No 16, October 2023

Every year, the United Nations celebrates creativity and innovation with a World Day on April 21 across all spheres of life. This takes on a special significance in education, as they can be expressed in both learning and teaching. This issue examines how creativity and innovation are actualized in digital technology. The implications are manifold since we can reflect on the issues at stake in terms of objects, spaces, teaching practices, learning methods and so on. Implementing processes or activities that mobilize creativity and innovation are vectors of change in education. The eight articles presented in this issue highlight the heterogeneity of possibilities when examining the contributions of creativity and innovation in education.

This article reviews the literature on the role of artificial intelligence (AI) and what teachershave envisioned in the field of artificial intelligence in education (AIED) since 1970. Forty-eight documents, most of them theoretical, were analyzed to identify what roles are given to AI in relation to learners, teachers, knowledge and the classroom as a whole (i.e. supporting motivation or providing personalized feedback). Quotes discussing teachers’ role toward these components of learning situations were also analyzed (i.e. orchestrating interactions or evaluating learners). The results show considerable overlap between teachers’ role and what AI is being developed to achieve in the field of AIED. Even if impossible in a predictable future, the ambition of research in the field seems to be to automate a growing number of teachers’ tasks. In the meantime, the role of teachers appears to be a dead angle in the field of AIED. The discussion proposes to reuse Faerber’s ICT pyramid (2003), based on Houssaye’s didactic triangle (1988/2015), to better study the role of AI in education in relation to those of teachers and learners.

In 2019, Bernard and Fluckiger headlined in the introduction: "Technological innovation, educational innovation: a rich and contrasting relationship". They highlight the injunctive speeches of the public authorities. However, Cros (1997) states innovation is “the lung of the school”. In this contrasting context, we propose a systemic approach. First, we quantify three institutional communications, revealing the objectives of the exosystem. In this prescriptive environment that can lead to rejection, we then present a training microsystem intended for subjects: student-teachers. Then, we evaluate the productions of the student-teachers using criteria observing techno-pedagogical innovation. Finally, we determine the constraints and levers in training authorizing techno-pedagogical innovation.

In the context of digital transition and workforce shortage in education, teachers are looking for innovative tools to perform their work and optimize their actions. This context has led to an action-research study aiming to co-develop digital tools that foster work disability prevention among challenged students doing work placements. The study carries a desire to innovate, supported firstly by a co-development process with the school staff, and secondly by mobilizing a gender-sensitive lens. The article describes the co-development process, the innovations developed, and the obstacles that emerged during the project. These constraints fall mainly into three categories: the digital skills of teachers and students, the workload, and the organizational support influencing digital innovation. These constraints proved to be in opposition to the willingness to innovate present in all participants, who recognized the benefit of the new tools and their positive impact on their work. The obstacles and dispositions will be presented from the perspective of the systemic factors that amplify them in order to reflect on the conditions necessary for digital innovation in education.

The question of innovation in education is a fairly old one, the content of which has found new relevance with the increased use of digital technology. In this context, the present study attempts to draw a portrait, not necessarily complete, of innovative pedagogical practices among Moroccan teachers and then to address those that concern the manifestations of frugal innovation. Based on a case study of 139 teachers, the majority of whom are at the primary and secondary levels, the study seeks to put into perspective the role that the university can play in supporting these teachers to "do more with less" in a responsible and inclusive manner in order to disseminate innovations and respond, in accordance with local provisions and with fewer resources, to contextual problems that may hinder the implementation of desired changes.

To train future teachers, a university course has been developed that allows students to address dimensions of digital competence that were previously absent from their training. The course focuses on the place and possibilities of creative laboratories in a school context. The course addresses pedagogical innovation and creativity through its reflective and practical aspects. The article relates initiatives to place creative labs, their tools or ways of doing things, at the heart of the course activity. One of the issues quickly revealed by the initiation was linking a creative space and informal learning to the formal context of a university program.

This article describes the framework of a bachelor-level marketing course aimed at working on innovation and developing a product or service through an international competition that rewards the most promising productions. Each year, the subjects change, and for this year's edition, the entries must be about the metaverse, virtual reality, augmented reality, artificial intelligence, gaming, and NFTs (non-fungible tokens). To ensure that students have the necessary knowledge and understanding of these topics to accomplish the required creative task, a comprehensive four-stage training program spread over fifteen class periods has been created, based on a three-part pedagogical design: student, context and employability. The aim is to ensure students understand the concepts before using them to develop a product or service. This article demonstrates the effective learning that has taken place and the importance of exposing students to emerging digital technologies.

Immersive technologies are increasingly used in education. Although some meta-analyses have shown positive outcomes of certain technologies (Chen et al., 2020; Coban et al., 2022), we still need to explore their practical applications in classrooms. While pedagogical benefits have been mentioned several times (Freina et Ott, 2015; Lewis et al., 2022), they may be moderated by numerous challenges in the classroom. In this article, we propose to shed light on two case studies involving the pedagogical use of immersive technology with headsets at the secondary level in the social sciences. The experiences were documented through student focus groups and individual interviews with teachers. The first case aimed to explore the conflict in Syria from different perspectives, using 360-degree videos and a world location visualization app. The second case aimed to encourage students to compare past and present realities in the context of Beijing, using 360 videos and virtual reality. The results showed that immersive technology has potential but several conditions must be in place to achieve effective pedagogical use.

Aiming to transition to critical digital education is a major challenge for teacher training. We are looking at this avenue - education in, by and for digital prudence - by showing that it could be implemented by training those entering the profession.