Landscape/Frame/Gateway Design Model

Update: Here is the Prezi itself: 

Copy of Gamification and Game Based Learning on Prezi

My Notes - 'Making it Mobile' Conference 

Here are my summary notes for my session at the 'Making it Mobile' conference on site at my school tomorrow and Friday.

If you're not in attendance, and you're up for a bit of hard work, reading on will give you an outline of a learning-design model. 

If you are in attendance at the conference, you can bookmark this link to be reminded of the core principles. 

Key Proposition: approaching schooling with a 'game' mindset helps us see its arbitrary design parameters as arbitrary design parameters.

Proposed Model: I propose a "landscape, frame, gateway, tracking systems" model and present a detailed case study with Ms Chantelle Morrison (architect of learning in our 'Zone' space, see www.anarchyinlearning.com) 

Intro:

 Games are curated systems.

Monopoly -

- various parameters come together (game board, rules, cards, cash, avatars, etc)

- aim of game is very clear, and is a linear progression.

- game is essentially social, and the curated system is secondary to social dimension

'Lord of the Rings Online' -

- immersive world instead of board, rules, components, parameters

- aim of the game is NOT linear, there are countless paths forward and the game is deliberately designed to prevent me mastering every path

- like monopoly the game is social.

Which of these two games does a classroom/school most resemble?

It depends greatly, of course! But all schools are game-systems, with very particular and peculiar designs.

School is a game. We can redesign it. We can redesign it to be non-linear. 

At NBCS we've done just this, developing a model that is spreading to become common practice around the school.

..............................

Ladies and Gentlemen, I unveil the 'Landscape, Frame, Gateway, Tracking' Model. (very welcome to suggest a better name!)

I present now a model that I believe can be translated to other schools and contexts, and successfully implemented providing students are explicitly dis-indoctrinated during an induction phase. 

The model works within single subject areas over single lessons, and scales up to long, complex, cross-curricular units. (Our key example is a 10 week science simulation) 

The core concepts:

Landscape: imagine every learning resource, activity, exercise, challenge, the student could engage with. Picture this on a landscape: everything from broad/open Project Based Learning activities (e.g. from NBCS 'make a stone axe without any technology') to video/audio tutorials, interactive tutorials, simple Word documents, quiz questions, instructions to copy out definitions. Whatever!! This is the landscape: the students will never see it. It is the 'sum of all paths'. It is the 'exhaustive list of possibilities'. 

This concept will take some getting used to if you think in linear programming terms. Linear programming is highly inefficient. Differentiation does not equal catering for both ends of some bell curve. Differentiation can mean every student takes a different path, like free range chickens. The landscape represents all resources/activities/opportunities/experiences on offer. 

Frame: the students never see the raw landscape. They see a 'frame' which is a visual guide, like a monopoly board, or a map - any genre that suits. The frame shows which paths are legitimate through the landscape. If the frame is a 'menu' style frame, the students can jump all over the map. Equally the frame could indicate 2, 3, 4, or many pathways. 

These could be in print. Here is my Year 8 French, Term 4 2011 Frame: 

Notice there is one main path leading to a bridge, but on the way there are two side-paths.

After the bridge there are four different possible pathways.

I repeat: this could be simulated in print, without technology. This is the equivalent of a game-board.

Each icon on this map is hyperlinked to sequences of resources/activities of many different types (see 'Landscape').

Gateway: certain parts of the map can be marked 'Gateways' for the purposes of cross-referencing with mandated outcomes, and standardised assessment. All students must pass through the gateways. This is the equivalent of 'you must pass go', HOWEVER you can also build gateways that span pathways, for instance: 'explore topic X in one of these forms:' or 'demonstrate outcome X in one of these forms, around one of these topics' (or any form, any topic!). 

Tracking System:

This was a huge breakthrough for me when the penny dropped! Many reward mechanisms in game systems can be regarded as tracking systems. Let's say you are managing a project - you may set up various measures to guage your progress, key breakthroughs, etc. Basic tracking systems can include points-tracking systems & badges systems (i.e. you complete this challenge, you're assigned this badge). However, tracking systems can be very sophisticated. 

