• Introduction:
  • Name and a little about me
  • Course: EDCI 572 with Dr. Verena Roberts D
    • Development and Implementation of the Curriculum in Digital Learning Contexts
  • Overview: Creativity and Innovation

• Outline:
  • What kinds of digital tools encourage creativity and innovation?
  • How could makerspaces support creativity and innovation in your learning context and/or project?
  • Tech of the week

• What kinds of digital tools encourage creativity and innovation?
  • Scratch and other programming tools – Allow students to create/design anything from their own video games to bringing robots to life, to almost anything else they can imagine.
  • Arduino – Can be used to make a near infinite variety of electronic devices, only limited by a person’s imagination (and sometimes pocketbook).
  • Video and audio recording tools can be used to record work and be utilized for digital journaling / documenting / reflection to encourage improvements and new iterations to a project.
  • Autodesk modelling tools can be used to create objects and even connect multiple objects and see if they will work together before you use materials to build them. Can be a great tool for creating project plans and testing out ideas.
• How could makerspaces support creativity and innovation in your learning context and/or project?
  • The beauty of a well-stocked and supported makerspace is that once students understand what they are for and what they can do they have free reign to build, create, iterate, start over, & share projects they make.
  • I have seen some Makerspaces that rely on gimmicky software that should be avoided.
  • A Makerspace should be, much like Resnick describes, as a kindergarten class for older students (2007). It should be a place to explore and make mistakes and create.
  • As a shop teacher, which is kind of where makerspaces go in the high school setting, I try to have my students be creative as much as possible but find I get a lot of push back from students who just want to be given a project or feel they aren’t creative.
• Tech of the Week:
  • AutoDesk
    • Offer tons of programs free for educational use
    • Modelling, CAD, & 3D Design software for many levels
  • Outro
    • Music by Canada by Picture of the Floating World

References & Readings:

Resnick, M. (2007). All I really need to know (about creative thinking) I learned (by studying how children learn) in kindergarten. In Proceedings of the 6th ACM SIGCHI conference on Creativity & Cognition (pp. 1–6). New York, NY, USA: ACM. http://dor.org/10.1145/1254960.1254961

Audio:

Musical Intro/outro is Canada by Picture of the Floating World found at freemusicarchive.org