The latest trends in computers, mobile devices and the web, make opportunities for almost boundless creativity. They provide avenues to create and combine text, photos and video in ways never before envisioned, and share the finished product with the world. Even social media are opportunities to create communities of friends, and create your own social persona.
Computer and mobile device apps make it easy to create and edit videos, slide shows, scrapbooks and even blogs. That's right this very blog is an act of creativity! I got to pick the template and change as much or as little of it as I wanted. With every post I get to select the topic and illustrations, write the text and even put it together in a pleasing fashion. I also have the opportunity to rework it if I don't like the way it comes out the first time. I also have the opportunity to create my own illustrations using other apps if I would like. It is a wholly original creation.
Currently I have been using an app for my iPad called Adobe Voice that lets me easily combine a short piece of text, pictures, and a voice over into a digital slide show with narration. I am using it to make a virtual vocabulary list for my students. The voice part allows my students the opportunity to hear the words pronounced and they can repeat it as many times as they need. The vast selection of apps out there allows us to tailor our creations to very specific needs. The finished product is highly original and we even have the opportunity for coming up with creative uses for the app that the maker of the app never envisioned.
I have heard it said recently that education isn't providing opportunities for students to be creative. Some of the new digital apps that students are playing with provide many opportunities to be creative. One only has to look at some of the photos and videos my students take and manipulate to see that. Recently one of my students made a video where a cruise missile came in and blew up one of the lab benches in my classroom while I was standing at it. It was hilarious. Creativity is alive and well in our students. I maintain that creative opportunities are an inborn need for some people. As opportunities to be creative are getting squished out of our classrooms they are appearing on students phones. No wonder students are more interested in their phones than what is going on in the classroom.
