Is it just me, or is does this “Never-Ending Circle of Creative Woe” look a whole lot like Kuhlthau’s Information Search Process?? I think I need to buy one of these prints …
Cult of Mac is reporting some great stories from the Consumer Electronics Show (CEO). One of their posts shows Griffin Technology’s partnership with Crayola.
Take a look at this video of the Crayola ColorStudio iPad app that will be coming out for $30 in Spring 2011.
Then ask yourself … is coloring inside the lines of the shark going to make our kids more creative and innovative? Or is this an example of an “educational” or “creative” tool that actually showcases not the kids but the software developers who created it?
Now ask the financial question … how many markers, colored pencils, crayons, and paper could you buy for that $30? Which investment do you see as having a greater possibility of getting students to create (to make something original that we’ve never seen before) or to innovate (create or problem-solve in new, unpredictable, or unexpected ways)?
(A key question for me in considering this: the iPad remains two-dimensional, whereas the paper can be folded, ripped, cut, stapled, taped, or glued into three-dimensional shapes)
This issue of students’ faux-creativity when using tech tools is a big one for me … what do you think?
Is this tool educational? Entertaining? Able to hold children’s interest for a sustained period of time?
Luisa posted a fascinating link on the IASL listserv today about a tech-intensive program at Seton Hill University (not to be confused with Seton HALL!). In a program they call the Griffin Technology Advantage, the university writes:
Twenty-first century students live in a world of technology and collaboration where learning happens 24 hours a day and is supported by professors, friends, professional experts, and fellow learners in the classroom, on the web, and around the world …
Seton Hill’s faculty understand that each student has a unique learning style. Some of you learn best by attending lectures and writing papers; others excel when given the opportunity to research a topic and create a video or an audio podcast.
To this end, Seton Hill is committed to moving past the teaching of information literacy (understanding how to locate and evaluate information from resources that range from the traditional library to sophisticated online sources) to what we like to call “creative literacy” - teaching you not just how to find the information you need, but how to process it in the way that allows you to make sense of the information, apply the information to actual situations, and solve problems.
Fostering creative literacy by:
- Connecting you and your teachers to versatile, dynamic communities of learners.
- Providing linkages and connections throughout our academic and co-curricular environments.
- Allowing any classroom to become a virtual computer lab.
- Providing access to both Mac and PC-based software applications from a single hardware device.
- Increasing more interactive and in-depth teaching and learning experiences.
- Supporting our vibrant campus environment - increasing both student learning and entertainment opportunities…
In this way, Seton Hill is training students of all learning styles and abilities to be better researchers, better at compiling and organizing data, and better at publishing and presenting information - better, in fact, at becoming lifelong learners who can easily adapt to new situations and new technologies in their lives and careers.
Each incoming student will get a Mac laptop, which they’ll exchange two years later for another laptop that will become theirs upon graduation. Faculty will also receive a laptop.
Could your school district claim similar goals? (Mine has a very similar set of objectives, though different means.)
Seton Hill uses “creative literacy” to define the process of seeking, using, and synthesizing information. Do you agree with this term?
My hunch is that this blurb tells us more about the technology and less about the pedagogy. And since it’s PR, I can’t blame them. We see the who, what, when, where, and why. But the $64,000 question (to date myself as a child of the 70’s) is … how? How is an entire university moving from where it is to where it wants to be?
