Creative tools

       
            So this weeks assignment was to explore different creative tools that they have using technology.  There are so many out there.  There are tools for creating videos.  I explored a few of them.  imovie is an app from Apple that helps you create movies from clips that you can film yourself.  This is a very handy tool. That students can use very easily.  I think that most of my students have some kind of smart phone in their pocket.  Most of them use them to consume content.  Few use them to create content but they are very useful tools for that if you combine them with imovie or splice or filmmaker pro or videoshop.  all of which are very similar in what they can do and you can get each one for free on the iphone.  I think videos for assignments offer a unique way for students to express themselves and it is a wide open field as for options of what the students can do.  I think this wide open field allows students to express themselves in a way that they could really become creative and engage with any content is a personal and applicable way. 
          Another creative tool that I explored this week was a arcade game that you can make into a quiz.  It is called classtools.net.  It is a program that you can play arcade games on but you get the credits to play by answering questions that are created by the teacher.  Now I know what you are thinking "that is not a creative tool."  I know but as I was exploring different ways of giving quizzes to my students I say this and then I thought.  Why am I the one making all the quizzes. So I decided to make my students make some of the questions themselves and them give the quizzes to another class mate.  This for my class worked really well. The students were coming up with questions that I could not have come up with myself and they were really challenging.  I think this had a few really significant advantages first the tool for creating the quizzes became a creative tool and the student were using much higher thinking skills as they come up with the questions themselves but they also had the benefit of seeing questions that I didn't come up with so they got a different perspective on the content then what I can just give.  I think this was a win win all around. 
          These were the creative tools that I explored this week.  I think that creative tools like these video editing tools and the ability to create quizzes with classtools.net are great additions to any classroom.  I think that creating something takes much more thinking and higher level thinking than many of the other assessment tools that are used in a classroom.  I think that creative tools like this allow student so express individuality and creativity way more than a worksheet or a quiz could do but they could sever as the same role as a worksheet or a quiz or practice with content. I also think that assigning an assignment that not only allows the use of creative technology but also the choice of which technology to use could also further the engagement.  If you dictate to students which technology to use often they don't know how to use it or don't want to use it.  I think allow students to use their own preferred technology you might get to learn new technology and they might also use technology that you would not prefer but still could be good.  I think this is all good for student to experience and learn.
           Overall this was a good assignment and it was fun to explore different creative tools and how they could be used in a classroom to help student learn.  I think we would be doing a disservice to our students if we as teachers did not use technology creative tools in each classroom.