology so let's say students are in the example I gave struggling with reader comprehension they're having difficulties with reading and a similar problem is when students have difficulty with navigating and so we're looking at two problems that are reasonably similar now for navigation we've solved that problem by the use of mobile mapping and GPS systems that give directions to someone as they're trying to navigate so having a similar type of solution for students when they're trying to read is the use of analogies so we take an existing system process whatever that does work well and we look at how those processes could be applied to a different situation um and that's the use of analogies so there's some different techniques that you can utilize in coming up with new ideas around how to utilize educational technology now then we have to actually develop the technology yeah in your portfolio assessment you don't actually develop the technology you are going to be developing the idea for the technology but the same processes are things we have to go through now I've given you access to the edtech developers guide which goes through this process in significant detail and I've given you a little bit of a summary of some of the key ideas as part of that but the edtech developers Dart guide will go into more depth and detail for you to come up with your own ideas and develop those into Solutions so one key aspect is the idea of iteration this forms the fundamental process of um the design where we go design developing evaluate we call that an iterative process and there are a range of different techniques and approaches around that ideation process which involves iteration uh a good example would be drafting when you go to write an essay you don't write the perfect essay from start you start with an idea you develop it out so you come up with your design you then develop it into a first draft and then you evaluate it where could it be improved how could it be developed better and then you start back again you then think okay what new elements of it need to be improved so you're redesigning it you then develop it again you've come up for your second draft and then you evaluate does it need third draft that's the idea of iteration now another key aspect when we need to think about educational Technologies particularly with children is the idea of privacy now a lot of Ed Tech development fails to appreciate the high level of concern that exists within education around student privacy and so it's a fundamental thing you need to consider in your educational technology development idea is whether or not it is going to meet the stringent needs to assure Educators and students and parents and everyone else that student privacy is going to be maintained so you need to think about how to do that um ensuring the data that's collected is kept private but the whole process is transparent and that people students and parents are not using the technology can be assured that the data isn't going to be shared without their knowledge and plan around that and give your considerations as to how you've ensured that that privacy is going to be sustained now a lot of these Technologies and ideas are being developed by others and their online communities that you can tap into and explore and this is called networking and developers utilize networking a lot to gain assistance in development of their ideas now it doesn't mean you have to share your idea in whole of others so they then steal the idea but there's a lot of benefit that can be gained through networking and sharing your ideas now in this course you can do that through the online forums so discussing your ideas sharing your ideas and getting feedback from your peers in tutorial you can share your ideas and get feedback from your lecturer and also from your peers and the process of sharing um can be beneficial in itself because it helps you to articulate your ideas and also to receive feedback and ideas on how it can be improved where you there may be things that you haven't thought about that others have considered in their own developments now in industry and in developing educational technology ideas there are a whole range of other more formalized approaches to networking such as um hackathons and entrepreneurial startup weekends and um and conferences and a whole range of other mechanisms often supported by governments because there is a generally a need for startups and Innovative companies and they can generally lead to a lot of benefit commercially with relatively small investment in supporting the ideation process for these startup companies so there are two main elements around that incubators and accelerators so incubators are really designed to support the generation of ideas and accelerators take ideas and commercialize them um so they have two different focuses um they rely upon two different levels of funding and support but they are available and we'll discuss some of those different affordances in the tutorial but think about it as though you were starting it as a company and you needed funding to be able to commercialize it and to develop it what Avenues of support could you approach how you would approach them how you would pitch your idea which is essentially what you're doing for your portfolio assessment you're putting forward an idea around an educational technology and trying to convince that it is going to be beneficial in terms of educational outcomes but it is also feasible in terms of being able to be developed so there are lots of opportunities for funding of such um Endeavors uh educational organizations are probably the the key thing that you need to think about but there are sources such as crowdfunding where you put forward your idea and asks for Investments through various online sources there are grants and Innovation funds we can approach governments and philanthropic bodies that can provide money to support startups there's Angel and investors and Venture capitalists now they have again different um challenges around them uh generally they want to see a return of their investment and so you give up some of your control over your process in doing so but they may be the best way of gaining funding to bring your idea into fruition now you also need to think about who the product is going to be for who is going to utilize your educational technology is it going to be a traditional educational organization a school a university maybe it's homeschooling