NZ MIEexpert hui 2018 - creativity

Creativity!!

That famous TED talk by Ken Robinson, in 2006, "Do schools kill creativity?" was all about this idea.  A lot of people took notice of that talk, I certainly did.  I am a science teacher.  I teach science, biology, and chemistry and I am constantly being told by people that there is no creativity in science, it's all about facts and information.  According to the online dictionary Creativity is....

the use of imagination or original ideas to create something; inventiveness.

I think education is very creative now and becoming more and more creative as teachers start to explore their practice.  I think science is one of the most creative ways of thinking there is.  I think it is important that we strive to offer that creative thinking and opportunities to our students as often as we can, in any learning area.  They are all creative.  This definition harks back to my last blog NZ MIEexpert hui 2018 - curriculum ideas when I talk about Becky Keene's keynote and she states that ideas, not products, are the most important thing that separates us from computers.   Creativity is what enables us to use our imaginations and to come up with original ideas.  This doesn't happen like a lightening bolt idea, it comes from playing about, tinkering, exploring, thinking about ideas, testing ideas out, and explaining ideas to other people.

Creative Science

You have to be creative to think like a scientist.  You have to be creative to think about science ideas.
To get your head around ideas that are too big to see, too small to see, too far away to see, too complicated to see all at the same time, you have to be creative.  You have to have an imagination that can mull the idea over in your mind so you can develop your own meaning.  Then scientists who imagine these science ideas which are big, or small, or far away, or complex; they have to explain them to other people so other people also understand them.  Scientists use many tools to explain their ideas, their imagination to other people.  Tools like diagrams, animations, videos, words, pictures, analogies, graphs, symbols, data tables, and models.  In science education, these forms of explanation are call representations and interpreting representations is one of the 5 science capabilities.
At the #NZMIEEhui18 I attended a workshop about Paint 3D.  Paint 3D is a native application with Windows 10.  That means the app is automatically part of the Windows 10 package, you don't need to download it separately.  You can create 2 and 3 dimensional images using Paint 3D.  Plus you can embed a 3D image into reality creating a mixed reality situation.  Plus you can use a 3D image and send it to a 3D printer to realise your 3D image in physical form.  I see Paint 3D being really useful in science.  It will give the students a chance to interpret representations and to create their own.  One of the challenges of scientific diagrams on a flat 2 dimensional piece of paper, is that the real thing is 3 dimensional.  Providing students with a variety of different kinds of representations of the same thing which they critique, helps them to build their own understanding.  So teachers can use Paint 3D to create a different kind of representation to the flat paper diagram and students can use Paint 3D to create their own.
This video is a basic guide to create something in Paint 3D.  There are a lot of Paint 3D videos showing 'how to' use Paint 3D on You Tube if you'd like to see more.

So, while this artist is good at what he does, this is really achievable in a short time.  Here is a picture of a wee Kiwi I drew in Paint 3D using the 3D shapes.  Then I put her into mixed reality and took a picture of her on my hand.

Then I made a little movie of her jumping all over the desk, in mixed reality.

All this was achieved in a 30min workshop during a 20 min play period with the help of the amazing MIEexpert leading the workshop, Donna Golightly!  (Twitter: @donnagolightly1)  She took 10 minutes to show us what Paint 3D could do, and then we were all into it.  One of the criteria I have for deciding if a digital tool is worth giving a go in class, is that if I can achieve something productive in 1 hour, then it is probably going to work in class too.  Sure, I usually have to practice a bit more before I test it out in class, but that is my guide and it generally works out.

So how can Paint 3D fit in with learning?

Well, you could build a huge number of objects in Paint 3D....

Volcanoes....Cells....Atoms....Molecules....Viruses....Bones....Digestive system...this is only limited by your imagination.

What I found in the workshop was that once we began to play and explore Paint 3D we quickly began to spark off each other for ideas.  Once we had a play with it and created something so quickly, we began to imagine all the links to learning in our subjects we could make.

If you do nothing else, then I recommend that you play with Paint 3D.  If you do decide to introduce it to a class, then give some time for play. Not only is it really fun, it is through that playing and exploring that your students will create new ways of using Paint 3D that I haven't thought of.  I will definitely be using it to add more detail to the usual 2 dimensional diagrams in science and I will be offering students Paint 3D as a way of showing me how their understanding has developed around the ideas we have been exploring.