The compelling conversation for CAS creative play
by Vanessa Rebgetz
I felt my childhood had been cheated when The Chronicles of Narnia came to the movie screens in 2005. Like someone had torn a section from my life diary and broadcast it for the world to see. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was my ten-year-old self’s literary escape. I was the protagonist Lucy and lived her curiosity, trepidation and excitement as my own experience in the mythical Narnia.
We’ve all experienced the disappointment of a movie adaptation not living up to the blockbuster version of our mind’s eye. At the time, I couldn’t contemplate seeing the movie. The reverence I held for C. S. Lewis’ work was preserved in the locked vault of my memory. Reconciling it with a screen version would be rewriting my own history. I wondered why Walt Disney Pictures had bothered with the sheer weight of expectation of the best-selling novel. They couldn’t possibly live up to every reader’s idealised version.
The problem I pondered here was my own, of course, and easily solved by my own child. As much as I felt wedded to my childhood experience of reading Lewis’ novel, I was not the target market for the screen version. Technological advances in cinematography since Lewis’ 1950 publication meant a new generation could be enthralled by his mythological fantasy.
What is the contribution of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the conversation about creativity? This resource has been developed to advance a compelling case for valuing creativity pursued by students in interest-driven public networks. Just as Lucy faced many obstacles in moving through the magical doorway between two worlds, we as educators are enveloped by challenges in bridging the digital divide to cultivate environments for creativity. The timetable can thwart the time needed for the creative mind. Attempts to connect our students online to spaces of creativity can be blocked by the system’s firewall. We can feel the presence of the White Witch at every turn. Why, then, embark on this journey?
by Vanessa Rebgetz
I felt my childhood had been cheated when The Chronicles of Narnia came to the movie screens in 2005. Like someone had torn a section from my life diary and broadcast it for the world to see. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was my ten-year-old self’s literary escape. I was the protagonist Lucy and lived her curiosity, trepidation and excitement as my own experience in the mythical Narnia.
We’ve all experienced the disappointment of a movie adaptation not living up to the blockbuster version of our mind’s eye. At the time, I couldn’t contemplate seeing the movie. The reverence I held for C. S. Lewis’ work was preserved in the locked vault of my memory. Reconciling it with a screen version would be rewriting my own history. I wondered why Walt Disney Pictures had bothered with the sheer weight of expectation of the best-selling novel. They couldn’t possibly live up to every reader’s idealised version.
The problem I pondered here was my own, of course, and easily solved by my own child. As much as I felt wedded to my childhood experience of reading Lewis’ novel, I was not the target market for the screen version. Technological advances in cinematography since Lewis’ 1950 publication meant a new generation could be enthralled by his mythological fantasy.
What is the contribution of The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe to the conversation about creativity? This resource has been developed to advance a compelling case for valuing creativity pursued by students in interest-driven public networks. Just as Lucy faced many obstacles in moving through the magical doorway between two worlds, we as educators are enveloped by challenges in bridging the digital divide to cultivate environments for creativity. The timetable can thwart the time needed for the creative mind. Attempts to connect our students online to spaces of creativity can be blocked by the system’s firewall. We can feel the presence of the White Witch at every turn. Why, then, embark on this journey?
An evil half-giant, half-genie who has taken control of Narnia as a usurper. Using her magic, she creates an endless winter in Narnia, but prevents Christmas from coming. Source: www.narniawikia.com
Sir Ken Robinson is an internationally recognized authority in creativity and innovation in education and business and key note speaker at the 2015 IB Conference of the Americas. He considers the systematic teaching of creativity in schools to be an economic and cultural imperative. His infamous TED Talk, How schools kill creativity, emphasises the important role of mistakes in building creative capacities. He also draws on creativity as the conduit for a rethinking of intelligence. The diverse, dynamic and distinct elements that, in combination, are intelligence draw on different disciplinary ways of seeing things.
Online collectives provide a space for creativity in powerful ways that the classroom cannot. Learner behaviours of play, experimenting, tinkering and messing about online with digital technologies has generated a new participatory culture. The shaping and reshaping of content, through contributions to the collective, is the stuff of Robinson's definition of creativity. Whether it's uploading a Fanfiction YouTube clip, posting user-generated rap lyrics or blogging a carefully written post in response to a big question, the ideas are unquestionably new and of value in an interest-driven site.
Participant identity can be dynamically effected by the interactions of online peers. Reciprocal exchange, discussion forums, blogs, ratings and reviews by peers in participatory culture are forms of feedback influencing the confidence to take cognitive risks. With risk comes experience of failure, a necessary ingredient of creativity. Lots of self-teaching may occur, accessing online tools and programs to improve participation. All of this occurs without teachers and without explicit instruction. And it sounds like CAS Creativity in action.
Online collectives provide a space for creativity in powerful ways that the classroom cannot. Learner behaviours of play, experimenting, tinkering and messing about online with digital technologies has generated a new participatory culture. The shaping and reshaping of content, through contributions to the collective, is the stuff of Robinson's definition of creativity. Whether it's uploading a Fanfiction YouTube clip, posting user-generated rap lyrics or blogging a carefully written post in response to a big question, the ideas are unquestionably new and of value in an interest-driven site.
Participant identity can be dynamically effected by the interactions of online peers. Reciprocal exchange, discussion forums, blogs, ratings and reviews by peers in participatory culture are forms of feedback influencing the confidence to take cognitive risks. With risk comes experience of failure, a necessary ingredient of creativity. Lots of self-teaching may occur, accessing online tools and programs to improve participation. All of this occurs without teachers and without explicit instruction. And it sounds like CAS Creativity in action.
imaginative activity that produces outcomes that are original and of value (Ken Robinson, 1999)
contributing to the shared knowledge of an online collective, or digital peer-learning (Brown and Thomas, 2011)