Introduction of Innovation lessons in Gnúpverjaskóli

The situation in Icleandic curriculum for innovation        The beginning of Innovation teaching in Gnúpverjaskóli
 What is Innovation?            The pupils´ attitude in Innovation             The European project InnoEd            Students experience  
Material available for teaching Innovation           Two of my favorite Innovation ideas

Introducing     Innovation lessons      in  Gnúpverjaskóli       By Svanborg R Jónsdóttir

      The atmosphere of Innovation classes

The students are enchanted by what they are learning, are active and interested, have a good time and are at the same time learning something relevant for their own lives.

Last year I met a friend from the Teachers University who I had not seen for a few years,
where she was assisting students in a Innovation camp at Foldaskóli.  She said to me that
when she came to know Innovation she had suddenly realized  why she had become
a teacher " That was exactly how I wanted to teach and feel in teaching, that my students
were enchanted by what they were learning, active and interested and having a good time
at the same time they were learning something relevant for their lives.

The situation in Icelandic curriculum for Innovation

In the main curriculum of Icelandic school system:
in the curriculum of Information technology and technology.

According to the curriculum it is possible to include Innovation in three ways:
1. By integrating it into other subjects.
2. By using the time that each school has to its own decision.
3. A blend of the two above.

In Gnúpverjaskóli we are doing nr.3 where we take crafts classes, information technology
(computer studies there in) and then one hour pr week from the time that the schools can
decide for themselves. 
This way I have 3 classes for each group all year divided on Crafts, Information Technology
and Innovation. As these all integrate very well in the InnoEd project I have a rather good
time frame for Innovation.

                  What is Innovation?

A subject where the students learn to invent things and learn the working and thinking process of the inventor The students get the feeling that they can do something about all kinds of problems, they are doers not just receivers; much more students are active and interested in their studies

You could explain the school subject Innovation by simplifying it and saying that there the students are learning to invent things and learning the thinking and working processes of the inventor, but that is really simplifying and it is just looking at the surface, which what public in Iceland know a little bit about, that is Innovation through the Innovation contest. What I find so fascinating about Innovation is that I really think that the students get the feeling that they can do something about all kinds of problems and that they are doers and not receivers - and then the other thing that in Innovation I have noticed that there are far more students active and interested, more that feel that they do not suck compared to other subjects I have taught.

           The Ideology of Innovation

• Man is the creator of his material world
• Each person has the ability to change his/her environment

We teach in the spirit that all people are creative. I have experienced in teaching Innovation that everyone has this creative side, some of them are hard to reach but the way innovation is taught makes a secret tunnel to the creativeness so that the students become creative without noticing that they are.

                 The goals of Innovation

*	to encourage creativeness
*	to increase the believe in the students own creativeness
*	to teach certain working methods in this area of working with own ideas
*	to make the students conscious of the value of things and their surroundings
*	to examine their surroundings and sort out its needs and problems
*	to support the students in finding solutions of problems and needs in their surroundings
*	to learn to judge the effective value and appearance of inventions
*	to help students to evaluate from the endless provocation of the surroundings and help them to become independent, responsible individuals in a future community

To make the students selfsufficient and responsible individuals.

It is seldom that I find that I see the goals of a subject actually come true as in teaching Innovation, even if there are no coordinated state examinations in that subject. Often I have been teaching various subjects and find that I cannot reach the goals of those subjects by half, but when I´m teaching Innovation I have seen the goals materialize in front of me.

            The pupils´ attitude in Innovation

Interest and joy in Innovation lessons Appeals to the "uninterested" as well as the "good" students

I have been teaching for quite a long time or since the autumn of 1978 or for 24 years and I have seldom felt as strongly in my teaching that my students are in on what I´m teaching and work with interest and joy, as in Innovation classes.  I have sometimes tought students that literally hate school and think it is a terribly lame duty that some hateful minister of education has of unmanly cruelty set on all kids in Iceland,  Those same students have worked in their free periods at a Innovation project on their own free will and I can tell you that was something very unusual.  And its not just the so called "slack" students that have found themselves in the Innovation work, the "good" ones and the ones in the middle have also blossomed in Innovation.

           Two of my favorite Innovation ideas

Jóhanna Höeg Sigurðardóttir receives 1.st price from the president of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, 2001.