During this presentation, I'm showing plenty of examples of all of the above. I will get around to blogging some of these. We also run regular workshops where we assist you design your own prototypes: http://scil.com.au/pd

Chantelle Morrison will present the 'Ministry of Science' unit, and we'll look at footage of the 180 students moving through the learning landscape:

Benefits of this Model:

The benefits are considerable.

- no student gets stuck in activities that don't suit their prior learning.

- students learn to self-direct.

- teacher assistance is FAR MORE available.

- teacher-talk is almost entirely shifted to 'just in time' learning, where the teacher perceives a need, and offers an opt-in session for students who wish to participate.

- students have choice, which is best understood in comparison to the savagely limiting paradigm of 'do what the teacher says to do'.

- the model handles PBL (Project Based Learning) with ease, non-PBL with ease, and a combination of both with ease.

- it allows multiple pathways to the same learning outcomes, thus catering for diversity in preferred learning styles, multiple intelligences, mood on the day, individual/group work, inspiration (what grabs you) and other variables. 

- gateway tasks allow a balanced measure of 'mandated territory'.

Pre-empting some Questions:

Don't extrinsic rewards wreck learning?

I knew this was wrong before I could explain why. Actually it's not wrong. It can be right. It's a good point. We need to tread cautiously. But it's complex.

Life is FULL of extrinsic rewards, everywhere we look. In some instances they backfire and distort behaviour and motivations in unintended ways. Schooling already falls prey to this with students working hard for marks not learning. 

This tends not to occur when:

- the students are 'wised up' to the nature of intrinsic/extrinsic motivators and reward mechanisms.

- the students have a pre-existing love for the activity.

In "The Nature of Creativity", Robert Sternberg, numerous studies are surveyed.

In particular, where participants ARE wised up, AND are already motivated, the extrinsic reward mechanism correlates with even higher achievement.

In the model I am articulating, tracking mechanisms are used mainly to give students a sense of location, orientation and movement through the learning landscape. 

In conversation and behaviour, students perceive the gaming mechanisms as a light-hearted layer that sits on top of the core learning activities. Furthermore, they are 'savvy' and 'wised-up', because we draw attention to the artificiality of the gaming structures. This is a far better state of affairs than an unquestioned system that exists, perpetuated, taken for granted by students and staff.

How do students who can't self-direct cope?

They CAN self-direct! The only reason you might think they can't is because they are used to a system that trains them into passivity. There is an induction process required, and many students 'kick and scream' about what they are being expected to do, because it's much harder to self-direct. At the other end of this learning curve they emerge with much broader skillsets. When we position students to be passive we rob them of this chance to grow.

What about students who...? (Fill in the blank)

Students who need help get far more help in this model, because the teachers are freed up from micromanaging what the class is doing. In fact, classroom management becomes a non-issue. This time is put into direct, customised assistance just where it is needed. 

Next Steps for Implementation?

If I worked for a school in an old paradigm tomorrow (individual classrooms + teacher out the front, linear programs, teacher-directed), I would immediately shift my classes to this model, just being careful to induct the students into the new way they need to think. I would be confident in the mapping of outcomes to learning activities, confident in the rigor of deep learning.

I would proceed like this:

#1 brainstorm the 'landscape' and populate it with as many learning ideas & resources I can muster around some central aims (& official outcomes)

#2 experiment with concepts for 'frames', and begin to edit out resources/activities that don't seem to fit

#3 devise game mechanics, feedback systems

#4 assemble the resources on our portal, and set up the tracking systems (very likely paper based)

#5 ask a talented student to put together the graphical art needed for my 'frame'.

#6 use www.image-mapper.com to add hyperlinks to my 'frame' that link to the resources as assembled on #4

You need to get your head around the logic and rationale of this model. It sits together beautifully. 

Come and visit us and see it in action: www.scil.com.au With a bit of luck we'll have online tools and resources that will be able to lead you through the design process in easy chunks, in the not-too-distant future. 

