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I have some great news! My newest book Vintage Innovation is officially open to purchase!

This has been a labor of love over the last two years. I have interviewed hundreds of teachers, read all kinds of research, and spent time thinking deeply about this topic. Vintage Innovation is a big idea book. It doesn’t read like an instruction manual or a research tome. I don’t believe there is a recipe for innovation. My goal is to provide tools and share stories. This is why the book will also include access to a toolkit packed with lesson plans, templates, blueprints, and protocols that you can modify for your own environment. The following video is a short explanation of the big idea:

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Vintage Innovation redefines innovation not as “new and flashy” but as “better and different.” It isn’t a rejection of new approaches or cutting-edge technology so much as an embrace of the old and the new. It’s the overlap of the “tried and true” and the “never tried.” It’s a mash-up of lo-fi tech and new tech. It’s the idea of finding relevance by looking back and looking forward. It’s a focus on timeless skills in new contexts. It’s the idea that innovation happens when teachers take a both/and approach as they empower their students in the present to prepare them for an uncertain future.

Teachers Are the Heart of Innovation

If you are a teacher, you are an innovator. You are the experimenter trying new strategies. You are the architect designing new learning opportunities. Apps change. Gadgets break. Technology grows obsolete. But one thing remains: teachers change the world. And one way to do this is through a vintage innovation approach. With vintage innovation, teachers ask:

  • How do I innovate when I don’t have the best technology?How can I use vintage tools, ideas, and approaches in new ways?
  • How can I use constraints to spark creativity?
  • How do I blend together the “tried and true” with the “never tried?”

I believe that teachers are at the heart of innovation and I simply want to share a few ideas to help along the way.

This book is highly visual as well. The following is a video preview I created for Instagram this morning. I’ve been doing a daily video on Instagram. If you’d like to follow me, I’m at spencereducation.

https://www.instagram.com/p/B63k9PWBQ6s/

So, check it out! And if you purchase it, please share your favorite quotes, pictures and ideas using the hashtag #vintageinnovation

My hope is that you enjoy reading this book as much as I enjoyed writing it!

John Spencer

My goal is simple. I want to make something each day. Sometimes I make things. Sometimes I make a difference. On a good day, I get to do both.More about me

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