Schools Want You To Be Creative... Or Do They?

Education is a fascinating topic. Everyone gets one, and each one is different for an individual, but is it different enough? Sir Ken Robinson spoke about this in February 2006; he wonders if schools kill creativity in young people. Ken told a story about a young girl who was drawing; her teacher came over and asked what she was drawing. The girl told her she was drawing God. The teacher responded that no one knows what God looks like. This is one example of how schools do not encourage children to express themselves and be as creative as possible. Children tend to believe what they are told; they are not afraid to be wrong because they don't really know any better yet anyway. However, because kids are being told they are wrong so much as children, they are afraid to be wrong as an adult. Being wrong is not the same as being creative, but if you are afraid to be wrong, you cannot be original. Kids are punished for making mistakes, and they are taught that mistakes are the worst thing you can do. This ideology is educating people out of their creative capacities. Ken stated in his talk, "We don't grow into creativity, we grow out of it. Or rather, we get educated out of it." Ken was able to see, after he moved from England to the United States, that every education system on Earth has the same hierarchy of subjects: at the top is math and language, then humanities, and finally the arts. But the arts have a hierarchy of their own, where art and music are above drama and dance. All kids have tremendous talents, but they are squandered ruthlessly in school. Students that show gifts in the arts that they shouldn't bother with it because you will not be bale to find a job as an artist or a dancer. Education is meant to prepare you for your future, but we aren't able to dictate our own future. Our educations focus on the mathematics and the languages, instead of letting children find their true calling. Our education system has mined our minds in the way that we strip-mine the earth: for a particular commodity. We are not letting people be creative and it's causing people to not be able to find their true potential in life. Overall, we need to reevaluate the fundamental principles of education for children and change them to protect the future of the planet.

In class last week, we spoke to Adam Taylor, a high school science teacher in Tennessee. Adam is the creator of #scistuchat, which is a monthly Twitter Chat where students and scientists discuss general science topics. Adam told us that Twitter Lists are an essential part of keeping up with everything; also, he recommends using hashtags to stay connected with people and topics. Lastly, he said the best way to connect with professionals in your field is to simply search on Google. Many professionals use some form of social media, and searching on Google is the most effective way to find them.

Chapter three of "Untangling the Web" focuses on presentation tools, mainly those other than Microsoft PowerPoint. PowerPoint has always been an effective tool for presenters to use to convey their information; however, throughout high school and into college, I have seen hundreds of PowerPoint presentations, and it just becomes boring. It's extremely easy to use, but it's much more boring at this point than ever before. Many presentations are made for one assignment and then aren't seen again after; SlideShare changes that. 

SlideShare is a social hub that allows you to upload and share your presentation with educators around the globe; it contains a library of shared presentations, and it allows to  share PDFs, Word documents, and more. SlideShare also allows integration with sites like Facebook and LinkedIn to show off your presentation to even more people.

Poll Everywhere is the next tool that can be used to make the classroom experience less monotonous. It can be as simple as making a question and providing answers then seeing what everybody thinks by sending a text. However, it has so many more features than what's on the surface. If you are willing to upgrade to a paid plan, you'll unlock many new feature that you can take advantage of in the classroom; such as, importing names, providing correct answers, and using specific keywords, among many others.

Another tool that is similar to PowerPoint, but also much more detailed, this tool is Prezi. Prezi is like PowerPoint as it conveys information similarly, but instead of multiple slides, you zoom in and out of different parts of the original document to show exactly how everything is connected to each other. Prezi allows for many things to come alive in the classroom: for example, a Venn Diagram. With a PowerPoint presentation, you would list one side of the diagram, then the other, followed by the similarities; however, with a Prezi, you can show the Venn Diagram and zoom to different parts to show off the different sides of the argument.

Presentations have drastically evolved from bullet points over several slides. New tools have made classrooms much less boring for the students, as it is much easier to follow along and get involved with class discussions.