Innovation and practical use of knowledge

This paper will present the Innovation School Policy in the Icelandic school system and our new cross curriculum school subject called ‘Innovation and practical use of knowledge’ in the National Curriculum as a part of the new area for information technology and technological education. The paper presents how innovation has developed, its character, pedagogy, the ideology behind it, its ethical aspect, practical applications and Icelands cooperation with other European countries around Innovation Education, as a new Minerva project, under the name InnoEd. Over the next three years the European Union (EU) is providing funding for setting up Innovation Education as an open and distance learning (ODL) option for European educational systems for both primary and secondary schools and teacher training linking teacher training institutes. The project’s main aim is to build up a databased Internet software for European competition for primary and secondary school students and to make possible research on children’s world of ideas.