The Creative “I” — Variations on a Theme

"Unleash my Creativity"

[Verse 1:]

I sit here debating how to write this song

The act of creating, It is never right or wrong

If connecting the dots was easy, it would not be so rare

Being exposed to the world, I have magic too, the lies disappear

We try to twist the knob, the knob, the knob

I try to twist the knob, knob

Try to twist the knob-knob

Give me the past and I’ll unleash my creativity

The knob, the knob, the knob

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Let your mind flow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, make it think, think

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) To make a big Wow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, find the art and design

[Verse 2:]

I’ve heard the same old story “creativity’s for geeks”

Although sir, if you practice so, the creative mind you will feed

One event like the next, then suddenly like Fleming I see

Anything can be art, experiences are just the seed

We try to twist the knob, the knob, the knob

I try to twist the knob, knob

Try to twist the knob-knob

Give me the past and I’ll unleash my creativity

The knob, the knob, the knob

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Let your mind flow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, make it think, think

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) To make a big Wow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, find the art and design

[Bridge:]

New, new

New, new now

Ooh-ooh-ooh-hoo

Ooh-ooh-ooh-hoo

Ooh-ooh-ooh-hoo

Ooh-ooh

We try to twist the knob, knob, knob

I try to twist the knob, knob

Try to twist the knob-knob

Give me the past and I’ll unleash my creativity

The knob, the knob, the knob

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

Experiences my mind's made up of (Past ideas I’ll build upon)

Let your mind flow, make it new, new (stand apart from the crowd)

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Let your mind flow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, make it think, think

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) To make a big Wow

(C-R-E-A-T-I-V-E) Open your mind up, find the art and design

I have always thought of myself as a creative person but have always struggled to define my own process. At the beginning of this course I thought of this as a weakness. However through the assignments and readings I have learned that it’s pretty common struggle. Creativity is hard not only incredibly difficult to measure it is hard to define to begin with. I have learned that creativity is the process of connecting the dots between experiences and ideas. I have also come to learn that creativity is like muscle. The more you engage it and use it the easier it becomes to access it. All of these new realizations have more than anything helped me cut myself some slack. I was putting so much pressure on my creative muscle and expected it to be sharp and with it after not engaging it for some time. I have started to define that being creative is my process. It is a lump sum of organized chaos that incorporates inspiration, need, experiences, resources and ideas.

How Do I Love Thee: Embodied Thinking

Embodied thinking is when your brain no longer has to make conscious decisions to do an action or feel an emotion.

I chose this embodiment because I was recently inspired by a Youtube video “Controlling vs "Being" Your Video Game Avatar”. It talked about the increased complexity of Avatars in gaming and how based on decision making situations and the level of personalization that the gamer actually feels empathy for their Avatar. This is great for the gaming industry obviously because it really draws in the player and they become attached or addicted and fully invested into the game. When I was purposed this assignment it made me think about how I could apply Avatars to e-learning or training. Often times training deals with choices or decision making that the trainee must deal with later, and it is highly likely that as humans emotion would/could and does influence these choices and decisions. It is fairly common to come across situation based or scenario based e-learning and training. We learn and retain things better when we can relate them to real life situations. As an Avatar we can become more attached to the situation and engage emotion in the training that may help us in applying what we learn in an emotional situation.

It wasn't until I was faced with the task to visually represent this transitional process that I thought about comparing the traditional learning with this new Avatar based learning and how it may be affecting or stimulating the brain differently. I started researching the brain and which lobes are stimulated when learning. The following information is slightly skewed for the training content I provide as well as the common method of delivery, as my learners are not often engaging in math or learning language. One of the big areas in learning is the frontal lobe controlling; problem solving,  memory, judgment and impulse. The temporal lobe; organizing information, has controls in memory retrieval, visual memory and factual memories. With Avatar based learning my theory is that we are stimulating all the same parts of the brain as traditional learning as well as engaging the emotional parts of the brain including the: Amygdala, Lateral Orbitofrontal lobe, and possibly more of the Hippocampus with creates concepts and organizes experiences into them. In the image above you will see Blue areas which indicate the emotional parts of the brain we could be stimulating with Avatar based training. There is a Red area that indicates areas of the brain stimulated by traditional learning. You may notice that there is no Red area and that the majority of the highlighted brain is Purple. This is due to the overlap with the Blue emotional area of Avatar based training.

This affects the way I think about, create and produce training. It seems like if I can engage more of my learners brain that there would be a higher chance of increased retention of the information I am providing them but also the chance of them actually enjoying training.

