Innovation, knowledge and sustainability with PLEs: an empirical analysis from SAPO Campus Schools pilotsThe PLE Conference, Berlin, 11 july 2013Fátima Pais, Carlos Santos and Luís PedroUniversity of Aveiro, Portugal

SAPO Campus

http://campus.sapo.pt

Sapo Campus Schools as a Disruptive Innovation Tool:

Could it be the Educational Ba?

The Ba concept

http://www.emeraldinsight.com/content_images/fig/2200100304001.png

Innovation

http://www.khoslaventures.com/the-innovation-ecosystem-2/

Methodology [1]

Methodology [2]

Use Cases• School A is located in a fishing village and has 378

students (ages 3 to 15) and around 40 teachers.

• School B is located in a rural setting. It is attended by 2606 students (ages 3 to 18) and has 241 teachers. It is a cluster school made up of 10 different establishments, 8 of which are geographically scattered.

• School C is located in an urban and industrialized area and is a junior/high school attended by students from the 7th to the 12th grade. It is a former industrial school known for its use of technology with 971 students and 134 teachers.

Data - users

Data - activity

School A• interactive and sharing space for

Curriculum Enrichment Activities of Elementary School

• evolved from being a display of the work being done by the students to become a sharing, collaborative and socialization space, combining formal and informal learning and interaction

School B• interactive and sharing space for developing

multidisciplinary activities that promote the Arouca Geopark

• important to mention the interaction strategies adopted by the teachers involved, who would readily answered all their students’ questions and stimulated them

• informal user policy and promotion of online safety

• SAPO Campus most significant benefit: the fact that it made it possible for them to showcase their work in a safe environment within the school community

School C [1]• 3R (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) club from to raise

people’s awareness for this movement

• as the different challenges were issued, many of the discussions extended beyond SAPO Campus, taking place in and outside the classroom

• according to the teacher in charge, many students that were not involved in the project would question her about the challenges and the results

• because it was a non-curricular project, most interactions took place after classes

School C [2]• You speak, I speak, we speak

• involving an 11th grade class (students ages 16-17), this project was open to the community and, according to the teacher in charge, aimed at “promoting the use of Web 2.0 as a way of bringing participants closer and developing their critical sense”.

• participants agreed to meet every Sunday from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. Participation was optional and there was no kind of reward or compensation other than taking part in the discussion and sharing personal thoughts and opinions.

• in addition to the sensitivity and the intimate nature of these particular subjects, the fact that the debate was public had an impact in the discussions. When discussing and commenting on this project, other teachers referred that they followed the blog and the interactions but didn’t feel comfortable enough to engage in the discussions, given their personal nature.

Wrap-up• disruptive processes usually take place in smaller

groups, slowly and gradually being adopted by larger groups. Of the cases described, this can be best seen in school B5, where SCS has been the catalyst for change

• combining change and innovation, and using technology as a catalyst for a disruptive, student-centered process, can be the key to have a school fitting the values of today’s knowledge society

• Ba can be translated as place and is defined as “a shared space that serves as a foundation for knowledge creation” (Nonaka & Konno, 2005, p. 1).

Thank you!

• And now, power to the people -->