Many good ideas have been "born" in Innovation classes in our school. Two of them I want to tell you about and I like them for different reasons. The first is a solution to the problem when free range hens shit in their corn. It works perfectly, I bought one for my hens and I confirm that nothing that the hens give away can end in the corn-feeder.  I also like this idea because it reflects so well the surroundings where the solution came from, shows how the real life becomes a part of the school work and gives it clear meaning. The other idea was a 1stað gera hugmyndina skýrari og til að muna lausnina betur.

Material available for teaching Innovation

• A new video about teaching Innovation, taken in Gnúpverjaskóli, text in English
• In Icelandic (under translation to English ) the four folders Inventions -  nature science, one of these Incentive - Creativity has mostly been used in Gnúpverjaskóli

                           Contents of the teaching material:
                               Incentive - creativity:

Looking for needs Using Bragi´s book Drawing methods Design projects Making models Making prototypes Visiting an industry / factory Bottle mail Making of posters Making of innovations and other products Market and introduction of Innovation work

Bottle mail about to be set into the river Kálfá

    Students from Gnúpverjaskóli tell their
                    experience of innovation:

1.     When we started classes in innovation we all got a small book for ourselves. This book is called Bragis´book in the name of one of Icelands´ best known inventors and his name is Bragi. When we think of solutions to some problems we have been wondering about, we write the solution in Bragis´book and make a drawing if we can.   2.     Out teacher says that we should always carry this book with us and also a small pencil, because ideas can come to our head anytime and if you dont have anything to write on, you may forget your idea.   3.     We are also instructed to write the date when we put our idea on paper, that is important in case we later want to make a product from the idea and we have to get an exclusive right for the idea. We also make a drawing in the small book to make it more clear and to help us remember our solution.   4.     Later we choose from the ideas out of Bragis´book and we work on it with the teacher or ourselves. Then we decide if we want to send it to the Icelandic Innovation competition and we write the description of our idea and drawing on the form either on paper or we do it on the internet on the Innovation - competitions site.,   5.     We learned a few methods of drawing so that we can more easily describe our inventions in a drawing.   6.     We did a lot of practice designs: we all had to make our own design for a coffee thermos-can. I made a few designs for a coffee thermos-can. One was like a cow and one was like a tirangle.   7.    When we make models we use light and not expensive materials like polystyrene isolation, or paper. In most models that we made we used polystyrene isolation            Cutting polystyrene.   8.    The first thing we learned was to find needs or problems. We find problems everywhere, in the school, in the school bus, at home and just everywhere we are.   9.    We have found a lot of needs /problems, we want to give you just a small example of the needs we have found this winter: q       Boring sisters and brothers q       Its hard to get up early in the morning q       You get shocked when you climb over an electric fence q       Sheep hurt you with their horns and forehead q       Tractors get dirty q       No space to put the big hay-rolls on q       Dirty crutches q       Its disgusting to watch when your blood is taken for examination   10.                       In innovation we do a lot of brainstorming.  We use brainstorming when we find needs or problems and also when we are finding solutions.   11.   We were instructed to design an outdoor sculpture and should decide software and prices are given for the best three ideas in each category     12.   My model is of a sculpture that should be placed outside the royal palace in Copenhagen in memory of king Christian the 4th and it should be 30 meters high so that people walking around Copenhagen can see it far away and it should be sculptured out of multicolored stone.   13.    My model is of a sculpture that should be placed outside the Opera house in Reykjavík, its an opera singer, it should be 5 meters high, made of wood and painted.     14.    My model is of a sculpture that I want to be placed outside the swimming hall in Selfoss and it should be made of concrete 5 meters high and it should be painted.     15. We designed a handle for a door or a drawer, we also made models of our handle and a prototype. We also had to decide on how the handle should work.  My handle looks like this,  the model is made of polystyrene and  the prototype of wood and it works by pulling it.   16. One of the projects is to make a bottle-mail.  We design and make a kind of a ship out of a bottle, usually a plastic bottle and put in it a letter in Icelandic and English.  We then throw it in the river nearby and remember that we are in the middle of Iceland (near the mountain Hekla).  My sisters bottle was found two years later by the cost of Norway and she received a letter from the woman who found it.                       In the school bus on the way to the river with the bottle mail.   17. We visited an industrial factory in the next community.  We visited the “glue lam factory at Flúðir.  First we made a list of questions in school to ask the director about the glue lam factory.  When we got there we asked the questions and recorded the answers on tape.  After we got home we made a report from the answers that we got.   18. At the factory we got a lot of leftover material that we took home to our school.  In class we designed several things to make of the material and then we made these things.  I designed and made a canldle holder. 19. I made cheese plate my classmate made a podium and an other made a toy elephant. These are all things made from the gluelam (wood that is glued together,makes very strong construction material)   20. We learned a number of new concepts that we use a lot in the innovation classes: like for example: model, prototype, need, solution and product.  We also got a chance to make our own products and put them on market.  21. We chose a solution that we had found to a need and we produced the thing that we invented, this product was sold on last years market, this is a straightener for people who cant hold their pen properly, it has colors to show where the fingers should be placed.   22. We held a market to sell our products.  We produced things that we thought would sell, both things that we had invented and other things that we considered an attractive buy.   23. To find out what would sell on the market we made a small marketing analyze that we took home to our parents and friends and they filled out what they thought would be most desirable in a market.   24. Before the market we formed firms to organize and produce the products we wanted to sell on the market.  My firm had two persons and we chose the name The Ice cream for our firm.  We sold greeting cards, picture frames, pens, candle holders and my mothers good cakes.  We sold a lot of these products on the market.   25. We all were encouraged to partake in the annual innovation competition that is held here in Iceland for all pupils from 6 to 16 years old. Its the young inventors competition. The competition is divided into three categories: inventions, design and software and prices are given for the best three ideas in each category   26.  We can decide if we want to send in ideas to the competition or not and we can either send it on paper or by the competitions web and that is what most pupils in Gnúpverjaskóli do.  I have sent in one idea from the competitions website

