On Creativity and Technology

It never struck me before the last few classes just how much opportunity technology gives for students to be creative. I’ve only seen a few sets of standards that encourage creativity as NETS for students does (1. Creativity and Innovation: Students demonstrate creative thinking, construct knowledge, and develop innovative products and processes using technology) – since creativity is by definition different for each student, it is difficult to regulate and grade, and creates more work for teachers already overloaded with hundreds of assignments to grade. So many teachers assign simple papers or skits or construction-paper projects because those are tried-and-true outlets for student creativity. But what about those whose worst nightmares consist of performing something before the class? What about those who can picture everything they want to convey in their heads but can’t find the words to say it?

Brenda’s comments about using VoiceThread to tell a story were fascinating. I had never considered using the technology in that way. But it occurs to me that storytelling is the perfect way to introduce quite a number of subjects using technology. A presentation, after all, is just a story with a purpose and a defined audience – you still have to figure out the most effective way to convey your information to your audience, and how to do it so that they will be interested. Starting out with storytelling as a frame may help students understand that what they do with their chosen medium (PowerPoint, Prezi, etc.) must enhance the story, not overshadow it. (This goes along with the Communication standard as well: Communicate information and ideas effectively to multiple audiences using a variety of media and formats.)

More than that, I highly support the idea of using animation to tell stories. A behavior I’ve noticed among my classmates and younger children is using GIFs to express their reaction or feelings about a particular subject; this is not just because pictures tell an eloquent story in a small space, but because movement catches people’s attention and makes the opinion feel more interactive. As we saw during class when we created our own projects using Scratch, animation fascinates people and allows for a lot of creativity. Those whose talents tend towards visual expression might take to animation a lot more readily than writing.

And storytelling is not solely about creative expression, either; many staples of English classes can be covered when doing a creative project. Storytelling requires you to plan out what you’re going to say and how you’re going to say it, defining a beginning, middle, and end. You must make the story believable: how are you going to present your argument so that people are interested? Depending on the story, some research may also be involved. Minor details like what historical events the character might be reading about in the newspaper can be starting grounds for enthusiastic searches. Students tend to be more willing to complete a task if it is something they have a personal stake in.

Overall, I believe that using technology to support student creativity is a wonderful idea, and one that may still be in line with course goals.