During the Fall, 2012 semester at Iowa State University, I served as a technology support consultant for Dr. Ana-Paula Correia as she taught Curriculum and Instruction (CI) 511: Technology Diffusion, Leadership and Change. During the course, students developed an online textbook on educational perspectives on diffusion and innovation using a platform called Wikibooks. My role was to facilitate the translation of the students’ work into the online format. My duties during this project included learning the Wikibook platform, training other students how to use and format their work in Wikibooks, editing the document, and working with Wikibooks on copyright and attribution for various images used in the project.
After a semester of hard work, Dr. Correia, the CI 511 students, and I are proud to release the online textbook about diffusion and change to the public, titled “Breaking the Mold: An Educational Perspective on Diffusion of Innovation.” The Wikibook explores several concepts, including adoption and diffusion theories, such as Rogers’ Diffusion of Innovations and Ely’s Conditions of Innovations; design thinking; Fullan’s Educational Change Model; the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT); change agents; and others.
The beauty of the Wikibook platform is that it can be edited and built upon by users not necessarily in the course; meaning that the document is a living, breathing textbook. It will never be outdated, and can be re-purposed by other university courses under similar study. It’s a very innovative approach to the traditional textbook.