A REPLY TO AN ED WEEK  ARTICLE:

Enter the Innovation Officer: Districts Design New Jobs

Dear Jason,

It is a funny thing about innovation. Some of the best innovations are not necessarily new. TV is 75 years old. Radio, 90. How about the refrigerator?

The question is not how to replace these but how to make them better through the use of technology as a tool, not as a means and end unto itself.

The example I like to share is of a program that is approaching 40 years old and is nationwide, Denver included. It is called the WISE program. (www.wiseservies.org)

It and others like it innovated the idea of experiential learning as a supplement to in-class learning. What has changed is how we use the new technology. Experiential learning allows students to work with new technologies in subjects they are passionate about.

it was innovative back in 1973. It still is now. We should find ways to share it, not lose it.

In fact Denver had two High Schools that had the program; Abraham Lincoln and East High schools, but somehow they lost out on that innovation as it was replaced with new innovation? Huh?