In Conclusion:

Schooling is already a curated game system. We need to recognise it as a non-neutral technology. Thinking in this fashion allows us to re-design the system.

I've articulated a model that:

- evolved from grassroots practice at NBCS through experimentation over many years (I first employed a version of this model in 2006)

- is now being used widely in Stages 2, 3, 4, and 6 (with Years 9 and 10 on their way!).

- satisfies all the mapping/rigor/data expectations of any school, but then goes one better.

- puts students back in charge, 'wakes them up', liberates enormous reserves of energy, initiative, creativity.

- wises them up / encourages the growth of metacognition. i.e. students learn to see the system as a system.

I'll post more I promise. This post is mainly for very motivated blog readers, and as a reference for attendees on Thursday.

Games, play, purity, idealism, and the messiness of life.

I wish to respond to three blog posts that have been playing in my mind for a week or two:

Adrian Camm – whose post concludes with a thoughtful open question ‘What am I missing’ [about why he's uneasy mashing gamng with schooling]

Dean Groom – bouncing of all his posts, really

Darcy Moore – asks  “If the education system was destroyed last night?”

If you read all three you’ll see I’m responding to multiple common threads, and not least the idealist/utopic impulse which we all share. 

This post is one of those manifesto posts: a formulation of some tentative thoughts that have crossed a threshold of confidence for me. I wish I knew what they add up to, but I don't.

So here is where I’ve landed for now:

#1 Play is not play. Games are not games.

For the life of me, I can’t see any clear distinction between play/gaming and real life, except in matters of degree.

Play/gaming tends to be low-stakes. ‘Real life’, in contrast, is real because it is has high stakes. So we think of simulation of an environment versus the environment itself.

But for the life of me, where’s the faultline between the two? We say life is a game. “Winning at the Game of Work and Business of Life” is the subtitle of a book.

In ‘game’-shows like ‘Deal or No Deal’ the participant has very real amounts of money on the table. Decisions in the moment have big real life consequences – regularly they lose $30,000, or gain it, in a heartbeat. Why is this a ‘game’ show? Why, then, simulation, and not ‘the real thing’? Obviously, it’s because they came with nothing to lose, with zero investment. It’s a fine line.

The baby in playpen, preschool children in a sandpit, a game of soccer, monopoly, exploring and building in Minecraft, questing in WoW, these are games, these are play.

Or are they? The baby is facing very real challenges caught up with fundamental capabilities of movement, agency, voice and the ability to be heard. Social strategies for how to get dad or mum’s attention launch a life of strategy and tactics, from tantrums (adult tantrums!) to persuasion, deliberate controversy to joining trends, to find a secure place in one’s social network.

A game, play, can be low-stakes, but it’s just a matter of degree. I can’t see a meaningful difference between a student creating a work of art in our Minecraft virtual world and a student fashioning a ‘real’ work in ‘real life’. Both took time, though, creative spirit, meaningful collaboration.

A teenager playing World of Warcraft is play? It’s a simulation? For so many reasons it’s more complicated than that. A stark aspect: gold mining is still a real industry. Poorer people from poorer nations work long hours earning virtual gold in games such as World of Warcraft, to sell the virtual currency to play-ers for ‘real’ money. http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/technology-blog/chinese-prisoners-forced-play-world-warcraft-money-guards-202425282.html

Play versus real life is a spectrum; a series of shades of grey, and I can’t see a point where any part of life is one but not the other.

#2 Real life is not real life.

 I am not a nihilist, relativist, a deconstructionist, but for the life of me, I can find precious few aspects of ‘reality’ that are hard-coded. Almost everything becomes soft-coded if I’m willing to face up to it.

Social lenses, cultural lenses, pet theories, moods, narratives; I find myself at the nexus of overlapping, sometimes competing, interpretive communities and social networks. Who am I? I have multiple frames for understanding this - all derived from social experience and soft-coded context.

Take any one of them. Let’s say: my school. Or your workplace. Or my family. Or your Twitter identity. Or my philosophy. Or your evaluation of your life’s worth, success or failure thus far and aspirations for coming years. 

