Easton, Denise

McCord, Alan

Shimabukuro, James N.

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Innovate: Journal of Online EducationVolume 5Issue 1 October/November 2008 Article 711-1-2008Innovate-Ideagora: Introducing a New Feature inInnovateAlan McCordDenise EastonJames N. ShimabukuroFollow this and additional works at: http://nsuworks.nova.edu/innovatePart of the Education CommonsThis Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Abraham S. Fischler College of Education at NSUWorks. It has been accepted forinclusion in Innovate: Journal of Online Education by an authorized administrator of NSUWorks. For more information, please contactnsuworks@nova.edu.Recommended APA CitationMcCord, Alan; Easton, Denise; and Shimabukuro, James N. (2008) "Innovate-Ideagora: Introducing a New Feature in Innovate ,"Innovate: Journal of Online Education: Vol. 5: Iss. 1, Article 7.Available at: http://nsuworks.nova.edu/innovate/vol5/iss1/7Innovate-Ideagora: Introducing a New Feature in InnovateAll exhibits, tables and figures that have remained available have been included as additional content withtheir respective articles to be downloaded separately. Click here to return to the article page on NSUWorksand view the supplemental files.Unfortunately, not all the supplemental files have survived until 2015 and some will be missing from thearticle pages. If you are an author in Innovate and would like to have your supplemental content included,please email the NSUWorks repository administrator at nsuworks@nova.edu.This article is available in Innovate: Journal of Online Education: http://nsuworks.nova.edu/innovate/vol5/iss1/7Innovate-Ideagora:Introducing a New Feature in Innovateby Alan McCord, Denise Easton, and James ShimabukuroWith this issue, Innovate embraces Web 2.0 with the launch of Innovate-Ideagora, a social and professionalnetworking site designed to enhance professional communication within the Innovate community. We canalready comment on each Innovate article (via the "Discuss" option in our sidebar menu) and participate inInnovate-Live author webcasts; Innovate-Ideagora adds another dynamic component to Innovate, providingan exciting new space for communication and collaboration.Don Tapscott and Anthony Williams coined the term "ideagora," derived from the Greek word "agora," in their2006 book, Wikinomics: How Mass Collaboration Changes Everything. In an article published in BusinessWeek, they define ideagoras as “places where millions of ideas and solutions change hands in somethingakin to an eBay for innovation” (Tapscott and Williams 2007, "A Community of Ideas," ¶2). An ideagora is atits core a space to share ideas; ideagoras exploit the network effects of having large numbers of peopleconsider individual problems and solutions, with each person offering his or her own unique perspective. Weenvision Innovate-Ideagora as a Web marketplace for the exchange of ideas and reflections about thechallenges, trends, and developments around the creative use of information technology to enhanceeducational processes in academic, commercial, and governmental settings. Borrowing Tapscott and Williams's words, we see Innovate-Ideagora as a vibrant marketplace of connectionsin which we can leverage each other’s talents, ideas, and assets to create change. This new featurerepresents an important step in our ongoing mission to spotlight the latest innovations in technology andexplore their implications for education in all its forms. Membership is open to all and registration is easy andfree.This column will be a guide to the exciting developments in Innovate-Ideagora. Each edition ofInnovate-Ideagora will include a brief summary of the discussions underway in Innovate-Ideagora, as well asalerts about plans for the coming months. The Innovate-Ideagora team of Alan McCord, Denise Easton, andJames Shimabukuro will work with Jim Morrison, the Innovate editorial board, and the community to guide thedevelopment and growth of the network and nurture dynamic discussions that can lead to implementablesolutions. Social NetworksWe all have heard of social networking, which has become the most talked about feature of what iscommonly known as Web 2.0. They are the means by which individuals build and participate in virtualcommunities that span the breadth and depth of their interests. Students use sites such as Facebook,Friendster, and MySpace as their primary communication vehicles, as well as their sources of informationabout friends, events, and issues. In the business world, networking sites such as LinkedIn that provideaccess to job advertisements, customers, public recommendations, and extensive virtual rolodexes havebecome must-have tools for success.Innovate-Ideagora is a social-networking space focused on the rapidly changing landscape at the intersectionof information technology and education. The idea of community building is spreading into all aspects of theWeb, transforming static sites into dynamic, interactive environments that literally invite the world toparticipate. Even newspapers have reinvented themselves as social networks, using comment functions andhttp://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=653blogs and forums to invite readers to participate not only as consumers but also as creators of news andinformation. Blogs and user-run video and photo-sharing sites are expanding our notion of social networking.These allow members to create and post commentary, videos, or photos, comment on them, and, in the caseof visual media, determine where they appear in the lineup via ratings and the number of viewings. In short,Web 2.0 is a new dimension, a layer of interactive functions that has transformed the Web from a one-way,static electronic page into an infinitely vast, multidirectional network that not only places the world and all itspeople on our desktops but also provides the means to communicate with them.Innovate-Ideagora leverages the possibilities of Web 2.0 to help us all think about the complex challengesaround the adoption of technology for educational purposes and, most importantly, propose solutions to thoseproblems. The site uses several Web 2.0 technologies that invite the Innovate community to participate.Blogs allow participants to publish their ideas for everyone to read and discuss; readers can engage withbloggers through comments. Forums, where discussions are organized into related threads, offermore-structured opportunities to participate. Participants can also post videos or photos related to adiscussion or blog. We hope you will join us in our experiment. Visit http://innovate-ideagora.ning.com andestablish your profile!What's New on Innovate-IdeagoraThis past summer, Innovate authors and board members were invited to participate in a "soft launch” ofInnovate-Ideagora intended to test the environment and begin to seed the forum. Even before we could stakeout the territory for Innovate’s social networking venture, the soft launch quickly blossomed into a vibrant,dynamic environment