#BYOD4L Day 5 - Creating and being Creative

A creative evening creating

The final #BYOD4Lchat was led by Chrissi Nerantzi and Alex Spiers. Early in the day the daily blog post was posted and this included some 'homework'. The logos of a few apps can be seen in the image below. 

Thinking about the creative pre #BYOD4Lchat task set by @chrissinerantzi and @alexgspiers #BYOD4L pic.twitter.com/bMoD5WzSWL

— Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) January 15, 2016

Whilst I love creativity I have never developed the skill of drawing or painting, however I do like to dabble in the abstract and have found that the apps now available can provide inspiration to do this. Don't get me wrong, my creations are truly very basic (see the one at the top of this post), but the process of making can stimulate my thinking and reflecting. Many never see the light of day! 

In response to the the BYOD4L challenge I created and shred this visual. On the left I aimed to depict the connections I had made and opportunities to do so through following the tweets containing #BYOD4L and #BYOD4Lchat. Irrespective of whether participants followed each other, within Twitter it is possible to communicate and many short exchanges took place. Some of these led on to further dialogue and I observed quite a few that resulted in colloborations. Some of these were then curations of the conversations taking place within the chats, as well as shared resources created. 

It was a thought provoking exercise as it highlighted that the linear approach to the 5Cs (connecting, communicating, curating, collaborating and creating) is one way of using the framework, however in reality if we reflect on the way we use social spaces it is more likely to be a zig zag and intertwined approach that we take.     

#Skitch and iOrnament used to demonstrate my use of the 5Cs within and outside of #BYOD4L #BYOD4Lchat homework ;-) pic.twitter.com/IQFpx0D5xV

— Sue Beckingham (@suebecks) January 15, 2016

What was most enjoyable about the activity was Task 2 and that was to look at and comment on the creations of the BYOD4L community shared during the tweetchat. Kandy admitted she had not had time to do the homework and then using the Bamboo Paper app came up with this brilliant creation! It just goes to show what we can do when given the encouragement to do so. 

#BYOD4Lchat so I was totally remiss re: homework but here are my sketched thoughts on collaboration pic.twitter.com/SKbxHL1fJE

— Kandy Woodfield (@jess1ecat) January 15, 2016

The activity was great fun. I'm now pondering on how I can use some of these ideas in my own teaching. There are so many free apps that can be used to sketch, draw, and even annotate photos and images. How the use of visuals can be used to express ideas, concepts or reflections is limitless, or at least as far as out imaginations will take us. 

I love that we can now be both creative and co-create with others online. It extends the possibilities of working together to take seeds of ideas and turn them into innovative reality.



The ecosystem of the social age

Julian Stodd has written a post called 'A Guide to the Social Age' which I highly recommend. His work goes hand in glove with an array of visuals that highlight his thoughts. This sketch resonates with me as Julian refers to storytelling and reminds us that this is an activity that can be co-created. There are many examples where we can build on the stories of others and add our own experiences and reflections. What makes this so different today is the ease and speed we can share stories with others, through social media. 

Storytelling can be augmented with images, video and audio - all created from our own devices be this a tablet, laptop or even a smartphone. 

"The ‘Broadcast’ model of communication has been trumped by the co-creation of stories that are themselves co-owned." (Stodd 2016)

Julian Stodd 2016

BYOD4L Summary

Chrissi created this wonderful summary of BYOD4L capturing some wonderful highlights of the week many created by the participants taking part.

 

BYOD4L 1st community led iteration with Neil Withnell, Sheila MacNeill and Alex Spiers (Jan 2016) from Chrissi Nerantzi

Day 5: BYOD for Learning and Creating #BYOD4L

Today's topic for BYOD4L is creating. This is the final topic for our open online course which had take place over the last five days. 

I have been blown away with the creative approaches people have taken right from the start. From photographs of hand drawn images and mind maps; audio and video clips capturing their reflections of the day before; to a whole host of ways digital apps and tools can be used in place of simply text.

Prior to the course starting each of the Facilitators created an 'about me' video clip. Let me tell you this was not an easy task for any of us! Many procrastinated before finally 'having a go'. The important thing is we all did it and these were then shared on the course site. It was our way of bringing a little something of us to introduce ourselves. Yes it may have taken us out of our comfort zone but once done I for one really enjoyed listening to my peers talk about what they hoped to get from BYOD4L!


My experience as a student  

Over the last 2-3 years I have been a student on the MSc Technology Enhanced Learning Innovation and Change course. During the taught element of the course we were introduced to some great ways to create and share information. As a short activity, rather than write a side of A4 about what change and technology meant, we were asked to summarise this in a short Animoto clip. This is what I created. During the next class (which was online) we shared our clips and then engaged in conversation about them in more detail. The artefacts provided a visual focal point to get us questioning what we we thought. It made the learning fun. 


BYOD4Lchat - a creative activity

For our final TweetChat facilitated by Chrissi and Alex, we were encouraged to reflect upon what we would take away from the course and create an artefact that we had drawn or made! My takeaway was that despite BYOD4L only being a 5 day short course, it had become more than that. We had between us developed a learning ecology; a social open community who enjoyed learning together; a lifewide learning community; a network who have the opportunity to continue learning together.

   

Using creativity for learning

Having listened to a number of Sir Ken Robinson's talks, I can hand on heart say he is an engaging speaker and someone I could sit and listen to for long periods. For me the lecture still has its place in learning and can engage the learner. Granted a lecture can also disengage you when the speaker is talking at you rather than to you. Ken Robinson is a joy to listen to, managing to tell a story but at the same time speckle this with questions that gets my mind racing and curious to explore more. 

In recent years RSA Animate have taken some of these talks (and other speakers) and animated them. If you have not had the opportunity to see any of these then I urge you to do so! The opening up of TED talks (a conference with a very high price tag) through videos, give us the opportunity to listen to excellent talks about a whole host of topics. Two of my favourites are:

• Changing education paradyms (animated version)
• How schools kill creativity (TED talk video)

You can follow the RSA Animate playlist of videos on YouTube and TED talks on their website where you will find over 1600 talks to choose from. 

I rather like the animated versions and often recall an image from a talk as I reflect upon what was said. Visual recall for some is an important part of the learning process. Mindmaps which can be hand drawn or digitally created are useful ways to break up information into chunks. 

Below is a short animation I created to promote the BYOD4L course using Explee. This is a very clever tool which provides simple templates that you can customise with text, pictures and sounds and create a short animated message. Its fun to experiment with the free version. 




My Edshelf collection of tools for CREATING