INNOVATION EDUCATION TO IMPROVE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY THROUGH GENERAL EDUCATION

This paper will represent the pedagogy of Innovation Education in Iceland that is a new school policy within the Icelandic school system. In Innovation Education (IE) students trained to identify needs and problems in their environment and to find solutions: this is referred to as the process of ideation. The main aim is to improve their social responsibility through general education. Innovation Education has taken form as a new cross curriculum subject called ‘Innovation and practical use of knowledge’ as presented in the new National Curriculum from 2007. It has a place in the National Curriculum as a part of the new area for Information Technology and Technology Education. Innovation Education in this form can be said to be the result of 25 year’s research work, aimed at developing this new model for education. This was done in cooperation between the school system and the work place. The paper presents how the curriculum subject has developed its character, the pedagogical framework it is based upon as well as the ideology behind it and its ethical value as a part of general education. KEY WORDS: Innovation Education, ideation, ethics, general education, social responsibility, innovativeness, future society

Preliminary report on the geology of Colgrove Butte, Hettinger County, North Dakota

Colgrove Butte is a flat-topped erosional remnant with a cap of rock area of approximately 0.845 square miles, rising about 200 feet above the surrounding Missouri Plateau in northwestern Hettinger County, North Dakota. Its upper portion consists of flat lying fresh water deposits of White River (Oligocene) age, containing beds of hard limestone, marls, argillaceous limestones, calcareous clays, clays and sands. It is everywhere covered by a mantle of top soil 6 inches to 3 feet 6 inches thick. Below this topsoil, extending over approximately two-thirds of the caprock area of the butte, is a bed of hard limestone averaging one foot in thickness, which is succeeded by alternate beds of marl, argillaceous limestone and calcareous clays down to a depth of 20-25 feet from the surface. By rough calculations the weight of the uppermost limestone bed with a thickness of one foot was found to be 1,300,000 short tons, and its calcium carbonate content 80-90 percent. Bodies of rock extending three, six, and ten feet down from the bottom of the topsoil, and covering two-thirds of the butte area, were found to contain 61.5, 55.0, and 47.3 percent of calcium carbonate and weigh 3,820,000, 7,640,000, and 12,740,000 short tons respectively. Additional test holes need to be sunk into and through the caprock to determine more accurately the amount and grade of calcareous material available in the uppermost layers. Manufacture of Portland cement from calcareous material at Colgrove Butte calls for the wet process, provided that sufficient supply of water can be economically developed

Exploring the use of a virtual reality learning environment to support innovation education in Iceland

Innovation Education (IE) in Iceland aims to train students to identify needs and problems in their environment and to find solutions: this is referred to as the process of ideation. The thesis explores the contexts of teaching and learning, incorporating the VRLE with IE to support the students’ work. There is a focus on blended learning, as the VRLE is used in conjunction with conventional classroom-based activity. The work employed the grounded theory (Glaser and Strauss, 1967) perspective, in order to observe the complex social/educational activity relating to this real-life learning context. It was intended to build understanding (grounded theory), rather than an attempt to establish cause and effect. The author intended to observe, describe and interpret settings as sources of data and the main aim was to gain a greater understanding of the use of the VRLE in supporting students work in conventional Innovation Education classes within Icelandic schools. The overall research question was: ‘How does the use of the VRLE affect teacher’s pedagogy and the students’ work, in conventional Innovation Education in Iceland?’ [Continues.

Innovative design and technology education in a virtual learning environment

The Iceland University of Education is currently directing the three-year European Union project InnoEd, which is sponsored by the Minerva Project. InnoEd is a cooperative venture of four countries in the area of Innovation Education: Iceland, Finland, England and Norway. In this project the course in Innovation Education is set up on the Internet (www.innoed.is) and the students work online with their ideas in real time instead of an earlier classroom based model. In addition, the participants have developed a specialised data driven website used for communication and teaching as well as storage and research for all participants. Here the envelope of Information Technology will be pushed to new extremes in the area of Innovation Education

Innovation and practical use of knowledge

This paper will present the Innovation School Policy in the Icelandic school system and our new cross curriculum school subject called ‘Innovation and practical use of knowledge’ in the National Curriculum as a part of the new area for information technology and technological education. The paper presents how innovation has developed, its character, pedagogy, the ideology behind it, its ethical aspect, practical applications and Icelands cooperation with other European countries around Innovation Education, as a new Minerva project, under the name InnoEd. Over the next three years the European Union (EU) is providing funding for setting up Innovation Education as an open and distance learning (ODL) option for European educational systems for both primary and secondary schools and teacher training linking teacher training institutes. The project’s main aim is to build up a databased Internet software for European competition for primary and secondary school students and to make possible research on children’s world of ideas

