Judy Estrin

Read this book immediately! Estrin is a major player in Silicon Valley and has taken the time to reflect on what innovation is, why our country is in trouble, long-term sustainability, and the factors that build and stimulate the innovation needed to push real progress. Yes, she is talking about the corporate world, but if you substitute education and school for national policy and innovative organization, then she does make a great deal of sense if you are trying to transform the school library and computer lab into a learning commons. She begins with an important model that describes the ecosystem of innovation as being: research development, and application. Can you see these three factors in inquiry where old bird units are replaced by high-think learning experiences? Estrin sees the thre core processes as surrounded by education, policy, funding, leadership, and culture. In other words, for great learning experiences co-taught by teacher librarians and classroom teachers including teacher technologists or other specialists, an environment must be in place that encourages the central core of research, development, and application to take place. Thus, the recommendation that the learning commons of the school have an experimental learning center where innovation is not only encouraged but is developed and tested before it is applied to the school in general. Underlying all of this, Estrin explores six core values that must be held by innovators. These include: questioning, patience, trust, openness, and risk – all of which depend on each other to spur what she terms sustainable innovation – the kind that looks across years and decades, not at next week’s state test. This is one of the most important reads we have seen this past year – a major tool in our own reinvention as a school library and computer lab entity in any school.… (más)