Let's Get Creative

According to psychologist Howard Gardner (2008),"The challenge to the educator is to keep alive the mind and the sensibility of the young child." They are uninhibited and wide open in creativity and its exploration.What does adding technology and digital media do to their creative juices? It amps them up! This week I had the opportunity to talk with some of my students about creativity with digital media and technology. We talked about what they have done, what they do with it in their free time, and what they would like to do in art class.The students I spoke with are rising 2nd graders.

I started by asking them what they like to do in computer lab with their free time. Most of them liked Primary Games and Starfall. Both combine basic skills with game strategies.Mrs. Eagle, our computer lab assistant, focuses on parts of the computer and typing skills for our youngest learners. Typing skills start after Christmas for 4 and 5 year olds as they need to learn the alphabet first. Starfall has many basic games around the alphabet and colors for them to start.The girls like a game called Fashion Dress Up and the boys like sports related games. Half our students do not have Internet access at home. Jazmine's family does make use of the public library for Internet. Another student said that he played with Xbox at home and was allowed to pick out and play mature themed games.The students who had Internet access at home went to educationally based websites and had games at home that focused skills, strategy, and entrepreneurship like Build a roller coaster from Discovery Kids.The students were all interested in story making or presentation web tools to go along with their art work.Most had used story making web tools at the beginning of the school year but had trouble recalling the details. They were also interest in trying more apps that could alter their image which we had experimented with and presented on Artsonia.

Below are two of the Project Based Learning presentations students shared today in summer school. Most of the students typed the information they shared on a separate piece of paper. I held their art work while they read what they had learned about the White House or Mount Rushmore (there were other topics as well) in their Internet research. The heading Jazmine and Me plays a small audio clip of the discussion we had.

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Jazmine and Me

Jazmine's White House

Emily's Mt. Rushmore

 Gardner, H. (2008). Five Minds for the Future. Boston, MA: Harvard Business.