Creating Innovative Minds inline with Sustainable Developmental Goals

By Monica Joshi, India
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We tend to think of a global learning experience as something acquired through global visits. In my school at Sat Paul Mittal School, every moment can be a global learning experience. With its ever evolving management and enthusiastic principal, my school believes in extending the horizon of everyone who comes in contact with it be it the teachers, the students, or the parents. Adhering to the school's vision of producing leaders of tomorrow who are technologically proficient, socially aware, and sensitive to environmental and social issues, I, as the IT Head, have undertaken six global projects that not only teach Satyans empathy, but also lets students explore technical skills and gain awareness of the world beyond. All these projects are interdisciplinary with focus on the Sustainable Development Goals.

One such project is The Innovation Project. This project is owned by Koen Timmers, National Geographic Educator, Varkey Foundation Ambassador, and founder of Zelfstudie.be. Five hundred and ten schools and 85 countries across the globe have participated in this project.

The five week extensive project on Innovation focused on enhancing 21st century skill sets in students by concentrating on creativity and imagination, collaboration with International Schools, and communication through using ICT. Next up for me after signing up was introducing it to my kids.

“Innovation is change that unlocks new value” - Jamie Notterbelt. Believing in this, the Satyan Team consisting of 50 students from Age Group 11-15 and four facilitators including me as the mentor, had interactive sessions to arrive at Definitions, Product Innovation, and Use of ICT Tools in line with the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Week 1:
During Week 1, students researched the question What is Innovation?
Elon Musk The Boring Company Tunnels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5V_VzRrSBI, What is the Internet of Things? And why should you care?, Benson Hougland TEDxTemecula were shown to spark students to think, create, and innovate. The SDG Generation brainstormed, debated, and arrived on a concise notion that: Innovation is not about ideas; it is about making ideas happen. SLIDES
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So, after a great discussion, my students decided that they would focus on SDG Goals 4, 7, 8, 9, 11, 12, 13, 16, and 17. Here is the video where they are talking about their plan: https://youtu.be/BAGzxU8DYew.

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Week 2 :
Students were supposed to think on which innovations were making the world more innovative. Students focused on one specific SDG and tried to find an innovation that could be related to the SDG. They had to invent something to make the world better and then create a prototype. This was then matched to a global challenge.

Innovation is a change that unlocks new value. In light of this statement, my students by this time knew innovation now as creativity, adding value to an existing idea, and exploring a commercial and viable application of a new idea. Students appreciated the UN Sustainable Goals and tried to innovate a product in line with them. So, they narrowed down to Goal number 3, 9, and 11
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 My team brainstormed about different innovations to help the society. We prepared a chart in which we wrote about various ideas to innovate a product.

 More discussions were conducted by our team to understand what to innovate in a product with focus on the Sustainable Development Goals of the UN.

  The team finally decided on our product: REM SWAPAN, which is a sleep inducing mask made of herbs.

  We started making a presentation on our product to help in explaining and marketing the product.​

 We finished our presentation and started to work on the script of the video we were going to make to explain the specifications of our product and how it is different from other similar/existing products on the market.

 We made our final video and the members of our team pledged to take various actions to reduce the amount of Carbon Footprint from the Earth.
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Creation of REM SWAPAN was indeed an amazing learning experience. Students made a prototype and explained their prototype by a tutorial. They were extremely happy after their submission. They had realised the value and importance of each goal and through discussions they were mapping each context with particular Goals.

I was feeling happy inside that my purpose of involving them in this Vision was successful. The Youth of today have the Power to change the traditional thoughts.

Week 3
How are my students using ICT tools in an innovative way? My students made tutorials on usage of Sway, Renderforest, Minecraft, presentationgo and helped students in learning through experience. Sway is an easy-to-use digital storytelling app for creating interactive reports, presentations, and personal stories. Renderforest is an online video production platform that allows individuals and businesses to create “broadcast quality” videos for private or business use. Minecraft as a gaming tool could be used as teaching and learning aid.
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Week 4
Collaboration with International Schools through Skype sessions have helped students appreciate that through use of ICT tools we have been able to take learning to a global outlook and reach. Innovation is indeed a vision for learning and growth; it is the promise of a mindset for a bright future.

It is not the end of the of the initiatives taken by the school on Global Learning, but the beginning of the 21st century out-of-the-box learning skills and collaboration which will help Satyans to become Global Learners.

I am Monica Joshi, IT Head, Sat Paul Mittal School, Ludhiana, Punjab, India. I am an SDG enthusiast as are my students, and it inspires me to take this as a challenge. Currently, I work to promote SDGs through projects for my students, teachers, and support staff. I am an MIEE [Microsoft Innovative Expert], MIE Master Trainer, Minecraft Global Mentor, and MEC Guest Speaker. Recently, I was selected for E2 – Microsoft Education Exchange, held at Singapore. I had presented a #Teachtalk at Edutech Asia-2017. My case studies has been published in Teaching and Technology case studies from India by the British Council in collaboration with Central Square Foundation. As a new age teacher, it is my duty to make my students equipped for the future and instill the skills of inquiry and knowledge building in my students. Besides this, I am an avid traveler and love to convince others to travel. Connect with me on Twitter at @klnamya.

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