All these are curated landscapes. They are technologies. They did not have to be so. They could have been otherwise. They could become otherwise.

They play by particular rules, are powered by particular interacting dynamics, have particular key agents/players, goal posts, pitfalls, sometimes taking the form of what I call ‘AWFULS’, that is to say THOU SHALT NOTs, the very definition of failure or antithesis of the happily ever after. Each curated space has its own HAPPILY EVER AFTER too, although the narrative evaporates the moment you reach THAT page, and quickly fades into the past as a new story begins.

The rules of the game: how to succeed, what to avoid, how to earn ‘gold’ (metaphor for a zillion currencies we pursue), moments of leveling up, and so on.

In our inner worlds and outer worlds, we move from curated space to curated space. These are mash ups of others’ frames and our own frames, and our own interpretations of others’ frames, influenced of course by others’ frames.

Where I end and you begin, the quantum leap between individual and collective, is impossible to tell. Am I a neuron in a social brain? A node in a network? A distributed processor? No, I scream, I am me!

Authentic me! The words ‘authentic’ and ‘me’ are of course English words. This happens to be the language of the society I was born into. I inherited these thinking blocks.

My notions of authenticity developed over the years through interactions, media, Home and Away, Chinese fortune crackers, preaching, and my first girlfriend, some potent advertising campaigns for deodorants and something to do with potty training…?

THE SYSTEM. The machine. Always run by faceless men or evil masterminds in our narratives. Logan’s Run, The Matrix, The Game, and countless texts in a genre that draws attention to reality-as-curated-system; the protagonists seeking to break out into 'reality'.

Curated: artificial, designed, man-made.

Freedom from, freedom to. Western, Eastern. Whatever your flavour: we created it ourselves. We are the curators. We made our own bed. Collectively.

School is a curated space. It plays by some pretty specific rules. Oh, sure, it gets mighty complicated, especially in High School. Different teachers, different expectations. Tests, surrogate skill-trees (sport/geek/rebel? Tank/mage/rogue?), blah blah.

How is this different to a game? And how does it matter, except by degrees? How is it different to the workplace, or family dynamics/politics, or the great game of public transport?

And don’t the kids know it? Don’t they adapt? Don’t they play it well? Me, the class clown, getting laughter-currency, attention-currency, with a specific strategy that earned me gold. The rebel, opting for the skill-tree that favours a particular social brand among peers over a particular social brand among adults. He hasn’t lost the game, he’s just chosen a class. His bitterness at being slammed by the hierarchy feeds into his pride and uniqueness of his own brand. Can't have everything. Choose a strategy and get good at it. 

I see this all the time: teenagers defining themselves by kicking out.

#3 The Real Difference Between Games and Reality

I can see two key element that do differentiate games from real life:

our own awareness of the artificiality of the curated system/environment.

our own sense of agency in re-writing the rules, re-designing the game. 

In other words, it’s all constructed, but we only call it a game when we recognise it as such and sense we have control over it. It’s the artifice, and deliberate purpose it implies, that makes it a game.

Is that why idealists like myself are so drawn to gaming, and so keen to apply the language of gaming to real life experiences?

I wonder if it relates to the disappointment I sense in Dean Groom’s writing at the grubbiness of non-gaming spaces, such as Twitter. He disdains the stage and self-promotion. This is a game none of us curated but are forced to reckon with. It appalls me that there is an art to being listened to. Yet there is an art to being listened to.  

Not playing is not a neutral choice… nor is playing without acknowledging playing. There is no strategy or mindset I can apply to real life that gives me an out-clause or a clean definition. Taking my bat and ball and living on a farm in peace for the rest of my days is no escape. Maybe that equates to depriving humanity of my needed services. 

Yet it’s not social currency that feels grubby. The recent Kony mob-outbreak aspires to purity but there is grubbiness in the crowd, and the movement is far from pure. The purity is bloody dangerous.

Life is far from pure.

The quest for purity is a basic human drive. We can’t escape it, but we emphasise it at our peril. It makes us judgmental, idealistic to a fault (such that we filter out what doesn’t fit, which is oppressive, suppresive, hostile to other-ness and blind to inherent contradictions).