     The European project InnoEd,

This year Gnúpverjaskóli is taking part in a European project with scools
in England, Finland, Norway and three other schools and two computer companies in Iceland.

Participants
Iceland:
Iceland University of Education : Gisli Thorsteinsson and Dr. Rosa Gunnarsdottir
Foldaskoli : Andrea M Burgherr and Iris Gudlaugsdottir.
Gnupverjaskoli: Svanborg R Jonsdottir.
Barnskolinn a Eyrabakka og Stokkseyri: Birgir Edwald , Katrin Osk Thrainsdottir
and Jona Bjork Jonsdottir .
Skyrr : Jon Eyfjord
Smart VR :Jon Horgdal
England: University of Leeds : Dr Cathy Burke
Roundhay School: Gill Welsh and Jonathan Towers.
Finland:University of Oulu : Matti Lindh
Oulu Teacher training school : Matti Hasari and Jarmo Mustikka
Norway:
Ringstabekk : Kjetill Fredriksen

InnoEd: Practical use of IT and ODL in Innovation Education
is a project dedicated to establishing a community that nurtures the innovative spirit in children.
 A niche, where children and adults alike, are provided with tools and materials, and the
necessary interactions for creative thoughts to become ideas and eventually products.

The project is set up in three stages.
First stage is the culture specific dimension and preparatory stage. Where the work will be aimed
at finding suitable solutions to fit the existing educational surroundings in each country participating. 
Building on the existing experience and expertises in each country, sharing those experiences and structuring
a flexible ODL environment for teachers and students and teacher training in the field of Innovation Education.

The second stage is the dissemination of Innovation Education within each country, training teachers
and setting up learning environments based on the previous stage.

The third stage is a European dissemination of Innovation Education based on the experience of the
first two stages.
The project is targeted on the European educational system, the teacher trainers, teachers and students.
The main outputs of the project will be learning and teaching environment linked to a database, equipped
with relevant tools for ideation and Innovation Education, >.

By the end of the InnoEd project in 2004, we aim at being able to offer all schools in Europe the
opportunity to incorporate Innovation Education into their work in some way.,   The emphasis will be on
having the ODL facilities ready for use for teachers and students by that time as well as having gathered
considerable experience in organizing and developing teaching modules and materials suited to different
cultures., The emphasis will be on