Assessing Creativity
Written on November 24, 2008 – 10:36 am | by s0ph1e
Here are the links for the videos we will be looking at in Week 7:
Written on November 24, 2008 – 10:36 am | by s0ph1e
10% inspiration – 90% perspiration?
Written on November 20, 2008 – 3:54 pm | by s0ph1e
Emily raises an important and interesting question in her blog this week:
Reflecting on her friend’s ability to paint, she says:
‘This made me think: Has she taught herself how to be creative? Forced herself to be creative? Was it an innate skill she already had? Was her creativity developed by extrinsic motivators? Or do parents responses impact on creativity?’
There is an interesting new book just published by Malcolm Gladwell, called Outliers: The Story of Success.
In this extract in The Guardian entitled ‘Gift or hard graft?’ Gladwell explores whether there is such a thing as natural genius or whether genius is about working hard to develop natural abilities.
What do you think?
Links for The Teacher as Maker seminar
Written on November 17, 2008 – 11:52 am | by s0ph1e
Learning Through Play – Creative Development
The new Foundation Phase in Wales.
From ‘Be Very Afraid’ with Steve Heppell:
Assignment questions
Written on November 17, 2008 – 2:58 am | by s0ph1e
Here they are:
1. Discuss your own creativity and your creative process within the framework of at least two theories of self that we have explored on the module (Gardner, Czikszentmihalyi, Goleman).
2. Why is creativity important in education? Discuss with reference to at least two key theories explored on the module.
3. Design an activity, workshop or programme aimed at developing creativity, focusing on a particular educational setting: e.g. primary education, lifelong learning, etc. Explain – with reference to a theoretical framework – why you have designed the activity/workshop/programme in this way and how you would assess it.
4. You own title, which you must agree with Sophie by Tuesday 2 Dec.
3000-5000 words.
Letting go
Written on November 10, 2008 – 1:50 am | by s0ph1e
I’ve been looking at the blog posts for this week and I’m interested to spot a theme emerging from some of the reflections on the process of creativity.
Amy uses a beautiful photograph to describe what the process of ‘letting go’ feels like. She says: ‘This is not how I feel when I am actively being constructive and creating something.’
Over the years of thinking about creativity, I have come to the conclusion that there are distinct but iterative phases in the process of creating. One phase is a kind of letting go when we allow ourselves to be chaotic amd messy and make mistakes and then another phase is one where we begin, as Amy says, to actively make something. We shape, craft and redraft the thoughts, ideas and feelings into something more concrete, an object that we can get hold of and begin to re-make until it is satisfying to us.
Dave has also been talking this week about the tensions he’s been experiencing when blogging between a desire to just write what’s in his head and let it all flow out onto the screen and the desire to ‘get my point across’ but shaping the words into something ‘more academic and acceptable’. I think we need to do both. We need to be able to allow ourselves some space to ‘let go’ and then, later, we can come back to it and shape it into something. However, if we start to think too soon about making sense and being ‘acceptable’ and what our audience might think of what we are doing, then we may miss the opportunity to really alllow our thoughts and feelings and ideas to flow unedited.
Linking in with this idea, Emma asks here: ‘Do we need to make a conscious effort to maintain our creativity or does it naturally flow through us? - Maybe a mixture of both?’
Yes, my personal belief is that we need to cultivate regular opportunities to ‘let go’ and experiment – and this needs to be done consciously as a regular practice. When we are children, we do this naturally and unconsciously through play. As we become adults, we need to ensure that we allow ourselves the time and space to continue to do this, rather than waiting for ‘inspiration’ to strike.
Tags: process
This week’s star bloggers
Written on November 5, 2008 – 2:01 am | by s0ph1e
There are all kinds of good things happening in the blogs this week.
Frankie asked for her crayons back… I wonder what she’ll do with them next?
Joanna finds creativity everywhere.
And I really like the cartoon in one of Emma’s posts this week and her thoughts about creativity and music.
In yesterday’s seminar, someone made the point that creativity is something that can be found, sought out and made everywhere. Some of the blogs are great examples of people already doing just that.
I look forward to reading and commenting this week.
Tags: blogs
Where are we at the end of Week 2?
Written on October 27, 2008 – 9:50 am | by s0ph1e
In preparation for our second seminar tomorrow, I’ve been reading through what students have been blogging about this week.
Firstly, I am so impressed by Joanna, one of the first studentas to get blogging. She went about this in a very creative way, looking up the Edublogs Handbook, customising her banner with a personal photo and beginning to ‘think out loud’ on her blog. Wonderful stuff.
Chutima was also very quick off the mark getting hr own blog going and she has been reading and commenting on others’ blogs – which is great to see.
Well done to Frankie for finding the url to download All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, the report from the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, which is essential reading for this course.
http://www.cypni.org.uk/downloads/alloutfutures.pdf
Emma has been busy adding links.
There are now 19 people with blogs on the blogroll, which means that there are five people I haven’t heard anything from this week. Maybe they have left the course? We’ll find out tomorrow.
How to add links to your ‘blog roll’
Written on October 27, 2008 – 8:05 am | by s0ph1e
Some of you have been asking how to add links to your ‘blog roll.’ Here’s how:
Log-in to your blog, click on ‘Manage’ and then cick on ‘Link’.
Add the name of the blog and its url and then click ‘Save’.
It’s as easy as that!
So, 75% of the class have set up a blog and emailed me about it. Where are the rest of you?
Blogs as learning journals – some research
Written on October 27, 2008 – 8:05 am | by s0ph1e
Here are a couple of links to papers available online about the use of blogs in education as learning journals:
Exploring the use of blogs as learning spaces in the higher education sector, Williams & Jacobs (2004) Australian Journal of Educational Technology. 20(2), 232-247.
Blogs as Electronic Learning Journals, Armstrong & Berry,School of Art, Design and Communication, RMIT University.
Can you find other research? When looking at sources online, I think it’s important to discriminate between the quality and type of research available. For example, is this an article by a teacher talking about his practice or is it a research study? Each can be very useful.
The blogroll is getting longer
Written on October 24, 2008 – 12:42 am | by s0ph1e
Don’t ask me why they call the list of links from a blog a ‘blog roll.’ But ours is getting longer… There are now around ten students with their own blogs set up. Well done to those people. And a special well done to all those who have started blogging too.
I look forward to reading people’s thoughts and reflections.
It is such a useful way for me to get a sense of what is happening for each one of you, what you take away from the seminars and any clarifications or tweaks that I need to make on an ongoing basis.
I know that,right now, some of you are also exploring setting up a Google Mail account so that you can use Google Reader to gather together any blogs that you find interesting or helpful in your thinking and research. It’s amazing what you can find out there when you go looking… and, of course, you can contribute to discussions that might be taking place anywhere in the world by leaving comments on other people’s blogs.
I hope that you will also begin to comment on one another’s blogs too… and mke sure that you add those to your Google Reader account. Let the blog-fest begin!