It’s the impulse to utopia that drives idealists to games. The desire to start again, do better. To have agency in the game-design. To begin afresh with a new narrative, yes and new identities to boot.

Darcy Moore asks what would happen if the education system (read ‘game’ or constructed space) were to die.

Real life systems do indeed die, all the time. Call it a paradigm shift, or turning point, or revolution. From the French revolution to the demise of Borders and Kodak, the new system that arises in its place is never designed from scratch like a game. In real life, it is market systems, the collective we cannot help but be in, that topples powers and raises new ones. 

How I wish I could redesign the school-game!

It would be a second Eden. There’d be a skill path for everyone. No one would win at another’s expensive. All would have a space, a home, and chance to contribute and receive in good measure. Utopia, heaven, purity at last.

And that’s what grabs us in gaming. It’s a glimpse of agency to recreate the system. I saw it in our school Second Life island, ‘Booralie Island’, and again in our Minecraft space. Even movements like Woodstock, #occupywhatever, and even #teachmeet have the smack of ‘god-at-last’ to them.

These are magnets to edu-idealists. And no wonder we rankle at ‘gamification’, where the toy gets broken apart, the motor ripped out, then plugged into the Frankenstein to create a monster that makes us the monster. It makes fools of us all. 

Fool I would gladly be, hoping to co-curate a better game. Yet I am wary of idealism invoking the appetite for purity to a fault. I have to also navigate the intricate knot of the tangled games of real life over which I have little control. I've forced myself to run gamification workshops to confront these issues, stare them in the eye.

What is the difference between a power-up and a report-card? A degree of purity? The ability to unplug the computer and turn the game off? Meta-agency? Curation of one's own challenges? Oh that the universe were a Minecraft server running on my own PC. I want to confront this. I want the worlds to collide. I want to take teachers to the faultline with me. We can have a cup of tea together and embrace the awful disjunct with a sigh and a sip. I don't know what to do after that. 

Is this what Peter Garrett considered in leaving the purity of Midnight Oil for politics. He lost social currency for the move. And I am guessing, clarity.

I wish for myself brutal honesty in accepting unpleasant truths and inner contradictions. I can’t accept others more than I accept myself, and inner purity could only come at the expensive of editing you out, which I don’t want to do. . 

Dean’s most recent post went deeper and is a recurring theme for him: below all the layers, what do you stand for? Your personal values. Under all the games in my head I seek for them.

Not a second Eden. Not an escape. I wish to sail my ship forward through the mess with a rudder of ‘love’. That’s about as much clarity as I’ve got. 

Into the mystic river, then, tweeps?

Post Script:

Not my most articulate, I'm afraid, in this post. I can still see the problem, but don't know if others will get it or see it has any relevance at all. 

Linguistics of Tweeting/Text Messaging

Below is an interesting talk from a well respected professor of linguistics, born in 1941 mind, on text messaging and tweeting.

I watched it on my iPad while washing up lunch today. (The kitchen window and frame act as a natural amplifier for the sound! #hackthesystem)

I'm a bit late to the party with this video. I stumbled on it by chance but have since realised various others in my PLN have been nattering about it.

It struck a particular chord for me because I've recently re-read 'The Brain that Changes Itself', which is compulsory reading, and finishes with a chapter on how external media rewires the mind. I've heard it said that the human brain is perfect for becoming a cyborg. We don't need bits of wires connected to our actual brain cells to become cyborgs. The input/output comes through our hardwired USB hub: hearing, sight, & all the other senses. I find it perfectly accurate to talk about my iPhone as an extension of myself. Most tech is like this. Ever since clothing.

Our brain USB hub is hardwired but the CPU is softwired. The brain adapts to input.

This is why cochlear implants work. It's also why the vision impaired can get vision-input from their tongue.

I can't help but disagree with the professor on one point! He says near the end that 20 years is not long enough for the brain to be rewired. The revolution in neuroplasticity suggests otherwise. 

How has the media changed our brains? Is 20 years of the internet long enough? Or is 2 months long enough? And how are our brains changing? 

