Monday, October 15, 2012

Hmm... more creative thinking

My definition of creativity is using your brain to think of all different aspects of something (a problem, a question, a painting, anything) and going beyond what knowledge you already have to figure out the best way to answer or solve that something. Like in the videos from Buffalo state, the narrator said there are two levels of creativity; big c creativity which affects people on a societal level and little c creativity which affects people in their every day choices and lives. He even said making dinner was an example of creativity. This stood out to me because it's so true. I hate cooking, baking, preparing food... anything with food bores me so I instead of complaining about it and living off ramen noodles, I should find creative solutions to making cooking more fun! Anyway, I do think I am a pretty creative individual. I enjoy the process of creating something and I also liked the quote that said something like it is much easier to tame a wild idea than it is to make a boring one interesting... something like that. I think I'm creative in a lot of aspects of my life and usually consciously but sometimes not. I like to change my personal style, rearrange my furniture, anything little to keep things changing and different.

I used to think that a person had to be artistic to be creative but it's definitely the other way around. I think I am pretty artistic but if my imagination or creativity is blocked, my talent is wasted. I've never really thought about the concept of creativity being learned but I definitely think it can be, it's just kind of a new idea because I've been on such a linear learning path, creativity hasn't been a big enough part of my journey. I already feel like creativity can be learned even just by being in this new learning environment. If someone has an open mind I think creativity can be learned and very beneficial.

I know HOW to use deliberate creative problem solving as a process but how successfully is another question. I'm working on it. Lastly, creativity absolutely fits with connectivism and transliteracy. It takes a creative open mind to reap the benefits of both of all of these new concepts.

Creativity in Learning & Life


 This week was all about creativity. I watched most of the youtube videos from the Buffalo State website but I'll admit I'm a little behind this week / last week. I thought I'd write a quick blog just after watching the videos as a reflection of what I thought was interesting and why. Yeah, another boring reflection... but in one of the videos about creative thinking there was one about the dynamic balance between divergent and convergent thinking. While I am thinking about the topic I thought I'd use the divergent thinking part right now, to relay all the information I gathered from the videos and then I'll come back later and use that convergent side, to really think about what was important and what I took away from those videos.

So I learned one of many definitions of creativity is "often described as the production of original ideas that are valuable or useful." I also learned about the 2 different levels of creativity; the big c and the little c creativity and lastly the 4 themes of creativity which are product, process, press, and person. I watched the videos on these "4 P's" and I could restate everything that was said in the videos because it was definitely all interesting and made me think... but the "P" I focused on most was the person. It's crazy that the concept creativity can be learned is something new but I know when I was growing up people would say "Oh they were born with X talent" or "Oh Y is in their DNA". It was also interesting to hear that creativity sometimes lead people to think that creative people are always weird people. I thought that was kind of funny... maybe because I like being weird. Well, that's all I got for now. I wish I would've spent more time on these topics but moving on to week 6! If anyone has any comments on anything else about creativity that's worth reading / watching, let me know!

Oh, I also found this website when I googled "Puccio & Murdock," it's a pretty good article:

Creative Leadership

Saturday, October 6, 2012

Transliteracy

I'm confused about the digital divide. I'm not sure if I'm thinking way too much about this and the answer is so simple, or if I just don't know. I feel that way a lot lately. Anyway, I'm learning that transliteracy is being literate in different subjects and digital media and being able to combine them all to be able to communicate with others and get your ideas and points across clearly. That is what I've learned about transliteracy so far that I can understand. I read the article about implementing transliteracy into libraries and the discussions about the different librarians and what they think of the subject. It was interesting to note that a lot of the librarians didn't know what the definition of transliteracy was or had never even heard the term before, but they could make a pretty accurate guess at it. I agree with this article that transliteracy should be used by librarians to help people in the library get the most out of the resources available there, especially the computer and whatever they need to access on there.

So... I'm guessing that the digital divide is the space between the digital world and the written one, the one most of us grew up with in elementary and grade school where most of what we learned was concrete and written in stone... or wait printed on paper... same thing kind of. So transcending this divide would mean, to me, coming to some middle ground, to be able to use both aspects of learning together to get the most out of learning and communicating.

Some of my favorite and longest lasting media & tools I use for transliteracy are, the internet, word programs, adobe programs, youtube, facebook, and now even twitter. The internet is obviously my biggest resource, I use google to "google" (search) for every and any question I have during the day or night. I have a lot of questions. Google is an engine that helps me specify my question and even sort of create my own answer, because there are so many different results for every search. Critically picking and choosing what information seems to fit into my world and in the context of my question is important for me, or anyone, in learning and understanding.

The most important platforms I use to communicate with people right now are Facebook, this blog, and twitter. I've been on Facebook for years now and it is an easy and user friendly way to connect with people because you can find your friends and just say hi, or you can join groups of interest and discuss commonalities among other people in the group, while also bringing up new ideas as well, just like in the CMC facebook group. The other platforms I use are this blog, sort of as a space for reflection and open discussion to the new things I'm learning each week. I feel that writing at the end of each weeks helps me put into perspective the information I've gone over and it helps even more when people give me different feedback or experiences on their weeks as well.

Lastly, I just started using twitter, I really haven't used it much. I feel like it's an easy way to share quick links, photos, or whatever else, with whoever you want by tagging it. I'm trying to get better about exploring this multicultural communication concept and find different ways to explain / learn about it myself. Youtube is an awesome website because it's visual and it helps me to look at a lot of reading, or text, in a different way. Although I think twitter is convenient, aside from this class, it's not something I'm really interested in learning... but maybe that's because I haven't really connected with people on it yet? We'll see.