Creative tools are generally recognized to be scientific innovations technological, psychological, or physical) that foster resourceful solutions to problems within companies, organizations, and educational sectors.
In other words, creativity tools assist their users as they engage in problem-solving and other complex thought processes by increasing the user's ability to think critically and innovatively.
When should Creative Tools be implemented?
- Superior long term [performance] is associated with innovation.
- Participants (ie: customers, students, parents) are “increasingly demanding new ways of doing things”.
- Innovations are entering the realm of public knowledge through various platforms that “copycat” an original idea (eg: the iPod has expanded into a wide array of mp3 player types, but features are recognizable and intuitive across platforms)
- “New technologies enable innovation”.
- “What used to work doesn't anymore”.
To put it another way, the implementation of creativity tools succeeds when users fundamentally understand how to use the tool they are presented with.
When considering the implementation of creativity tools within the educational sector, instructors should take note of what tools and technologies students have had previous exposure to inside the classroom and (perhaps more importantly) what tools and technologies they have worked with
outside of the classroom. For example, students might be familiar with using a computer to take notes in class; however, at home, that same student may use their computer to play video games. Implementing video games as a creative tool in this instance could serve to bridge the gap between entertainment and the traditional pedagogical model in order to inspire creative thought.
What are some digitally available Creativity Tools?
If you search for “creativity tools” on Google (or any other search service) it's easy to become overwhelmed by the sheer volume of tools available to businesses, organizations, teachers, and individuals. Here's a brief overview of the tools I discovered this week that are suitable for classroom implementation.
Glog : Google's web-based interactive blog creator
pro: Can be used to create detailed pieces of work (ePortfolios, visual essays, etc.)
con: Requires some basic prior knowledge of web layout
Best for: High school and Adult level learners
Diffen: Website that will compare and contrast any two things
pro: Provides cohesive comparisons
con: Information limited to Wiki sources
Best for: All Grade Levels
Grafitti Playdo : Interactive space to create graffiti art
pro: More flexibility than programs like MS Paint
con: No set interface for connecting with another text
Best for: All Grade Levels
DIY.org : Community website that teaches kids how to DIY a wide array of activities
pro: Safe space to practice skills without fear of failure
con: Isolated from other community sites (eg: Youtube, Twitter, etc)
Best for: Grades 1-8
Textorizer 2 : Creatively overlays text on images
pro: Allows personal connection with texts
con: Some features in other Textorizer software (see: Textorizer 1) do not accomplish their intended goal
Best for:: All Grade Levels
Storybird : Inspires writing prompts through images
pro: Unique tool for overcoming writer's block--supports the creation of illustrated text
con: User submitted stories and examples may be too complex for young readers to understand
Best for: Grade 5-Adult learners
pro: Cinematic elements add excitement to text
con: Camera direction and original scriptwriting might be too complex for younger grades
Best for: Grades 8-12
How does a Creativity Tool, like Textorizer 2, fit into the TPACK model?
For the purposes of this section, let's suppose you're implementing Textorizer 2 as a creativity tool within an undergraduate level class focused on 19th century American poetry.
Content:
selected poems of Sylvia Plath, Peter Porter, and Ted Hughes (text and audio recording)
Pedagogy:
In their scholarly work,
Re-thinking Personal Narrative in the Pedagogy of Writing Teacher Preparation, Mary M. Juzwik, Anne Whitney, April Baker Bell, and Amanda Smith argue
Narrative is one of the primary ways that people understand, experience, and create reality (Bruner). As described by Bakhtin, narrative is dialogic. Any utterance made in speech or in text emerges as a part of an ongoing conversation, begun long before an individual speaks (or writes!) and carrying on long after. In this way, all stories respond to previous stories and anticipate stories that will be told in the future. Our narrations join other narrations in a tangled web of dialogue through which we take up, reject, and re-appropriate the words of others while inviting listeners to do the same with our words. Further, they vary in shape and function according to culture (Cazden). In addition to being dialogic and contextually embedded, narratives are also “intersubjective--belonging to the context as well as to the author,” (Daiute 113). In this way, narrative is implicated in self-authoring. Mead suggests that, in part, we author ourselves as a result of our own objective introspection regarding our thoughts and behaviors. In order to accomplish this work, we must become an ‘other’ to ourselves. That process of self-consciousness, Mead contends, remains social in nature as we human beings take up the position of an “other” to interrogate ourselves (215). Viewing narrative in this manner, as socially and dialogically shaped in the context of culture and instrumental to a process of self-authoring, pushes us to re-consider narrative writing in terms of what it might do for students, both in and beyond classrooms.
In other words, shared self-narrative assists in the holistic understanding of, not only the self, but of other's life experiences and social narratives/constructions surrounding "other" vs. "self".
Technological Affordances:
Allows juxtaposition between text, narrator, and imagery to incorporate poetic understanding with a specific, individual, "other" experience.
Other ways students could use this tool:
Overlay an existing "selfie" that has been posted online with an original poem that describes at least one life experience in detail to demonstrate the multiplicity of personal narratives.
What are the advantages using Creativity tools?
some expected results of the creativity process are:
- innovation through new product and process ideas
- continuous improvement of products or services
- productivity increase
- efficiency
- rapidity
- flexibility
- quality of products or services
- high performance
Interestingly, these results are often the selfsame indicators by which students (and more to the point, their educational institutions) are judged.
However, traditional classrooms most often follow an overly simplistic two-step process centered on content dissemination and checking for student comprehension. It is only when (and if) students enter the collegiate level that they are expected to understand that their content should be engaging in an ongoing dialogue with professionals and scholarly peers.
On the other hand, creativity tools are fundamentally different from other (more traditional) tools (i.e., drill and practice, tutorials, instructional games, etc.) because they fundamentally require students to display instructor-dictated content through the lens of their individual learning experience within a public (or peer-filled) space. I've outlined this three-step process in a handy diagram located above. Ultimately, creativity tools also offer an opportunity for students to contribute to a community of contemporary and emerging texts, thus, preparing them for engagement within scholarly and contemporary discourse mediums.
For more ideas on creativity and educational tools within your classroom, feel free to follow me on Pinterest.
TPACK chart reproduced by permission of the publisher, © 2012 by tpack.org
