Source: http://www.nzcrews.tv/
“Creativity is as fundamental as literacy and numeracy," shared Sir Ken Robinson . "All young children have immense creative confidence. What strikes me is how few adults do. If you ask adults, they mainly think
they’re not very creative. All young children think they are up to a certain point..” This article highlights the work of 3 children from Texas and Tennessee working in creative collaboration.
When I first read Sir Ken Robinson, I thought I understood his point. Upon reflection, I realized I was wrong. At one level, I was distinguishing between children being frivously creative and adults focusing their creativity on useful projects and under appreciating themselves. Online Read/Write Web tools enable both adults and children access to the same opportunities for creativity. In a presentation available online, researchers distinguish between personal creativity and societal creativity.
Personal creativity is shared as the creation of something novel and valuable to the individual (personal judgment). Societal creativity is defined as creation which adds something new to the culture (social judgment). With new tools, it is easier to leverage personal creativity and share it with others in ways that add value to our culture.
As I consider these perspectives on creativity, I take a moment to reflect on a 13-year old KidPub author who published her multiple chapter story online, Alone in the Middle. The story is slowly being made into a "motion picture," or at least, a movie that will be shared via YouTube. How would we, as educators, deepend the dialogue that is naturally occurring between these three creative individuals?
In the past, only movie producers--grown-up, important people who were probably rich, or so goes the stereotype--who had money could put their product in front of millions of viewers. Now, consider that the two directors are a brother and sister team being home-schooled in a Tennessee log cabin. As a result of becoming aware of this project--written and converted to an online video with a potential audience of millions--I have had a qualitatively different experience and understanding of the power of technology to facilitate creativity and collaboration.
PUBLISH AT WILL
Using free software (MovieMaker, Paint), two child directors were able to make a movie out of a story written using free online tools (free wiki for educators are available online). The original author--Rosalie--wrote an 18 chapter story, composed it online using a wiki, shared it with other children in an online community known as KidPub.com . The two children in Tennessee emailed her the following:
YouTube.com, in case you do not know, is a place where anyone--you, your students, your own children--can publish videos at will. You may have become familiar with it through the Presidential Candidate debates being hosted there. Both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates faced questions directly from voters on Monday in the first CNN/YouTube debate" (Source: CNN ). There is power in using YouTube, and online video hosts such as TeacherTube.com (think of it as YouTube for Education), to achieve goals like those described in this Wired article :
The debates will feature 20-30 questions culled from a pool of possibilities sent in by the American voter. (if you're American, hopefully that means you.) Potential questions will be posted to YouTube's YouChoose platform, a section tagged specifically for material relating to the 2008 campaign. Questions will not be selected based on the number of views on YouTube. Nor will the selection process be made public, in order to prevent candidates from prepping. During the debates, the questions will be aired on a giant video monitor. YouTubers will be able to leave comments on the questions beforehand. They will also be able to comment on the candidate's responses, which will be posted to YouTube after the political showdowns have wrapped up.
It's clear that YouTube--as well as other online resources--are becoming powerful ways to communicate and share ideas online. It's not surprising that children are growing up using the digital tools available to adults and that they see modelled on television, if not schools (most schools universally ban YouTube access because it has a wide range of content, from appropriate to inappropriate).
YouTube serves a digital commons area where people can share their video creations, and everyone can remix that content, as well as add new content. Sometimes, that power to publish at will is used inappropriately, but, increasingly, students are following in the footsteps of responsible creators...achieving the top level of the revised Bloom's Taxonomy, CREATE. In the next two years, every cell phone produced will have a video camera built into it. Imagine what our children will do with mobile video-phones. No, skip the negative scenarios that pop into your mind. Imagine the positive possibilities.
YouTube is used to share this introduction to KidPub.com, a web site designed specifically for students to publish their writing. This short video was created to introduce others--presumably a student audience--to KidPub.com.
As a professional educator, I'm overawed at the fact that someone took a thirteen year old's piece of writing, then made it into the first of several videos you can watch on YouTube.
The brother and sister team of directors--Nathan and Nicole--share their progress in converting Rosalie's story to movies in two parts. This is a documentary on how videos are made from the written script. What is fascinating to consider is, "How are children in our own students developing videos?" The tools used are essentially the same. The significant differences may include time to work on such a project, the freedom children had to pursue these topics, and the value they assigned.
What is striking is that these three children--Rosalie in Texas, Nathan and Nicole in Tennessee--could not have met without access to technology and the means to publish their writing and videos online. And, that the nature of their meeting was wholly online with little adult supervision. While many point to the inappropriate use of technology by our children, it is clear that positive, creative uses that are of value to society are possible and can happen given the right conditions. How do we as educators go about establishing those conditions in our classrooms and schools?
Below are the "behind the scenes" videos created by Nathan and Nicole.
Part 1:View Part One
Part 2: View Part Two
You can see the actual videos they have created converting the author's work--Alone in the Middle by Rosalie, a 13 year old in Texas--into a video watched by hundreds online at YouTube below:
Alone in the Middle:
Part 1: Paragraph 1
Part 2: Paragraph 2
CONCLUSION
Over the last few years, we've seen new 21st Century skills that are qualitatively different than anything required before. These skills are integral to our children's success in life and work, but especially so if they are to pursue higher education. Mark Gura writes that "...these 21st Century skills are not solely technology skills, but involve the ways that learning, knowing, communicating, and solving problems have changed through the application of technology. They must be learned through the continual and ongoing use of technology (Source: Mark Gura, The Powers that be have been informed).
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