This paper presents the analytical framework from the ELIG Learning@Work Exploratorium Lab that explores how to scout bottom-up innovative uses of ICT for learning and how to support grassroots innovators. The ELIG Learning@Work Exploratorium Lab is one out of three Labs that is organized as part of the FP7 funded HoTEL (Holistic Approach to Technology Enhanced Learning) project (2013 to 2014) that has been adopting a holistic approach in TEL and intends to analyse and test ‘Innovation Support Models’ (ISM). Within the scope of the HoTEL project innovation support has been defined as a support in the different steps and processes that bring innovations to be generated, adopted, incorporated in use, scaled up and eventually exploited in commercial or institutional ways; and where innovation support refers to the way a "professional body" of analysts and stakeholders representing users categories, advisors, fund raisers, institutional and private investors, etc. can help innovators to succeed, or to succeed more quickly than they could do without this support. From this perspective, innovation support models are essentially relational models, linking innovators to their context through a structured set of interactions that, in the case of HoTEL, take place within and around the Exploratorium Labs.

The field of Technology Enhanced Learning (TEL) is considered to be a diverse and multi-level domain, involving many types of players, working in different cultures and operational contexts, under varying jurisdictions, with differing and sometimes opposite approaches to pedagogy and the task of education (Kampylis et al., 2012; Kamtsiou & Nascimbeni, 2013). Looking more deeply, the TEL domain is not only varied, but the adoption of TEL in general, and “products” in particular, appears also to be relatively complex, with many technical and organisational interdependencies. Thus TEL innovations might not be linear, single rooted or independent, but rather systemic, involving several converging and or competing technologies, complex interactions by many players, who have to collaborate in order to align their contributions and develop holistic solutions, rather than simply the introduction of new standalone products. Hence, these types of systemic innovations have “a nature of integrality” (Kaivo-oja, 2011), and at the same time a nature of multi-diversity, since the applications envisioned usually require for different development pathways per involved technology. Therefore a number of, different methods might be used to analyse TEL innovations and according to their nature (incremental, disruptive or systemic), types (technical (technology push), business (market pull), learning practices (bottom-up) and social aspects (social needs pull) (Tierney et al., 2012; Vojak & Champers, 2004; Kaivo-oja, 2011; Rigby et al., 2008). Successful innovations thus might take into consideration a) an integrated design process, b) the implementation of the product, services, or practice as such; and c) the design and implementation of technologies itself (Preez & Louw, 2008). In this context, the aim of the HOTEL Learning Exploratorium Labs is to accelerate the innovation process by providing a holistic approach in an iterative strategy. Every Lab is envisioned as a knowledge innovation network, which will assess a number of practical and theoretical implementations (Schutte & Preez, 2008). The objective of the practical implementation will be to develop and test innovations in real learning scenarios and to find ways to accelerate the innovation cycle. On the other side, the objective of the theoretical assessment has an evaluation focus so to derive recommendations for improvement and find a way to accelerate the innovation cycle.

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