Compare/Contrast: Week 1 & 2 Readings Bruner, Guantlett, McCloud, Buckingham

1. Automatic Condemnation of NEW MEDIA

1.1. McCloud: The curse of new media is that it is being judged by the old

1.2. Buckingham: deriving pleasure from mainstream media is seen as weakness; critical analysis becomes a game of social status

1.3. Need to move away from singular, "expected" interpretations

1.4. Buckingham: We are taught to "warn" students about mainstream media

2. Self-discovery and creating things are paramount to learning

2.1. Intrinsic motivation comes with creating things

2.2. - Gauntlet: "making things for ourselves gives us a sense of wonder, agency, and possbilities in the world"

2.3. - Bruner: "powerful effects...come from permitting the student to put things together for himself, to be his own discoverer" (21)

2.4. - McCloud: Art is exercise for the body/mind; art is self-expression; art is DISCOVERY "Art is the way we assert our identities as individuals and break out of the narrow roles nature cast us in"

2.5. -Buckingham: "We need to recognize that texts are read in a variety of different ways...this means allowing space for the 'personal'" (120)

3. What IS creativity?

3.1. Is it ART?

3.2. Is it "clowning around?"

3.3. Is it MAKING something?

3.4. Is it working together to form new knowledge?

3.5. Is it a new INTERPRETATION of something?

4. Creativity & Learning are SOCIAL and COLLABORATIVE

4.1. - Buckingham: "There has been a growing recognition of the social, collaborative dimensions of creative production" (128)

4.2. Gauntlett: "human beings are creative and can work well together to do great things" (13) - Web 2.0 metaphor: "Instead of individuals tending their own gardens, they come together to work collaboratively in a shared space" (4)

4.3. Bruner/Dewey: "The social life of the child is the basis of concentration or correlation in all his training or growth" (58)

4.4. Bruner/'Discovery:' ...where are the social/collaborative elements of discovery?

5. Shift away from "lightning bolt" or "born-with-it" theories of creativity.

5.1. - Gauntlett: "creativity emerges from a particular supportive environment" (9)

5.2. - Bruner: "discovery, like surprise, favors the well-prepared mind" (21)

5.3. - Buckingham: "This is an influential notion of creativity, although it is one that raises self-evident problems for education...From this perspective, creativity & education would have to be seen as inherently incompatible" (128)

5.4. McCloud: "Art...is any human activity which doesn't grow out of either of our species two basic instincts" (is this also creativity?) - creativity flourishes under particular conditions

6. Stephanie Viens EDC534