INNOVATION MANAGEMENT (UNE-CEN/TS 16555-1:2013) APPLIED

TO SUPERIOR EDUCATION: INTEGRATION OF DISRUPTIVE

TECHNOLOGIES FOR THE TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY
Gotzone Barandika1, Javier I. Beitia2, Idoia Ruiz-de-Larramendi2, Mara-Luz
Fidalgo2
1
Departamento de Qumica Inorgnica, Facultad de Ciencia y Tecnologa, University of the
Basque Country (SPAIN)
2
Departamento de Qumica Inorgnica, Facultad de Farmacia, University of the Basque
Country (SPAIN)

Abstract
Brussels-based CEN (the European Committee for Standardization) is the solely recognized
organization for the planning drafting and adoption of European Standards in all major areas of
business. Concretely, on July, 2013, was published the UNE-CEN/TS 16555-1:2013, the European
Standard for Innovation Management. This technical specification provides guidance on establishing
and maintaining an innovation management system (IMS).
On the other hand, when considering the range of available technologies and their potential impacts
on learning, an important distinction can be made between two categories of technology tools. With
the first of them, students essentially learn "from" the technology. Technologies of the second type are
those that engage students in communication, hypothesis testing, and interactive information sharing.
Also sometimes referred to as disruptive technologies, second-type applications have proven to be
powerful agents of change in the classroom when teachers learn to adapt their instructional practice to
the design and capabilities of these cognitive tools. Taking into account the above mentioned
aspects, this works presents the integration of disruptive technologies for the teaching of Chemistry,
from the point of view of the innovation management.
In this context, innovation management techniques can be used to plan activities at the superior
educational level. On the other hand, when integrated meaningfully into curriculum and instruction,
technology can positively impact student learning and achievement. Likewise, students using
simulations can gain deeper and more flexible knowledge of scientific concepts. In fact, when
integrated into curriculum-based student-centred classroom activities, tools such as word processors,
spreadsheets, databases, modelling and presentation software can promote the development of such
21st century skills as communication, collaboration, and analytical thinking. Meaningful integration of
technology, then, refers to the process of matching the most effective tool with the most effective
pedagogy to achieve the learning goals of a particular lesson.
Keywords: Innovation management, disruptive technology, Chemistry.

1 INTRODUCTION
Diffusion of innovations refers to the spread of abstract ideas and concepts, technical information, and
actual practices within a social system, where the spread denotes flow or movement from a source to
an adopter, typically via communication and influence. Such communication and influence alter an
adopters (an actors) probability of adopting an innovation, where an actor may be any societal entity,
including individuals, groups, organizations, or national policies [1].
Most analyses of diffusion have emphasized actors and their perceptions of innovations, along with
variables of environmental context influencing the adoption process, but the characteristics of
innovations per se can also be explored as determinants of diffusion. In fact, public versus private
consequences and benefits versus costs are some the aspects to be considered. On the other hand,
the characteristics of innovators are also of high impact on innovation; these characteristics including,
the societal entity, the familiarity with the innovation, status characteristics, socioeconomic
characteristics, position in social networks and personal characteristics.
Organizations in today's hypercompetitive world face the paradoxical challenges of "dualism," that is,
functioning efficiently today while innovating effectively for tomorrow. Corporations, no matter how

Proceedings of EDULEARN15 Conference ISBN: 978-84-606-8243-1

6th-8th July 2015, Barcelona, Spain 2255
they are structured, must manage both sets of concerns simultaneously. To do this, organizations
have to understand and learn to manage the dynamics of innovation that underlie both disruptive and
sustaining innovations. Most analyses have been flawed by giving too little weight to the interactions
between needs and technologies.
Disruptive innovation happens in a process, and could be broadly classified into low-end and new-
market disruptive innovations. While low-end disruptions are those that attack the least-profitable and
most over-served customers at the low end of the original value network, new-market disruptions
create a new value network, where it is the non consumption, not the incumbent, which must be
overcome. Owing to the evolving knowledge in innovation management and potentially pervasive
applications, scholars from various disciplines have generated more and more critiques, doubts and
challenges concerning Disruptive Innovation Theory, particularly on the fundamental question of what
the disruptive technology actually is.
In this context, this work presents an experience on the application of disruptive technologies for the
teaching of chemistry for Pharmacy students.