with over 150 participants engaging in a rapidly evolving, sometimes controversial setof discussions.Editor-in-chief Jim Morrison showed the way, hitting a collective nerve with his opening post. As of thiswriting, the impulses are still reverberating through our new community, generating post after post in the mainthread and inspiring a slew of subthreads. Jim asked how we can encourage faculty members to expand theirrange of instructional strategies and enhance them with creative uses of educational technology. Thisquestion, as others quickly pointed out, is based on a number of assumptions that complicate the issue,leaving us to wonder where, exactly, is the point of greatest resistance? Is it faculty members? Organizationalculture? Instructional philosophy? Our conceptions of school and learning? The approach to change?The responses have been articulate, insightful, witty, imaginative, sometimes provocative, and alwayspassionate. Scott McLeod, in the very first reply, jumped on “organizational culture” as a main culprit: "Thereare rarely institutional incentives, and usually institutional penalties, for technology integration learning byfaculty." Later, Susana (no last name) amplified on this thought: “Most successful and prolific authors at myinstitution avoid computer-mediated instruction and find the new IT tools to be a waste of time.” Robert Woodthen introduced the intriguing thought that isolating technology solely around instruction may becounterproductive: "Efforts to get faculty members on board using IT might be more successful if they coulddemonstrate the other advantages of mastering these skills.” When faculty members learn to use, feelcomfortable with, and find value in technology for reasons other than teaching—for example, in pursuingextracurricular interests—then the carryover into instruction may be more natural. This invites the notion thatinstitutions should encourage instructors to use technology freely for personal, nonacademic purposes.Standard practice at most institutions seems to be exactly the opposite. Patrick Greene pointed to an irony that many suspect but few have the courage to express: that “leadingtechnology educators” may be among the most formidable obstacles to change (Exhibit 1). Lynn Zimmermannoted faculty self-perception as a possible impediment to technology-enabled active learning (Exhibit 2). Bill(no last name) cited the steep learning curve for new technology as a possible barrier to faculty adoption, andon a similar note, Nilay Yajnik suggested that simplifying technology would facilitate adoption by teachers.http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=653Reflecting ideas shared by Steve Eskow, Nils Peterson questioned the wisdom of applying the traditionalcollege-as-campus model to the current reality of exponential growth in information and population: "ScalingHigher Education at an exponential rate to meet this growth using Higher Education's current paradigmsseems impractical." Steve Eskow took on the majority of participants, who, from the minority's perspective, seem determined tokeep one foot in the traditional while exploring the virtual with the other. While this hybrid position seemssensible, Steve argued eloquently, and persistently, that this partial embrace of change actually reinforcesthe traditional system and solidifies resistance (Exhibit 3). Finally, Tadeusz LemaDczyk served as a source of enlightened moderation and order throughout thediscussion by providing friendly, insightful reminders and comments that kept the discussion on topic. Heoften pointed out the obvious, which of course is not always very obvious! Arguing that simply usingtechnology doesn’t guarantee the end of passive teaching, Tad also was not afraid to place someresponsibility on the shoulders of students: "Faculties resist distance learning also because too manystudents aren't prepared [for] it and because in distance learning students can't be examined properly by theiracademics." A number of members started other discussions: Hanan El-Halawany on the cultural resistance to informationtechnologies in the Middle East, Randall Osborne on the impact of classroom technology on students withlearning diabilities, Bill (no last name) on the challenges of obtaining and using technology tools in schooldistricts with minimal resources, Tad LemaDczyk on how to use Innovate in e-lectures and on the federalconsortium for virtual worlds, Roy Jenkins on envisioning the next learning space, and Yvonne Mitchell, whopleaded for a discussion on how to use Innovate-Ideagora so that she can be more confident using not onlyour site, but blogs, wikis, and other Web 2.0 tools in general. Get Involved!Our brief summary barely sketches the richness of the actual discussion. There are other conversationsdeveloping as we write. We are convinced that you’ll get a lot more out of the site if you actually jump in withyour thoughts, comments, and observations.Innovate-Ideagora provides all of us with the opportunity to be part of the evolution of education as we seekto illuminate the problems, issues, and benefits of using information technology tools to enhance learning andthe educational process. We hope that you will join us in our experiment by visitinghttp://innovate-ideagora.ning.com, establishing your profile, and joining the discussions!ReferencesTapscott, D., and A. D. Williams. 2006. Wikinomics: How mass collaboration changes everything. New York:Penguin Books.Tapscott, D., and A. D. Williams. 2007. Ideagora, a marketplace for ideas. Business Week, February 15.http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=653http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=653http://www.businessweek.com/innovate/content/feb2007/id20070215_251519.htm?chan=innovation_special+report+--+the+power+of+gaming_the+businessweek+wikinomics+series(accessed September 29, 2008). Archived at http://www.webcitation.org/5bD6uYIuf.COPYRIGHT AND CITATION INFORMATION FOR THIS ARTICLEThis article may be reproduced and distributed for educational purposes if the following attribution is included in the document:  Note: This article was originally published in Innovate (http://www.innovateonline.info/) as: McCord, A., D. Easton, and J.Shimabukuro. 2008. Innovate-Ideagora: Introducing a New Feature in Innovate. Innovate 5 (1).http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=653 (accessed September 30, 2008). The article is reprinted here withpermission of the publisher, The Fischler School of Education and Human Services at Nova Southeastern University.To find related articles, view the webcast, or comment publically on this article in the discussion forums, please goto http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=653  and select the appropriate function from thesidebar. http://www.innovateonline.info/index.php?view=article&id=653

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Innovate-Ideagora: Introducing a New Feature in Innovate

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