Part 4… Creativity In The Digital Classroom… Amazing Web Sites… Are They In Your School?

I hope you enjoyed the the past three post involving creativity and the digital classroom. I welcome you to the fourth in this series of posts. I have some reflection, ideas, and some amazing resources to share. Please enjoy and share this post via email or a retweet. While you are at it, I would appreciate that you take a moment to subscribe to this Blog by RSS or email and follow me at (mjgormans). Also, feel free to contact me about any conference, in-service plans, or PD you might wish to include me in. (mjgormans@gmail.com). You can learn more at the Booking Link. Please continue to network and join me for our special journey into 21st century education, something that is very exciting to me. – Mike Gorman (https://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com)

Note – Join me for a free webinar this Tuesday, February 12 at 8:00 PM EST entitled “Connecting & Collaborating In and Out of the Classroom“. Hope to see you online!

So many times we encourage students to be creative, but don’t always provide an explanation nor assessment. I think it is important to provide a definition. You can see that Dictionary.com defines creativity as, “the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts. From this definition it can be seen that creativity is much more then a single concept. It is only when we break creativity down that we can see areas that we can both facilitate and assess. These areas often include divergent thinking, abstracting, experimental inquiry, risk taking, invention, innovation, novel thinking, embracing contradictions,connecting, and synthesizing. The more we look at these components the better able we are to bring these actions into our lessons.

In this post I would like to focus on item number 4 in my below categories, Websites that Promote Creativity in The Digital Classroom. Please understand there are so many great resource sites available and that I am only giving a small glimpse. Remember, that using the internet with students requires two way interaction. For this reason, keep in mind that any site should researched before using at your school. Please check with your District AUP, administration, and the Web Sites Terms Of Agreement. At the same time, teach your student proper digital safety and citizenship. Let’s begin!

Free software that is stored locally on your classroom computers or network – Link to Post
Web 2.0 applications accessible using the internet… with just about any device – Link To Post
Web Apps and Sites to promote literacy and student publication – Link to Post
Web Sites that promote creativity across the disciplines – Current post

Arts Edge – Art of course is a prime example of creativity and innovation. An all encompassing resource from the Kennedy Art Center! Arts Edge offers free, standards-based teaching materials for use in and out of the classroom. It also offers professional development resources, student materials, and guidelines for arts-based instruction and assessment. Check out a powerful searchable data base of lessons, standards, and how-to’s. All of this content is searchable by art curriculum, other core curricular content, and grade bands.

Art Institute of Chicago – While the Art Institute has some amazing resources make sure you check their links to resources they have found that combine the arts to so many subject areas. You also may wish to see the entire resource collection.

Exploritorium – This is an amazing website that I could devote an entire post to. Make sure you give it a visit. I am sure you will enjoy the Tinkering Studio, Roving For Curiosity, Skateboard Science, Baseball, and Science in The City. You can find quite a bit at the Teacher Resources Page. Make sure you check out their Ten Cool Sites by subject area. Enjoy the exploration!

The Art Zone – Want to give students just a chance to tinker?Watch creativity run wild as you student engage in numerous apps at this amazing site brought to you by the people at the National Gallery. Use a little creativity and bring one of the apps into your lesson.

Google Lit Trips – Google Lit Trips are free downloadable files that mark the journeys of characters from famous literature using Google Earth. The site states that at each location along the journey there are place marks in the Google Earth Legend with pop-up windows containing a variety of resources including relevant media, thought provoking discussion starters, and links to supplementary information about “real world” references made in that particular portion of the story. Perhaps your student can make their own lit trip or even make a Google Earth Trip with something in your subject area.

TED Talks on Creativity – The slogan for TED is “Ideas Worth Spreading”. While I link you to some TED Talks involving creativity, you can use any talk to get the thoughts flowing for a great class discussion.

Piktochart – Infographics are a wonderful way to display information. Your students may wish to search the internet for Infographic ideas and make their own. I include this site because it does offer a free basic tool. What stories can your students tell with graphics?

Odyssey Of The Mind – This is an amazing international educational program that provides creative problem-solving opportunities for students from kindergarten through college. Students also use the 21st century skills of communication and collaboration working as a team members. In teams, they apply their creativity to solve problems that range from building mechanical devices to presenting their own interpretation of literary classics. Check out some sample problems. Be sure to also review the Classroom Activities and Practice Problems.

Intel Thinking Tools – Explore my past series of articles based on Intel Thinking Tools, an amazing set of free tools from Intel. The three tools I will be highlight are are just a small set of what Intel offers for free: Free: Visual Ranking Thinking Tool… Powerful Student Collaboration! , Free: Seeing Reason Tool…High Order Thinking, Mapping, And Collaboration! , Free: Showing Evidence Tool… Collaboratively Construct, Evaluate, And Defend!

MathTrainTV – I include this site because it shows a creative way for students to help flip the learning in a classroom. It really does put students at the center. This could be done in any subject area. Math is not the only subject to flip.

Jing– This is a screen recorder program. This is a tool that students could use to flip the classroom. It captures the screen in front of you, following the mouse paths and clicks, along with allowing audio to be recorded.

Screencast-O-Matic – Another Screen Capture tool that students could use to create lessons and find creative ways to teach each other.

Critical Thinking Puzzles – An excellent site to get the brain sparking. Work in groups, or on your own. Make sure you check out the large archive of past problems!

Diffen – A great tool to compare almost anything. Can bring about some great discussions. Here is a comparison of animal and plant cells. Or perhaps you wish to compare Mitt Romney with Barack Obama. How about art and science? Notice you can even improve the chart. Great way to have students compare and contrast.

Solvr – Have a problem to solve. Work it out as a group by posting the URL of the problem and have others contribute. Take a look at how it works at this link. Explore how collaboration can help us all solve a problem.

Thanks for joining me on this journey in 21st century education. Please enjoy and share this post via email or a retweet. While you are at it, I would appreciate that you take a moment to subscribe to this Blog by RSS or email and follow me at (mjgormans). Also, feel free to contact me about any conference, in-service plans, or PD you might wish to include me in. (mjgormans@gmail.com). You can learn more at the Booking Link. Please continue to network and join me for our special journey into 21st century education, something that is very magical to me. Next few posts include… , twitter in education, alongwith PBL, STEM, Web 2.0 Integration, and the Common Core. By the way I found some great technology manipulative I know you will like! Stay Tuned! – Mike Gorman (https://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/