The NZ Creativity Challenge

I have been so busy organisng the NZ Creativity Challenge that I have been ignoring this blog. The NZ Creativity Challenge is happening in my home town of New Plymouth New Zealand over the 27-28 April this year. You can find out all about it here. www.nzcreativity.co.nz When it is over I'll get back to this blog!

a-creativity i-creativity

This from David Parrish

Creativity loves a crisis. Especially at times of crisis we need creativity. Indeed some of the most creative solutions in human endeavour have come about because of a crisis.

But what do we mean exactly, by ‘Creativity’? There is artistic creativity: the visual arts, music, literature, design, architecture, film and video, TV and radio, crafts and advertising, for example. These are the kinds of artistic creativity on which the concept of the ‘creative industries’ is based. Examples of artistic creativity are numerous and obvious: the art of Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo, the literature of Shakespeare, the music of Mozart. More recently there have been modern classics in design, architecture and cinema.

But there is also a more general kind of creativity, which we might call ‘ingenuity’, ‘innovation’, ‘invention’, ‘lateral thinking’, or simply ‘problem solving’. We can find this kind of creativity in all fields of human activity: for example in science, education, politics, finance, engineering, agriculture, health care and warfare.

More here: http://blog.davidparrish.com/files/a-creativity-i-creativity.-david-parrish.pdf

The NZ Creativity Challenge

New Zealand April 2013 The NZ Creativity Chalenge - a gathering of creatives
All the updates will be on https://www.facebook.com/NZCreativity?ref=hl
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Design Thinking

Great clip
http://www.designthinkingmovie.com/

Is creativity the No.1 skill for the 21st century?

This from Mark Batey in Psychology Today.

Against a backdrop of uncertainty, economic turmoil and unprecedented change a new picture is emerging of the skills and traits for success (and perhaps even simply survival) in the modern era. At the heart of this essential skillset for the future lies... creativity.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/working-creativity/201102/is-creativity-the-number-1-skill-the-21st-century

Teachers teaching creatively

A great article - from Margaret Haviland
A few weeks ago fellow Voices blogger Shelley Wright wrote a provocative blog on flipping Bloom’s Taxonomy and beginning the learning experience with Creativity. As the person most directly responsible for our school’s professional development I have been wondering what professional development looks like when you turn Bloom’s on its head.

More: http://plpnetwork.com/2012/06/05/encouraging-teachers-teach-creativity/

Imagination and the future economy

The Imagination Age is a way to define the period in which we currently live, between the fading Industrial Era and the coming Intelligence Era, in which machines will be smarter than people.
From an interview with Rita King in Forbes
http://www.forbes.com/sites/drewhansen/2012/08/06/imagination-future-economy/

Creative Mornings

This a great site that offers a monthly breakfast lecture series for creative types. They have recorded a lot of the previous lectures from creative people from all over the world including New Zealand [Auckland]

http://www.creativemornings.com/

Every school needs an innovation day

Although the pressure of having to cover loads of content so that students do well on standardized tests is real, given the success of the Innovation Day, Mathew Bebbington believes every school should allocate one day per week for students to learn freely through projects. Doing so would certainly help students see how what they're learning can be applied to problems in the real world. After all, that's the kind of thing that makes students fall in love with learning, not moment-in-time test scores.


More here: http://www.good.is/post/why-every-school-needs-an-innovation-day/

Freedom to Learn

Google and 3M give their employees sizeable chunks of time to work on their own projects with intriguing results... could the same idea work in schools?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2012/jun/14/freedom-teaching-learning