How Do I Love Thee: Abstracting

Chaos

Restless, Stressful

Moving, Asking, Needing

Taker of time and energy

Workday

Abstracting means to remove and acknowledge the different  elements that make up a person, place, thing, situation or feeling. I struggled a bit at first with abstracting. It mainly had to do with the past few assignments. I was having a hard time figuring out a topic that didn’t feel stagnant or overused. With a little guidance I realized the interesting and unpredictable environment I expect my learners to consume my courses in. It is a bit of a shame that teachers do not get the same thoughtfulness that they put into the testing environment for their own students. They have to deal with a severe lack of time, silence and sometimes means of consuming curriculum. Understanding this changes everything. This is something that I need to keep at the front of my mind when not only creating the learning but when meeting with SME’s (subject matter experts) when they come to me with boring, elaborate, 40 minute long PowerPoints. Do I have all the answers? Not at all. Do I think I will be able to come up with a solution that solves this problem completely? I know I won’t. But if I can do my part and advocate for my learners. Be dedicated to their time and their learning like they are for their own students, then I am doing my due diligence.

In my visual representation of abstracting a teachers environment I tried to include the most identifiable elements. One being the children. Teachers not only have to Teach, engage and instruct, they must also keep their children safe and help shape their personalities and social skills. Talk about responsibility. The other big element is time. Time is something I am constantly battling for in my job as an Instructional Designer. SME’s want to cram a ton of content and may not be concerned with the amount of time it takes up. However, teachers do not get normal breaks or average working hours. Most days it is nearly impossible to consume an online module for training purposes, let alone one that takes half to most of an hour. It is imperative that I fight to keep training short for consumption and retention. Some other factors I acknowledge include internet access, as it is how we deliver our training. It is entirely possible that our teacher may have a poor connection at home and cannot connect.

I chose to do a Cinquain Poem. In my poem I wanted to focus on the chaos teachers must deal with.  Noisy and stressful. Children can be suckers of time and energy and that is a normal workday for a teacher. I am not blaming the children. It is in the nature and excitement of being an adolescent. But there is little to no way around it which is why it is so important for me to advocate for my learners and build training that fits their environment and availability.  

The Creative “I” — Defining Creativity

• What do you do for a living?
• Do you consider yourself creative?
• How would you define creativity?
• Can you talk about your creative process?
• What does creativity mean to you?
• How does creativity affect your life

It was no problem deciding who I wanted to interview for this assignment. It just so happens that I am going to marry the most creative person I know. My fiancé Chris Bursley is a talent musician, teacher and composer. Chris defined creativity as “coming up with a non conventional solution to solve a problem” and “thinking outside of the box while using materials in a unique way”. When it came to defining his creative process he struggled. He said that often gets asked that questions and finds it difficult to answer. Personally speaking, Chris’ personality type is unorganized and off the cuff. He said that rather than having a conventional organized process he really use more of a prep method. By becoming aware of trends, music theory and styles he can be more flexible with the process. He finds that sometimes having a plan can sometimes stifle his creativity. Another great thing Chris said was “Creativity isn’t always about making something new”. Chris enjoys “reusing something that already exists and changing the way we look at it or hear it”. When I asked Chris what creativity means to him he replied “Creativity is my form of expression. It is a release, a rush and very exciting.” The last question I asked Chris was; How does creativity affect your life? His reply was sharply “a pain in the butt!” I asked him if he ever feels pressure to be creative or have a stunning creation and he simply replied “Nope.” Chris ended with “Creativity is a huge source of pride for me. Sometimes I get the best ideas in the most inconvenient places and have to hope I can remember it later, sometimes it ends up being a lost idea. If it weren't for the idea of creativity...I don’t know what I would do.”

I think what I took away most from mostly the interview and somewhat of the reading is a better personal definition and understanding of creativity. I view creativity as a muscle. Being creative is being able to access or engage that muscle to be innovative. The more we practice engaging that muscle the more efficient we will become in accessing our creative juices and producing a quality product. I was so happy to learn that Chris had a non process for his creative process. I too often go in without a plan. I do find that it holds me back and prevents me from exploring different avenues. I also find being creative can be exhausting. Unfortunately depending on my job at the time or the project I am working on, how creative I am and how I execute the performance of that muscle is directly related to my livelihood. I need to learn how to not only more easily access my creative muscle to utilize its talents but I also need to disassociate the pressure somehow. The pressure is stifling and stressful. I have learned a few things in this class already that have helped me such as the perceiving assignment. I now know how to take some time to look at what was and then redefine it in my own way.