Annnnyway here's the video, kk?

The Most Audacious 'Class' I've Ever Seen

And I've seen some audacious classes in my time. 

Lookk, before you do anything, just watch this footage. Then, optionally, read my waffle. But watch this footage. As jaw-dropping to me as any TED talk. Try to spot the teacher. OHHHH there aren't any. Yet the kids are working in synchronicity. WHY? HOW? Answer this, and you've cracked the paradigm-change nut we're smack-bang in the middle of:

We're talking DAY 3 of the year 2012, with 90 Year 6 students being joined by 90 Year 5 students. The Year 6s have been used to radical self-direction for 12 months, the Year 5s are more or less the newbies.

So this is establishment phase, okay? The most crucial time in any community. It's when the DNA, the starting-culture, is settled on. Happens everywhere: workplace, school, church, sport. In 2012, Week 1 of the year for many classes in Australia must have consisted of the teacher 'framing' the class; establishing a narrative for who they all are and where they're going. Heck, I just did this with my Year 8 French class. 

Yeah, person up the front framing the context for the many, the crowd, the younglings. Classic one-to-many relationship that so often characterises schooling. If you spot rows of desks, you'll know immediately that's the frame. "Look to ME for your reality."

Before I introduce the Most Audacious Class I've Ever Seen, can I quickly clarify this is NOT a Montessori school. This is NBCS, where I've worked for 10 years, a traditional High School that decided to throw away the map and start again. We have no notions of the noble savage and we don't put kids in a vaccuum. (I'm not saying the Montessori schools do). We use a 'landscape/frame/gateway' approach that overlays freedom and agency onto a sophisticated curated learning landscape that takes 100s of hours to set up. 

I salute this team: Lou Deibe, Chantelle Morrison, Katesha Allis, Daniel Wearne, Chez Robbins, Clare Froggatt and Skender Cameron. (Skender spent over 30 years in a 1 to many configuration. O boy does he have a transition-tale to tell!)

I am in awe of these teachers. 

So, day 3 of the year. 180 kids, 90 new, 90 veterans. Establishment phase.

Here's the premise: you have crashlanded on a desert island. There are no teachers.

How on earth, logistically, did they manage this? Well you should ask them on Twitter. From what I gather and observed (I spent about 30 minutes of the day in attendance in person): the 6 teachers hid outside the open space, observing the kids via video links and open windows. They tweeted clues in via a large twitter screen that acted as a well of knowledge. They used a P.A. system to phone-in further clues. They had established rules: students must remain within 2 metres of their team. Students must ignore 'spies' (adults who entered the space, dressed in costumes). It was pretty much pure game-based-learning. Simulation. Here's the environment we've curated, now prove yourselves. And LO AND BEHOLD, they did!

Audacious. 180 kids, 1 space, NO TEACHERS. They put precautionary measures in place. No gap in duty-of-care. But: one huge risk. An audacious risk. Step back. Create space. Allow agency.

Truth is, for the rest of the year it will be: 180 kids, 6 to 8 teachers, 1 space, and a virtual learning platform to rival the Khan Academy.

This sort of thing stands and falls on several ingredients, as far as I can tell:

1. A physical space that encodes agency.

2. A highly developed and painstakingly curated virtual learning environment. (We use Moodle).

3. A hyper-activated team of teachers. Ohhh do not for a moment suspect that teachers get a break in this environment. They end up working harder than ever before, moving from interaction to interaction, on the shoulder, just where they are needed, like Superman, swooping in to trouble-shoot, diagnose, stimulate, guide, mentor. 

4. A culture of entrepeneurial self-starting self-direction.

It is around #4 that this day was based. 

The DNA of industrial-era schooling basically positions students as obeyers-of-instruction. Turn to page 54. Copy down questions 1 to 10. Okay now be creative and write a story.

Look to the authority figure to be prompted. Great if you aspire to work for Foxconn.

So, we raise a generation of robots. I have no beef with this, historically. It has provided us with roads, dental care, superannuation, insurance, and miraculous foods. 

