South Australia has an interesting, sometimes paradoxical relationship with change. One the one hand very conservative, at the same time South Australian attracts national interest for innovative, progressive initiatives. The Thinkers in Residence Program (recently defunded) hosted Martin Seligman and Carla Rinaldi to challenge the state to reimagine and recreate their education system.
South Australia is now attracting attention with a grassroots movement that seeks to innovate from the edges of the education system.
CoCreate Education was founded by a group of educators and entrepreneurs on the premise that education is ripe for disruptive innovation. They claim that technology, social and scientific advancement are opening up new avenues for education to be more effective and more accessible.
They also believe, however that this potential has been far too slow to filter through to mainstream education systems. That these systems have not taken up innovation readily enough.
Their response is to start a movement based on the simple principle that better networked change agents will drive innovation more effectively.
They are hosting their first major event on 5 October at Adelaide’s new innovation incubator, Hub Adelaide. This “unconference” is based on the community building model of CoCreate, another Adelaide initiative. They will host a space where new ideas, relationships and initiatives can emerge.
Their intent is to establish networks between the innovators from all sides of education, who together will drive change from the edges to the centre.
It’s yet to be seen whether this will really be effective. Perhaps like so many progressive South Australian initiatives, bright sparks of life will be swept under the carpet of tradition. Or perhaps it will be survive to be more.
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