2 MEANINGFUL INTEGRATION OF TECHNOLOGY

Technology has become an omnipresent feature of modern education. As the use of computers in
schools and classroom instruction has grown exponentially, the examination of how computers impact
student learning has become a central educational focus. Findings show that when technology is
meaningfully integrated into the curriculum, students delve more deeply into the content area, are
more motivated, spend more engaged time on task, move beyond knowledge and comprehension to
application and analysis of information, learn where to locate information in an information-rich world,
and develop computer literacy by applying various computer skills as part of the learning process.
Thus, technology can have a powerful effect on the quality of instruction and student outcomes (Figure
1).
There is no doubt that technological literacy is essential for learners in the twenty-first century [2].
However, these skills cannot simply be added to a list of demands placed on overburdened teachers
and students. Instead, instruction must focus on the meaningful integration of technologies as tools
facilitating learning and assessment in a technology-rich society.

Figure 1. Effects of meaningful integration of technology on students.

The contrasts between traditional and innovative technology use underscore the observation that
classroom teachers can use technology to support a variety of instructional models that differ in their
goals and approaches to learning and teaching. Many educators are exploring ways for technology to
support models of instruction that emphasized learning with understanding and more active student
involvement. Teachers who integrate these approaches to technology-mediated curricula report that

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their classrooms are more student-centred. In fact, students who engage with technology-mediated
instruction in service of higher-order thinking skills usually perform better. To this purpose meaningful
technology integration the technology must directly relate to the content area, classroom assignments,
and learning objectives [3,4].
The use of technology must be stitched together in a logical and systematic model of instruction. In
other words, meaningful technology integration involves the seamless and transparent utilization of
technologynot the development of discrete and isolated technology skillsto generate specific
academic outcomes. In such cases, successful technology-enhanced learning environments allow the
curriculum to drive the technology usage, not the technology to drive the curriculum.
Meaningful technology integration also exploits rather than constrains student exploration and
individual preference. Providing opportunities for students to self-select resources and arrange content
in personally meaningful ways produces higher levels of intrinsic motivation and results in higher
levels of engagement. Moreover, technologies that allow students to interact with information from
multiple modalities (text, images, audio) appeal to the learning styles of a wider variety of students,
some of whom optimize information presented in a verbal context and others who learn better visually.
Finally, meaningful technology integration succeeds in providing learners with opportunities to revise,
improve, and see progress in their thinking, as well as making their thinking visible. The immediacy
with which such feedback is provided is an especially salient feature of successful learning
technologies. Rather than waiting until the end of a unit to do individual assessments, computer-based
learning environments can poll student thinking and reasoning much more frequently and re-form
content and instructional approaches on the fly, providing individually tailored remediation in areas
deemed deficient [5].

3 COGNITIVE TOOLS
Tools are extensions of human beings that partially differentiate humans from lower order species of
animals. For instance, computers now perform tasks at speeds which are orders of magnitude greater
than humans with or without more primitive tools were capable of. The computer was developed
century for calculating, storing and communicating information. Each technological revolution has
generated increasingly more sophisticated tools with greater functionality. Electronic technologies,
including the computer, have provided multiple information processing functions. Many of the software
tools developed for the computer also have extensibility, that is, they can change forms and assume
additional functionality.
These are general tools that can facilitate cognitive processing. Cognitive tools are both mental and
computational devices that support, guide, and extend the thinking processes of their users. Many
cognitive tools, such as cognitive and metacognitive learning strategies are internal to the learner.
However, the external tools like computer-based devices and environments also extend the thinking
processes of learners. These are tools that are used to engage learners in meaningful cognitive
processing of information. They are knowledge construction and facilitation tools and they that can be
applied to a variety of subject matter domains [6].
The mediation of learning is referred to technologies not doing directly mediate learning. That is,
people do not learn from computers, books, videos, or the other devices that were developed to
transmit information. Rather, learning is mediated by thinking (mental processes). Thinking is activated
by learning activities, and learning activities are mediated by instructional interventions, including
technologies. Learning requires thinking by the learner. In order to more directly affect the learning
process, therefore, we should concern ourselves less with the design of technologies of transmission
and more with how learners are required to think in completing different tasks.
Rather than developing ever more powerful teaching hardware, we should be teaching learners how to
think more effectively. The role of delivery technologies should be to display thinking tools, tools that
facilitate thinking processes.
Thus, cognitive tools, if properly conceived and executed, should activate cognitive and metacognitive
learning strategies. They are computationally based tools that complement and extend the mind. They
engage generative processing of information. Generative processing occurs when learners as sign
meaning to new information by relating it to prior knowledge. Deeper information processing results
from activating appropriate schemata, using them to interpret new information, assimilating new
information back into the schemata, reorganising them in light of the newly interpreted information,

