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"From Creative Schools by Ken Robinson and Lou Aronica, published April 21, 2015, by Viking, an imprint of Penguin Publishing Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. Copyright by Ken Robinson, 2015. Creative Teaching Let me say a few words about creativity. I've written a lot about this theme in other publications. Rather than test your patience here with repetition of those ideas, let me refer you to them if you have a special interest. In Out of Our Minds: Learning to Be Creative, I look in some detail at the nature of creativity and how it relates to the idea of intelligence in the arts, the sciences, and other areas of human achievement. In 1997, I was asked by the U.K. government to convene a national commission to advise on how creativity can be developed throughout the school system from ages five through eighteen. That group brought together scientists, artists, educators, and business leaders in a common mission to explain the nature and critical importance of creativity in education. Our report, All Our Futures: Creativity, Culture and Education, set our detailed proposals for how to make this happen in practice and was addressed to people working at all levels of education, from schools to government."

"Creativity, according to Albert Einstein, is intelligence having fun and for most neuro-cognitive scientists creativity is something that is inherently born with us and the proof is kids. All kids draw on their sharp sense of creativity to discover and explore the world around them. They can easily adapt their behaviour to new situations, develop new thinking skills and are constantly engaged in trying out "new ways of doing stuff". Sir Ken Robinson made a strong argument in this regard in his popular TED talk "schools kill creativity". Ken argued that kids come to school bursting with  creativity and by the time they graduate they have lost most if not all of their creativity. Sounds like schools are "educating kids out of creativity"!"

"Regardless of whether you think every infant needs an iPad, I think we can all agree that technology has changed education for the better. Today's learners now enjoy easier, more efficient access to information; opportunities for extended and mobile learning; the ability to give and receive immediate feedback; and greater motivation to learn and engage. We now have programs and platforms that can transform learners into globally active citizens, opening up countless avenues for communication and impact. Thousands of educational apps have been designed to enhance interest and participation. Course management systems and learning analytics have streamlined the education process and allowed for quality online delivery. But if we had to pick the top ten, most influential ways technology has transformed education, what would the list look like? The following things have been identified by educational researchers and teachers alike as the most powerful uses of technology for learning. Take a look. 1. Critical Thinking In Meaningful Learning With Technology, David H. Jonassen and his co-authors argue that students do not learn from teachers or from technologies. Rather, students learn from thinking-thinking about what they are doing or what they did, thinking about what they believe, thinking about what others have done and believe, thinking about the thinking processes they use-just thinking and reasoning. Thinking mediates learning. Learning results from thinking. So what kinds of thinking are fostered when learning with technologies? Analogical If you distill cognitive psychology into a single principle, it would be to use analogies to convey and understand new ideas. That is, understanding a new idea is best accomplished by comparing and contrasting it to an idea that is already understood. In an analogy, the properties or attributes of one idea (the analogue) are mapped or transferred to another (the source or target). Single analogies are also known as sy

""If you imagine less, less will be what you undoubtedly deserve," Debbie Millman counseled in one of the best commencement speeches ever given, urging: "Do what you love, and don't stop until you get what you love. Work as hard as you can, imagine immensities…" Far from Pollyanna platitude, this advice actually reflects what modern psychology knows about how belief systems about our own abilities and potential fuel our behavior and predict our success. Much of that understanding stems from the work of Stanford psychologist Carol Dweck, synthesized in her remarkably insightful Mindset: The New Psychology of Success (public library) - an inquiry into the power of our beliefs, both conscious and unconscious, and how changing even the simplest of them can have profound impact on nearly every aspect of our lives. One of the most basic beliefs we carry about ourselves, Dweck found in her research, has to do with how we view and inhabit what we consider to be our personality. A "fixed mindset" assumes that our character, intelligence, and creative ability are static givens which we can't change in any meaningful way, and success is the affirmation of that inherent intelligence, an assessment of how those givens measure up against an equally fixed standard; striving for success and avoiding failure at all costs become a way of maintaining the sense of being smart or skilled. A "growth mindset," on the other hand, thrives on challenge and sees failure not as evidence of unintelligence but as a heartening springboard for growth and for stretching our existing abilities. Out of these two mindsets, which we manifest from a very early age, springs a great deal of our behavior, our relationship with success and failure in both professional and personal contexts, and ultimately our capacity for happiness."

"Report cards are coming home, and a good number of parents are worried that their child seems to be showing signs of a learning disability. Their concern is well founded; learning disabilities including A.D.H.D. and dyslexia affect 20% of our students and less than half get the attention they need. That is a large community, in fact, the largest minority in the country. For these kids, often the day is longer, the challenge greater, the work harder. Unless we identify and assist them, the national cost in human potential and hard dollars will be tremendous. Kids with learning disabilities drop out ten times more frequently than others in high school, and are much more likely to use drugs and get involved in our jail system. The impact when this large a social group fails is felt by all of us. A learning problem is not an intelligence problem -- these children are smart, creative, and capable. They can and do learn; however, they think differently, access and process information in an atypical way. That is where opportunity lies, and where we are falling far short."

"In the age of artificial intelligence, the answer to a more optimistic future may lie in redefining work itself. WORK, as an idea, is both familiar and frustratingly abstract. We go to work, we finish our work, we work at something. It's a place, an entity, tasks to be done or output to achieve. It's how we spend our time and expend our mental and physical resources. It's something to pay the bills, or something that defines us. But what, really is work? And from a company's perspective, what is the work that needs to be done? In an age of artificial intelligence, that's not merely a philosophical question. If we can creatively answer it, we have the potential to create incredible value. And, paradoxically, these gains could come from people, not from new technology."

"SOON AFTER ChatGPT broke the internet, it sparked an all-too-familiar question for new technologies: What can it do for education?  Many feared it would worsen plagiarism and further damage an already decaying humanism in the academy, while others lauded its potential to spark creativity and handle mundane educational tasks.   Of course, ChatGPT is just one of many advances in artificial intelligence that have the capacity to alter pedagogical practices.  The allure of AI-powered tools to help individuals maximize their understanding of academic subjects (or more effectively prepare for exams) by offering them the right content, in the right way, at the right time for them has spurred new investments from governments and private philanthropies.  "

Preparing today's youth to succeed in the digital economy requires a new kind of teaching and learning. Skills such as global literacy, computer literacy, problem solving, critical thinking, creativity, and innovation have become critical in today's increasingly interconnected workforce and society (eSchool News

"The adoption of generative artificial intelligence (genAI) has shuffled the list of top skills businesses want from professionals in 2024, according to a new job site study and education industry data. Far from replacing workers, genAI appears poised to transform the way technologists and others work, allowing them to focus more on creative tasks such as product development, and less on mundane tasks that can be automated."

"With smartphone cameras improving all the time, the photographic possibilities offered by your mobile device have never been greater. But it's not just new hardware that can help you create amazing images.  Photo software is getting more and more sophisticated and intelligent, as you can see in our rundown of the best photo apps. But time doesn't stand still, so below we've brought together 10 new apps for 2016 that can help boost your photographic powers. And best of all, they're all completely free. Have we missed out your favourite free photo app of 2016? Then please share it with the community in the comments below."