Examining Estonian Schoolteachers’ Attitudes Towards the Use of Applied Science Knowledge Within Craft Education

This article examines the possibility of supporting craft education by incorporating knowledge students have gained via science lessons: such knowledge largely refers to the mathematics and physics taught in Estonian comprehensive schools. Results were gleaned from interviews with craft teachers in Estonia, in order to establish their attitudes to the idea of integrating science with craft. Their ideas are presented here, along with a comparison of their understanding of the pedagogy. The results of the study address the following research questions:   Do teachers consider the National Curricula supportive, in terms of integrating science knowledge in order to support craft education? How do teachers recognise knowledge of science during craft processes? Are teachers aware when science is integrated into their teaching? What do teachers consider the benefits of such integration?   The research demonstrated the pedagogy of integrating knowledge of science with craft as a novel idea, based on a process of merging the two knowledge models. The result of this process is a development of a new area of knowledge that can both enable students’ understanding and their design and fashioning processes. Moreover, it relates to real-world phenomena and thus helps students with their ideation. Such new knowledge is achievable when knowledge from one of the fields is used in the other field, whether science or craft. The integration of science with general craft education is dependent upon both the National Curricula and a teacher’s method of teaching

Haughton Astrobleme: A Mid-Cenozoic Impact Crater Devon Island, Canadian Arctic Archipelago

Haughton Astrobleme is a nearly circular impact crater with a diameter of about 16 km and a central uplift in Devon Island. Bedrock exposed in the crater comprised the following mainly carbonate Lower Ordovician to Upper Silurian formations in order upward: Eleanor River, Bay Fiord, Thumb Mountain, Irene Bay and Allen Bay. The Eleanor River Formation in the centre of the crater is raised about 480 m above its normal stratigraphic position outside the crater. The much shattered and faulted lower Paleozoic rocks within the crater contrast markedly with the subhorizontal surrounding strata. The Allen Bay Formation constitutes surface exposure around all but the easternmost part of the crater's border where the Thumb Mountain and Irene Bay Formations are exposed. Also exposed in the crater are two newly recognized, and as yet unnamed, formations: a polymict impact breccia that overlies the lower Paleozoic rocks, with marked angular unconformity and crops out over about a quarter of the area of the crater; and a unit of lake sediments near the western border of the crater that lies disconformably on the impact breccia and with angular unconformity on the lower Paleozoic rocks. The impact breccia is composed chiefly of carbonate rocks, but locally contains clasts of Precambrian crystalline basement from a depth estimated to be at least 1700 m. The basement clasts show varying degrees of shock metamorphism, the highest being that displayed by rocks with vesicular, flow-banded feldspar or quartz glass. Coesite has been identified in a sample of gneiss. The lake sediments are interpreted as an infilling of the crater that occurred shortly after impact. On the basis of fossils these sediments are dated as Miocene or, possibly, Pliocene. From this and other evidence, it is concluded that the impact took place in the Miocene or Pliocene

The Development of Innovation Education in Iceland: a Pathway to Modern Pedagogy and Potential Value in the UK

This paper will discuss how Innovation Education (IE) has developed in the Icelandic school system; its character, pedagogy, ideology, ethical dimensions, and practical applications. In addition it will describe Iceland’s cooperation with other European countries in Innovation Education, as a new Minerva project, under the name InnoEd. The paper then considers IE as a potential tool for use in the UK National Curriculum

Applying the brand community concept in the nonprofit sector : the case of junior achievement Ireland

In this paper, we aim to investigate the benefits of the application of a brand community strategy into a nonprofit organization (NPO), as well as the strategies that the NPO could adopt in order to facilitate the creation of such a community. We review the challenges and opportunities of using marketing strategies in the nonprofit sector. With increased competition in the “third” sector, it has become ever more important for nonprofit organizations to engage in branding and marketing activities, which traditionally has been reserved for for-profit enterprises. We study the brand community concept presented in the paper by Muniz and O‘Guinn (2001) and aim to see how a brand community can be beneficial for a volunteer based nonprofit organization. We extend the brand community concept to the nonprofit sector by using the charity brand community model introduced by Hassay and Peloza (2009). We study the case of Junior Achievement Ireland, an educational volunteer-based NPO. By gathering data from in-depth interviews and attending brand events, we found promising traces of the brand community markers from our analysis. Combining interviews with volunteers and theoretical research, we argue that a brand community will lead to an increase in brand awareness as well as assisting in volunteer recruitment and retention. Moreover, we believe that such a strategy will increase brand equity and will facilitate the creation and preservation of strategic partnerships. Finally, we provide practical suggestions in how volunteer based NPOs can facilitate brand community creation.nhhma