But, if you haven't noticed, we're currently undergoing a second industrial revolution. The top-down hierarchy is shifting to a bottom-up system. It's hippies, all over again, but this time it's savvy-hippies. Why? Because education has sky-rocketed, and the internet has accelerated collective intelligence in an exponential fashion. Blink, and the game has changed. Lucky that the brain is soft-coded or we wouldn't have gotten this far!

We're shifting to a mode of emergent-agency. I mean: every individual acts according to their own local insights and value-driven ambitions. Times a million. Something wonderful bubbles up. 

Watch the video. Notice the interactions. Notice, bizarrely, how several students, independently, make 'Lord of the Flies'-type noises at the camera when they notice it. But this ain't chaos, and it ain't anarchy (despite this website). This is organic, community, hopeful. Culturally-embedded hopefulness.

You have crashed on a deserted island with no teachers.

The ease of collaboration.

Hive-minds in action.

No authority figures.

Make it happen.

Beautiful!

Audacious.

Announcing: Steve's 'Innovate 5' Online Course

I am delighted to announce my launch of "Innovate Five": a 15-session live video-conference series focusing on 'capacity to innovate'. 

Click here for the official SCIL page where you'll find the registration links.

I'd appreciate you passing on word about the course to any colleagues who might be interested. It is open to everyone from any walk of life. 

Read on to hear a more personal account of it. 

The Heart of Innovation

Whether you're a teacher, a mum or an executive, a broader capacity to think and act innovatively opens new opportunities for making the world a better place. Innovation keeps society flexible, agile, ready to meet the future. I love innovation. I value it. I want to grow it in myself, and I love collaborating with other innovators. 

What is ‘Innovate Five’?

The course has grown out of my quest for mental toolkits that help enable creative thought, clarity and capacity to take initiative to 'get the show on the road' quickly.

The word 'capacity' sums it up for me; the shift from 'survive' to 'thrive' implies a sense of spare capacity.

I don't want to lead a reactive life. I want to be calm, centred and purposeful. Otherwise, in the noise of 2012, I'll just get blown away.

An Inventory System

I call Innovate Five an ‘inventory system’, because the process is aimed squarely at developing a meta-cognitive scanning process across five domains, which leave you with an inventory for future growth.

I’ve clustered toolkits under self, work, people, change, space: 

Self	Work	People	Change	Space
Wakefulness	Hooks	Shadows	Culture	Physical
Mindfulness	Upgrades	Mimetics	Forces	Virtual
Meaning	Hacking	Currency	SCIL	Information

You want as many of these kits working in your favour as possible. The greater the mastery of more of the toolkits, the greater your ability to nurture and maintain capacity in trying circumstances.  

You might already be instinctively strong in some areas, but less ‘awake’ to others in the grid. 

An inventory gives you a chance to identify what you don’t know that you don’t know, but also what you did know but brushed aside, or have been too busy to act on.

What is the format of Innovate 5?

60 minute video-conferences, once a week, in groups of up to 10, with presentation & discussion/debrief.

The course will include an optional reading program and optional homework tasks.

You need a computer with a reliable broadband Internet connection. 

Who is it for?

Anyone seeking to develop their capacity to generate and implement ideas to improve the world.

Not limited to educators. 

Is this a leadership course?

No.

Is this a personal development course?

There is an overlap, especially in the 'self' dimension.

However, I frame personal development narratives in a strongly utilitarian fashion that may be unsettling to some. I emphasise a process of alienation that helps generate new insights and perspectives. And yet, this process is not designed to make you more vulnerable, but more profoundly safe; safe to be creative. 

The organising principle of 'Innovate 5' is capacity to innovate, not personal development.

How to Participate?

Sign up and show up! Our first group launches:

Thursday, March 8th, 8pm-9pm AEST (international times) (I can launch new series to suit your time zone)

Each series continues weekly, with some interruptions, until mid July. See booking screen for exact dates.

Not this time, but maybe later?

Get news on future re-runs by subscribing to our ongoing SCIL newsletter, or drop me a line here and ask to be updated when I launch re-runs of Innovate 5.