Technology, Creativity and Innovation !!!

Technology, Creativity and Innovation!!!

Date: 7^th Oct 2016

The reason to write this blog post is interesting and is a result of a video I had recently watched on Facebook. Simply because I eat, sleep and dream technology it’s never hard to convince people why I firmly believe teachers cannot teach the same way to students, they were taught 20 years back. Students will never learn the way, we use to learn and master concepts years back. Technology gives you new ways to connect to kids, ways which they feel more comfortable working with, ways that can engage them and resulting in more meaningful learning. I firmly believe that we will lose kids in schools if we do not have technology savvy teachers. Seymour Pappert was absolutely right when years back he had said technology would be used like pen and pencils in classrooms in years (1980).  

 

I keep on going back to the SAMR Model (Dr Ruben Penduetra) and Digital Blooms Taxonomy, for effective technology integration because most evidences of technology integration in classrooms of today simply reflect drill and practice tasks, where technology has been substituted with no or some functional change. There are limited evidences of significant changes in task design resulting in creativity or innovation. 

For example typing a letter in MS Word, with some functional change including editing, formatting, saving, printing etc. The same letter could be sent to parents for example using the mail merge function of MS Word. Similarly simple construction different objects using the Lego Kits is useless, it only ends in teaching students the skills and knowledge of the tools and how can these be connected to each other. The task would be more meaningfully only if it connects to their prior knowledge (Schemas – Piaget), and to the environment around them. Students could be asked to imagine themselves in a forest or a jungle, where they have to rescue their favorite animal like a dog etc , and after rescue have to find a safe passage home. During this whole journey they could be asked to identify resources they need, objects they need to construct like roads, bridges to cross rivers, helicopter to fly, tools like hammer etc. It’s all about opening doors to imagination, and letting creativity flow in. 

Carl Sagan rightly says “Imagination will take us to worlds that were never before and but without it we go nowhere.” Technology can without a doubt help open those new worlds that were never there before provided used at the right time, place and for the right purpose!

Teachers are often unware of the full potential of technology because are they are scared to experiment with technology.  Since they are not comfortable using technology themselves they prefer restricting students to the limited use.  I had experienced a similar situation during a robotics activity, since I was not comfortable working with Scratch I suggested students work with the Lego software instead but to my amazement a few students did explore and came up with the integration with Lego kits. Thomas A.Edison said, “To invent you need a good imagination, and a pile of junk”. It’s about letting go of your authority in class, believing every one is a learner including the teacher, and the teacher is no more the giver of knowledge, the jug and mug approach has to be changed. 

The teachers role in today’s classroom is more of a facilitator, scaffold during the learning process. While skimming through an article on scaffolding I came across a very interesting definition, as defined by  Wood, Bruner, and Ross (1976) “adult controlling those elements of the task that are essentially beyond the learner's capacity, thus permitting him to concentrate upon and complete only those elements that are within his range of competence.”  What is actually happening in classrooms is that we as teachers are controlling all elements of the task, where we know all the expected answers.  We are actually controlling the learning process which in turn is killing creativity, innovation and critical thinking skills which students need to thrive and survive in the 21^st century. We are preparing students for a past which no longer exists rather than nurturing them for a future which is right there. That is why the classrooms of today look similar to classrooms twenty years back, amidst massive advancements in technology. 

Bringing an expensive interactive white board and installing it on the classroom wall would never be effective if the stylus is just used to solve a math worksheet on board (substitute of paper/pencil task), but would be more interesting and engaging if the built-in tools like the geometry tools are used for actually measuring the dimensions of a 3D building or a 2D house etc using the interactive stylus.  

Similarly there are several tools available that can help foster critical thinking skills among students. While skimming through a blog I came across a few interesting mind mapping tools,that help visualize and organize ideas into a mindmap. One of them is the Mindmapple tool. This will help enhance creativity and productivity, can be used for mind mapping of ideas, project scheduling, task scheduling, travel plans, brainstorming etc. 

Another interesting tool for secondary school students which could be extremely helpful during their different projects is the Gantt Chart tool. This tool lets you create smart sheets online. It combines some project planning  features from MS Project and some from spreadsheet and lets you visualize your complete project plan in one go. This could be very useful for keeping track of tasks assigned, roles assigned, timelines etc. These can be used for construction projects, event planning etc.

Another interesting tools was for professional bloggers, ghost.org, which lets you create beautiful written pieces of work edit with a split screen editor and publish it online. It lets you create a multi user blog thus providing opportunities for online collaboration and communication, two of the most important skills needed to thrive in the 21^st century. 

There are several tools available online which could surely help foster these skills among students. It is important that teachers first explore these tools thoroughly themselves and clearly identify purposes for using these tools (objective of lesson/skills that will be enhanced), only then will technology use yield the desired results.

Teachers have to redesign tasks using technology or design tasks that were previously inconceivable for example creating a documentary of a natural disaster victim using podcasting and uploading it on the schools social media website for encouraging collaboration and communication, coming up with a joint plan to create awareness about natural disasters in mindmapple etc, discussing prevention plans online through Skype, designing houses bridges etc  using a 3D software etc to cope with such disasters. 

There needs to be a focus on how technology has to be used in schools. It requires the entire curriculum to be reviewed, infrastructure to be reviewed, teachers training to be reviewed, technology resources and books to be reviewed in order to completely change  teaching and learning with technology in the existing classrooms. 

Enjoy reading and exploring the tools J

Sheeba Ajmal

References:

1.       Scaffolding, Sadhana Puntambekar

Website: http://www.education.com/reference/article/scaffolding/

[Access Online: 7^th Oct 2016]

2.       Mindmapple

Website: http://www.mindmaple.com/Default.aspx

[Access Online: 7^th Oct 2016]

3.       26 Critical Thinking Tools aligned with Blooms Taxonomy

Website:https://globaldigitalcitizen.org/26-critical-thinking-tools-aligned-with-blooms-taxonomy

[Accessed Online: 7^th Oct 2016]

4.       Create an Online Gantt Chart in Minutes

Website: https://www.smartsheet.com/gantt-chart-software

[Access online: 7^th Oct 2016]

5.       A Publishing platform for professional bloggers

Website: https://ghost.org/

[Accessed Online: 7^th Oct 2016]

6.       8 Examples of Transforming through the SMAR cycle

Website:http://www.emergingedtech.com/2015/04/examples-of-transforming-lessons-through-samr/

[Accessed Online: 7^th Oct 2016]