IT Launches Innovation Initiative

Harvard Graduate School of Education Information Technology (IT), in partnership with the Technology, Innovation, and Education (TIE) Program and various faculty, recently kicked off an Innovation Initiative through the opening of the LaunchPad -- a space dedicated to supporting student innovation.

“The new HGSE IT is off and running on several fronts, but the Innovation Initiative is especially important – and I don’t say that just because the TIE Program is a partner,” says Senior Lecturer Joe Blatt, director of TIE. “IT’s commitment to collaborating with faculty and students across the school has already resulted in a complete redesign of the Multimedia Lab. Reincarnated as the LaunchPad, this space brings within HGSE many of the affordances that have attracted students to the i-Lab.”

Located on the third floor of Gutman Library, the LaunchPad aims to provide meaningful support for student innovation through its renovated campus lab space and a variety of education and design-related programming. The technology-enhanced learning space and programming enables students to collaborate, explore, innovate, and create.

As Senior Academic Technologist Brandon Pousley, Ed.M.’13, explains, part of IT’s goal was to figure out the best ways to support social innovation and foster new ideas at HGSE.

The idea to reinvent the space and broaden IT’s impact began several months ago in an effort to further Dean James Ryan’s mission to prepare education leaders to be innovative and prepare leaders of innovation.

“As an IT organization we are committed to helping our students succeed in this rapidly changing educational and professional environment,” says Indra Bishop, IT chief information officer. “The vision of the Innovation Initiative evolved over discussions with students and faculty for opportunities related to innovation here at HGSE and educational technology trends that promote design thinking, creative disruption, and collaborative work.”

The former multimedia space, Pousley explained, wasn’t as welcoming and flexible as what was desired. About one month ago construction began on the third floor space in Gutman making it brighter, more open, flexible, comfortable, and technology enhanced. Though the space isn’t overrun by technology as one might imagine, it is essentially designed to inspire ideas, innovations, and growth among individuals and groups.

To celebrate its opening, IT hosted recent kickoff events including the Education Hackathon, co-presented by Google and edX, where student teams proposed, designed, and tested solutions to educational challenges in online learning. Additionally, the Educational Technology Showcase brought together emerging and established leaders in educational technology and innovation to HGSE to demo tools and solutions for solving complex educational challenges.

“We really envision the initiative to be an ongoing series of workshops and programming centered around a space, the LaunchPad,” says William Wisser, senior director of the Learning Technologies Group. “We hope HGSE students will see the LaunchPad as both a physical space and a concept that will help them refine their ideas, learn valuable skills, and be exposed to diverse perspectives.”