Category Archives: creativity

Warming Up the Creativity Muscle

creativity, ds106, Photography

I joined ds106, the open online digital storytelling course, almost on a whim this week. I was vaguely familiar with it, having seen some of the projects that were created last semester. It just seemed like the jolt I needed to reacquaint myself with the creative potential of my computer, which lately seems more like a productivity tool.

I’ve done two of The Daily Create assignments, both related to audio. When I set about to to do the first one yesterday–combine two sounds that wouldn’t normally be heard together–I knew what I wanted to do, but it had been so long since I had done anything with audio that it took me some time to figure out what tools to use for capturing and editing my audio. I ended up using my flip camera and then importing it into GarageBand for the mix down called Chicken TV.

Today, I did break the rules a bit as I did not capture any new audio. I had so much excess from yesterday and I spent the whole day in a meeting so I pulled some different clips and applied some effects to create my answer to the assignment to make an audio recording using an everyday object as a musical instrument. Probably many people would not consider chickens as everyday objects but I feed and water them everyday so I’m counting them. And somehow, I think breaking the rules is all part of the ds106 experience. Plus, I’m having fun so I don’t really care. I have fulfilled the fundamental mission of The Daily Create: Make Art Dammit!

I’m also participating in the 365 Project, taking and uploading a picture every week. So far, my photos have been fairly pedestrian, documenting my life. But I’m about ready to start experimenting with the Retro Camera app I downloaded some time ago to do some post-photo processing. Here are 12 of them:

Mosaic

1. Barn at Sunset, 2. Chair Decoration, 3. Chandelier, 4. Insulator, 5. Cabbage, 6. Chicken and Bottles, 7. Major the Puppy, 8. Smokehouse, 9. Happy Snowman Globe, 10. Virginia Statue of Religious Freedom, 11. Flocked Wallpaper, 12. Dottie

Ed Tech Themes and Issues in a Nutshell

21st Century Skills, creativity, Education, New Media, technology, , , ,

I’m teaching an online course this summer for budding school administrators. They’ve been discussing issues related to using “Web 2.0” kinds of technologies for the past two weeks and this week, I took a moment to summarize some of the themes and issues that emerged. I thought it might be of interest to a wider audience, so here’s the posting with some changes to protect the innocent.

After reading your blog entries and Web 2.0 papers and listening to your elevator speeches, I was struck by several ideas that seemed to cut across all the conversations we had last week. The three themes are lack of time for learning and implementing technology; inadequate, unequal funding for education; and a disconnect between educational goals and assessment. I think the first two are perennial problems in education while the third is a contemporary issue.

There is never enough time in school and yet every year more stuff gets added and nothing gets taken away. Is it any wonder that teachers seem reluctant to add yet more things to their classrooms? Especially when adding technology can bring additional challenges in terms of classroom management and technical glitches. Whenever I hear someone talking about how China or Japan has yet again “beaten” our kids on some international test, I always take a moment to remind them that teachers in those countries only teach half the day with the other half reserved for planning and professional development. Can you imagine? It would seem like a paradise to US teachers who have just grown used to the idea that they do that kind of work outside of the school day, often for no additional pay. So much about school needs to be rethought but the agrarian calendar under which we now labor is looking more and more outdated when web-based resources offer opportunities for teaching and learning all the time.

Inadequate, unequal funding has always been a problem. Most of you seemed to think that your school district was doing better in this area in terms of commitment to technology funding. But as someone pointed out, supporting technology funding in a time when teachers are losing their jobs gets difficult especially since there seems to be a shared sense that many teachers aren’t using the available technology to its maximum capabilities (or even at all!). In your elevator speeches, several of you questioned how the state can help with this…certainly, Virginia’s online testing initiative has been one way to get hardware into schools that might not otherwise be able to afford it. Virginia has been at the forefront of educational technology planning, something I wrote about in the VSTE Journal several years ago. I analyzed the trends seen in the planning since it began in the 1980s.

Finally, many of you pointed out the disconnect between notions of 21st century skills and our state assessment program. In a comment to one of your papers, I traced the development of content-based assessment to A Nation At Risk, the landmark report that came out in 1982. The report was mostly concerned with what kids didn’t KNOW, and now 30 years later, we have based our system on teaching and testing content. Yet, business and educational leaders are suggesting that process skills are lacking. Yes, students might know facts, but they seem unable to problem solve or think creatively and in a world in which assembly line jobs are getting scarce, being able to think on your feet is essential. Our students are leaving the classroom for a world that is much different in terms of working. Since this is getting long, I’ll end with a video clip…this is from True Stories, David Byrne’s film about a fictional Texas town. About two minutes into the clip, the owner of the town’s big business explains his vision of the future. He ends with a pretty profound comment about the nature of work and play in the future. It makes me think…am I working or playing right now?

Shakespeare Would Have Approved

Creative Commons, creativity, open education resources, Open Source,

I’m in the midst of an amazing trip to England that included a visit to Stratford-Upon-Avon, the hometown of William Shakespeare.  On the flight over, I read an excellent biography of the bard by Stephen Greenblatt.  As I read the book and visited the various Shakespeare sites in Stratford, I was reminded how heavily Shakespeare borrowed from the existing literature of his day.  In fact, most of his plays are based on well-known stories or historical books.  Shakespeare Online has a good listing of the various sources.  It shows how well read he was despite being without an Oxford education.

But, it also underscores the importance of artists being able to draw on exisiting works.  The genius of Shakespeare was his ability to take existing stories and add both new twists and poetical language to make those stories his own.  If he were alive today, I think he would approve heartily of the notion of a creative commons where people contribute their creative works to the greater good.

Here’s some good news:  all of Shakespeare’s writings are in the public domain and available at Gutenberg so you and your students are free to draw on them for your own work.  When I was still teaching English, I had my students write their own stories and poems based on Shakespearean themes.  Now, I would open that assignment to include audio and video productions as well.

And for your reading pleasure, here’s one of my favorite sonnets, mostly because of its ironic tone:

CXXX

My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun;
Coral is far more red, than her lips red:
If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;
If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.
I have seen roses damask’d, red and white,
But no such roses see I in her cheeks;
And in some perfumes is there more delight
Than in the breath that from my mistress reeks.
I love to hear her speak, yet well I know
That music hath a far more pleasing sound:
I grant I never saw a goddess go,–
My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground:
And yet by heaven, I think my love as rare,
As any she belied with false compare.

The Power of Creativity

21st Century Skills, creativity, Media, Media Literacy, Video

Most of us have probably heard Ken Robinson talking about creativity.  Yesterday, a story on National Public Radio underscored its importance in the lives of young people.  The subject of the story was the creation of “scraper bikes” in Oakland, California.  The reporter described how the fad spread because of a YouTube video: “The video spawned what is becoming a worldwide movement, even as it changed the lives of the young men who customized the bikes and made the video.” In fact, Tyrone Stephenson, Jr., who calls himself the Scraper Bike King, credits the creation of the bikes with saving his life: “Because I was at a young age, getting into a lot of serious trouble, selling drugs and on the verge of going to jail. So my mom told me this is a way to channel anger and frustration, just focusing on something that’s creative, something that’s me, and the bikes is me.”

These are young men growing up in a tough place who have found something that makes them happy and, as Stephenson suggests, allows them to have a positive influence on their community. As an English teacher at heart, I will admit to cringing a bit at the grammar.  But as someone interested in grassroots media, I am reminded of the power of YouTube to tell the stories of ordinary people doing extraordinary things. These young men understand that power and have taken advantage of the media to tell their own stories.

Here’s the video: