Creativity Tools:
Creativity Resources on CD and DVDs
Children and young adults
can use creativity resources to develop exciting classroom projects
that involve writing, drawing, recording sounds, and incorporating video.
Think of these as the tools of technology. Just as students use paper,
pencils, markers, calculators, rulers, and other traditional classroom
tools, they can use software to assist them with designing, developing,
and delivering effective communications.
Read the off-site article Arts
Extravaganza! by Paul Oh in Instructor Magazine (May-June 1998).
Accessed in Find Articles. Explore how they used technology.
Read the following materials related to specific software packages:
KidPix in the Classroom from Teacher Tap - Kidspiration and Inspiration from Teacher Tap
Read the following materials for children and young adults on this page: Writing Tools, Publishing and Visual Tools, Data Tools, Multimedia Tools, and Design Tools.
Writing Tools
Electronic writing tools such as word processors have been popular since the late 1970s. However with the recent emphasis on emailing, IMing, text messaging, the nature of electronic text is changing.
Read 'OMG!' Electronic Communication Isn't 'Writing,' Teens Say by Joan Oleck in School Library Journal (4/30/2008). Learn about young people's views of technology and writing.
Professional productivity tools such as Microsoft
Word can be used for writing projects at most levels. Microsoft Works and Appleworks are well-known integrated applications. However, many educators prefer
to use software designed specifically for children and young adults.
These include writing, organizing, and calculating software. Ultimate Writing & Creativity Center by The Learning Company comes with project suggestions and clip art that students can use in reports and projects. Amazing Writing Machine helps students write and "spin" stories, letters, journals, poems, and essays.
With these creativity tools, students can easily view writing as a process rather than a chore. Prewriting activities such as brainstorming, listing, questioning, freewriting, clustering, webbing, and outlining are designed to make writing easy. With the computer hooked to a large monitor, the teacher can lead students through the writing process as a large group.
The ideas generated in the prewriting stage easily flow into the composing stage where students write prose, rearrange information, and elaborate on ideas. Projects can be stored and extended at any point.
Revision activities such as polishing, clarifying, rewriting, and rearranging can be easily directed on the computer. In the past, many teachers and students became frustrated with the editing and rewriting process because of the physical tasks associated with paper and pencil. In addition, word processing allows peer writing and critiquing without complaints about penmanship.
Editing has become a much less time consuming stage with the addition of spelling and grammar checking software. Instead, students can concentrate on improving their word selection and sentence structure.
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Publishing and Visual Tools
Publishing
has become more professional. In addition to adult tools such as Quark,
Microsoft Publisher, and Adobe Pagemaker,
many software tools are available for kids.
Students can add attractive, eye-catching graphics and color report covers to their projects. Print Shop and Print Master by Broderbund, Super Print by Scholastic, and Kid Pix (shown on left) by Broderbund are long standing favorites for children wishing to create signs and draw color pictures.
Many
clip art resources can enhance these packages. Art
Explosion by Nova Development and Big
Box of Art are a popular source for hundreds of thousands of
images. Animals, holidays, sports, education, business, comics, and
food are just a few of the clip art CD areas.
In addition, most popular animated films from companies such as Disney have their own printing studio software to create signs, banners, and greeting cards.
Knowledge Adventure’s Kid Works is another useful package for beginning writers. With large text, lots of pictures, and painting tools, even young children can be successful authors. Storybook Weaver by The Learning Company provide tools for writing and illustrating storybooks. Some software combines reading and writing tools.
Creativity tools associated with particular themes are a software trend. For instance, the Imagination Express series by Edmark contains resources for creating projects in areas such as neighborhoods, oceans, rainforests, history, and castles. Students can incorporate objects related to the theme. In the castles software, students can place guilds outside huts. Students learn about the use of guilds and other medieval objects as they are incorporated into the project.
Visual learners enjoy using Kidspiration or Inspiration. These tools for visual thinking provide students with a way to create concept maps, idea maps, webs, brainstorms, outlines, and many other visual diagrams to explore patterns, interrelationships, and interdependencies. Templates come with Kidspiration. Click the image below to see a larger version of the Kidspiration project.
Data Tools
Electronic databases and spreadsheets are popular computer productivity tools for adults as well as students. Students need skills in locating, evaluating, analyzing, classifying, comparing, calculating, and drawing conclusions based on a set of information. First graders classify animals, fourth graders compare and contrast information about states, and high school government students analyze political systems. Middle schoolers conduct what-if's on business ventures, and senior math students graph trigonometry problems. The computer is a logical tool to help store, calculate, retrieve, and visualize information. Although some classrooms use adult tools such as Filemaker or Excel, others are discovering data tools designed for K-12 students. For example, Crunchers by Knowledge Adventure is a software package that helps students learn and use spreadsheets and graphs for problem-solving projects that involve mathematical concepts.
Some tools have been developed to help students explore
and analyze information in particular subject areas. For example, Geometric
Sketchpad by Key Curriculum Press and Algebra
Sketchbook, Geometric superSupposer,
Geometry Inventor, and Probability
Constructor by Sunburst are designed to help students explore
concepts related to mathematics. Tom Snyder's Tessellation
Exploration encourages students to make 2-dimensional tessellations
that slide, turn, flip, and glide on the screen.
Graphing is a skill that crosses all content areas. Tom Snyder's The Graph Club for younger children and Graph Action for older students help students learn to gather, sort, and classify information. They then construct graphs and analyze data.
There are many tools to help students with creating maps and other kinds of visuals. Tom Snyder has a number of products including Neighborhood Map Machine and Timeliner. The later package allows students to add to, edit, and merge ideas into timelines on many different topics.
Data
Ideas for the Classroom |
Spreadsheet Ideas
for the Classroom |
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Selection
When selecting data tools, consider your goal. Will students use a product that already contains information or will they be creating or locating the data themselves? If students will be entering data, who will check for accuracy? Misspellings, misplaced decimals, and notation can all cause problems.
If students are entering data, consider a peer-proofing approach. What do you want students to do with the data once it's entered? Consider higher level questions. Rather than "listing the state bird," try comparing the populations and square miles of states. If students are studying inventions, explore the agricultural inventions. How many were before 1900? Is there a relationship between time periods and the types of inventions produced? What and why?
Multimedia Tools
Multimedia has emerged as an effective way for students to develop projects that incorporate text, graphics, sound, and video. Many K-12 students use Microsoft PowerPoint as a tool to create presentations and multimedia projects. Kid Pix Deluxe, Kid Pix Studio, and JumpStart Artist by The Learning Company provide tools for students to paint pictures as well as add text, animation, video, sound effects, and music to create an exciting multimedia project. In addition to the regular multimedia features, HyperStudio by Knowledge Adventure also provides tools for creating interface features such as menus, popup text, and pictures. The multimedia chapter provides information about creating materials using HyperStudio.
Many tools are available for students interested in creating, manipulating, and editing visuals such as photographs. For example, Adobe's Photoshop and the entry-level Adobe PhotoElements can be used to modify photographs. Practica Musica, Songworks, and KidMusic are all great software packages by Ars Nova for writing music.
Many of the adult tools for audio and video production such as imovie, work great for children and young adults. However some tools are designed for children and young adults. For example, Sound Companion is a great tool for recording and editing sounds. Consider Broderbund's MovieShop for kids.
Many
children like a mixture of on and off-computer activities. For example,
Clay Animation Kit by Tech4Learning
provides the materials to create animations. There are many other examples
at the publisher's website.
Go to Tech4Learning. Explore the software for children and young adults. 30 Day Trials available.
Whole suites of tools are available for specific multimedia needs. For example, for young adults wanting to develop web materials, Macromedia Suite is popular. Containing Freehand, Flash, Fireworks, and Dreamweaver, it has everything needed to develop a high-quality website.
Design Tools
From
designing a home to building a family tree, there are many design tools
available. Although designed for adults, many of these tools are easy
enough for children or young adults.
For example, many families like to create family trees as a project. Family Tree Maker from Broderbund (shown on left) is one of many tools available for this task.
Proceed to Creativity Tools on the Web.
Adapted with permission from Chapter 5 in Lamb, A. (2006). Building Treehouses for Learning: Technology in Today's Classroom, Fourth Edition.