mixed messages
or permissions
and opportunities?
reflections on
current policy
perspectives on
creativity in
education
policy
perspectives
Pat Cochrane, Anna Craft and Graham Jeffery
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Recognising the affordances of the digital tools
for realizing and fashioning imaginative ideas
requires an understanding of the aesthetic
challenge, not only of the technologies and
techniques, but also of the connections
between the tools and the conceptual domain
of the ideas.
The curriculum
The curriculum is at the core of making
meaning in education, situated as it is within
the wider purpose and value of education
systems in our society. In the ICT curriculum,
there is ambiguity between the construction
and presentation of ICT as a subject, and ICT
as tools for learning ‘embedded’ in a range of
subject domains. Engaging with imaginative
starting points, drawing upon and developing
experiences of fashioning and flow, and
relating creative activity to a wider purpose
and relevance to the lives of pupils and the
concepts of the subject domain are not
processes which are widely seen in the
practice of ICT in schools. The National
Curriculum for ICT is presented as processes
for developing higher order capabilities: finding
things out, developing ideas and making things
happen, and exchanging and sharing
information. Yet the focus can be on the
teaching of ICT applications related to
business productivity and the world of work,
rather than making connections between the
wider cultural experiences of the students and
the intellectual demands of the content of the
curriculum. Facility with the tools can mask a
superficial understanding of the ways of
knowing in the activity. Capturing a moment on
digital video and showcasing it on YouTubeis
not necessarily a creative act. Indeed, Tara
Brabazon, refers to ‘Google, the white bread of
the ind’, in her call for critical engagement
with information and other people in our
m diated world (Brabazon, 2007). The
Enquiring Mi ds approach
8
highlights the
intera tion between the knowledge that
students bring and questions that they wish to
ask, with the wider context of the social,
cultural and political purposes of education.
Digital tools are technologies which are
shaping our times, and we need a critical,
active engagement to counter technological
determinism.
Evaluating and assessing
creative lear ing with digital
technologies
Understanding progression in the creative use
of digital tools is a challenge. We don’t yet
know much ab ut how such tools make a
develo mental difference in learning activities
f r 5, 10, 15 and 20 year olds, and perhaps
there is muc more work to be done here. We
may, however, be in danger of focusing on the
technologies instead of the purpose and
nature of the use of the tools, thereby
trivialising the quality of the learning and
opportunities for development. The National
Curriculum ‘levels’ can be seen to adopt a
som what broad-brush approach to
ev lopments in awareness, use and
valuation of t chnologies in relation to
inf rmation, but the conceptual domains are
not y t well explored. Digital tools also offer
opp rtunities for the imaginative remix of
digital information from a wide range of
sources and domains. This can raise
interesti g questions about how and who to
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See http://www.enquiringminds.org.uk/
Creative learning