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and then using those newly aggrandised schemata to explain, interpret, or infer new knowledge
(Figure 2).
Knowledge acquisition, according to these definitions, is a constructive process. Cognitive tools
facilitate the processes of constructing knowledge by learners. Computer-based cognitive tools are in
effect cognitive amplification tools that are part of the environment. Environments that employ
cognitive tools distribute cognition to the person. Cognitive tools are intelligent resources with which
the learner cognitively collaborates in constructing knowledge.

Figure 2. Use of computer as a cognitive tool.

4 DISRUPTIVE-TECHNOLOGY-ADDED TEACHING OF CHEMISTRY

A variety of activities can be carried out for the development of a subject, and in the case of General
and Inorganic Chemistry in the grade of Pharmacy (University of the Basque Country, UPV/EHU)
there are up to four different methodologies: traditional lecture, room, computer, and laboratory
practice. In this sense, the teaching team of the above mentioned subject has detected that students
usually have difficulties to establish connections between the different activities. On the other hand,
the team has also identified that during the last years students have been obtaining lower marks than
average on aspects related to acids and alkalis. Therefore, these aspects needed special attention,
and a plan was designed to this purpose where the objective was integration of room, computer and
laboratory practice [7].
As observed in figure 3, integration of the three modalities starts with a guide that is provided by the
teaching team to the students. Next, there is an exposition of the problem and the available resources
to solve it which is performed by the teachers in the classroom. Taking into account the previous
aspects, students are required to design a lab-experiment which will be performed during lab-practice.
Computer-added monitoring of the experiment is a key-point. Students are also supposed to process
the as-acquired data. Those are experimental data that will be compared to theoretical data. The
significant aspect about it is that theoretical data are also produced by the students when simulating
their experiments. This way, students can compare experimental and theoretical data. Comparison
between them gives them the opportunity of deep thinking about the experiment, and about the basic
chemical concepts involved (figure 3).
The three activities have been integrated by using a problem as reference: Determine the
concentration of dissolution of calcium carbonate. This is a product that appears solved in natural
water, and that is the major constituent of the mollusk-shells. The available reagents are sulphuric acid
and fenoftaleine. The students can use book, handbooks and the web to get all the information they
need.

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To design the experiment that permits the determination of the concentration, students must identify
the reaction as an acid-base one, and they need to know volumetric analysis as the appropriate
technique to determine concentrations. As a part of the design of the experiment, students have to
determine the concentration of sulphuric acid they are going to use, and the volume of dissolution of
calcium carbonate.
Performance of the experiment must be carried out at least three times to provide an accurate value
and its error. Monitoring of the experiment will be carried out by representing in a graph the change of
pH with the added volume of sulphuric acid.
Data processing consists of identification of the equivalence point, followed by the determination of the
concentration and its error. Afterwards, the experiment will be simulated on the computer, producing
theoretical data, that provide an expected value for the concentration of calcium carbonate, that will
be compared to the experimental one
In this way, the use of disruptive technology is applied in all the steps of the procedure, permitting that
students get engaged in meaningful cognitive processing of information tools by means of the use of
computer.

Figure 3. Implementation of a learning procedure by using computers as a cognitive tool.

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5 CONCLUSIONS
Innovation can be used to plan activities at the superior educational level with the aim of meaningfully
integrating of technology into curriculum and instruction. Students using simulations can gain deeper
and more flexible knowledge of scientific concepts. In fact, when integrated into curriculum-based
student-centred classroom activities, tools such as word processors, spreadsheets, databases,
st
modelling and presentation software can promote the development of such 21 century skills as
communication, collaboration, and analytical thinking.

AKNOWLEDGMENTS
The authors acknowledge the financial support of SAE/HALEZ (UPV/EHU) for a PIE2013-2015(6695)
grant.

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