but think about what is the age level who is it going to be for everybody or is it going to be specifically for a particular age level is it going to be a particular sector of education is it for the private education Market or government education Market um what sort of infrastructure is going to be needed is it a whole AI system that's going to need a supercomputer that's going to run all of this and so forth or is it going to be so people can run on their mobile phones and as a mobile device um so you need to think about what's going to be required to support your educational innovation um are there going to be key people that are going to be needed to be convinced and brought on board does it going to need a whole range of Technology support staff to maintain and keep this running is it going to need the school leadership or the organizational leadership to come on board and agree to it or could individual teachers and academics engage with it and start from a bottom up process of introducing it into an educational organization so think also around how it could be used by students can they just only use it at the institution or can they also use it at home and try to think about it from the student's perspective how are they going to engage with it yes it may be attractive for the educational organization it may give them more control and management of students that will students appreciate that and will they engage with it now again all of this can be supported by improvements in decision making and there are different ways of um improving your own decision making around coming up with an educational technology one approach is to have a champion or a mentor that gives you support around your ideation process gaining support from other organizations such as unions and education departments and so forth can help identify the various issues that you need to address before it becomes acceptable to utilize that technology in an organization having an allocation within budgets within education organizations is very important so before you put all the investment into coming up with this new idea and creating it for your school or for your University or whatever having a commitment that they're going to fund that development or the implementation and then there's just making sure that you meet all the requirements of an organization in terms of its suitability for use with students and and is your application your tool going to be strategically placed are there lots and lots of competitors or is it a niche market that's you've identified that only really your tool is addressing and can exploit that opportunity so they're just some other ideas to think around developing educational technology application now finally two key areas where many of these tools fail is is it going to be sustainable yes it may be achievable with all of your passion and interests around supporting it but when you move on or it needs to be utilized in another organization is that going to be able to be achievable and utilized there so think about how it might be funded that's often a key area is it going to be only funded by an initial Grant and can that then be sustained once that Grant disappears or can it be utilized in organizations where they don't have that initial Grant to support the development is it going to be used through funded by the users now there are various models around that where they purchase the technology or there might be a freemium model where they can purchase or they can get access to a free version that doesn't have the full capacity of the paid version and they're a range of different techniques that are utilized to fund and support the development and implementation of educational Technologies um is it going to be sold directly to parents or to students rather than through the institutions um can it be packaged within licensing of other products so it might be say a a learning management tool that can be put into other Learning Management systems and so it could be sold and incorporated into other applications or can just be a value-added service where it analyzes data and supports other applications and tools so there are a range of different ways of sustaining and growing the essentially the business model of your tool but so many educational Technologies fail of course they don't consider those aspects and while they're a great idea individually they just don't scale or have the sustainability to have a long-term impact and finally a key aspect around that can be software interoperability and open data um software changes all the time probably the biggest example of that was around the flash programming language and billions of dollars were spent on developing educational applications in the flash programming language which allowed um animations to occur on the web and a decision was made to discontinue that programming language mostly of course of security concerns and it just was wasn't robust enough and a lot of educational organizations including Australia which spend billions of dollars developing lots and lots of what we'll call learning objects which are a short interactive animations and activities that could be run on on computers that would help students learn small Concepts but all of that disappeared because the programming language changed so again these are things to think about in terms of long-term scalability and longevity of your development giving the ease of access to utilize the tool can be a significant issue if the students have to remember a specific password and login just to use your tool that can be a challenge and that's where we've gone to what's called interoper single sign-on interoperability where you can sign on once and you can get access to a whole range of tools um we're seeing this also with things like Google sign on or signing on with your Gmail account or signing on with your Facebook account that allows you then to access the whole range of tools of out having to remember specific individual login names and passwords then there's also just around data is your data being stored in a way that other tools can't utilize that data that may then limit its applicability and and people's interest in your educational application so again things to think about they're not key elements for your educational application but there are things that if you're developing an educational application you would need to think about and to consider and we'll discuss these in the tutorial
2023-05-23