The document summarizes Gráinne Conole's presentation on the role of creativity in digital literacy skills for participatory media. It discusses how new digital literacy skills are needed for learners, teachers, and the workplace in today's fast-changing technological environment. It emphasizes the importance of creativity and mechanisms for fostering creativity through social and participatory media like blogging, messaging, collaborative editing, social networking, and virtual worlds. The presentation examines definitions of creativity and how technologies can promote creativity in new ways by enabling new forms of discourse, collaboration, and accessing/repurposing knowledge.

1. Digital literacy skills
for today’s
participatory media:
the role of creativity
Gráinne Conole
The Open University, UK
Follow the sun conference, 12th Aprl 2011
http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloudscape/view/2281

2. Today’s educational context
• Fast changing
technological environment
• New digital literacy skills
needed for learners,
teacher and the workplace
• The importance of
creativity
• Mechanisms for fostering
creativity

3. Limitless
• Unbounded
intelligence
• Unlocking
potential
• Distributed
cognition (people
and technologies)
Trailer

4. Social and participatory media 4
Media sharing Blogging
Mash ups Messaging
Collaborative Recommender
editing systems
Social Virtual worlds
g networking and games
Social
Syndication
bookmarking

5. Mash ups 5
http://voicethread.com/

6. Social networking 6
http://sometu.ning.com/

7. Virtual worlds 7
http://muversllc.blogspot.com/2009/12/medical-roleplays-in-second-life.html

8. 8
Effective use of new technologies requires
a radical rethink of the core learning and
teaching processes; a shift from design as
an internalised, implicit and individually
crafted process to one that is externalised
and shareable with others. Change in
practice may indeed involve the use of
revised materials, new teaching strategies
and beliefs - all in relation to educational
innovation.
Conole and Alevizrou, 2010

9. The machine is Us/ing us

10. Peer
critiquing
The machine is Us/ing us

11. Peer
critiquing
User
generated
content
The machine is Us/ing us

12. Peer
critiquing
User
generated
content
Networked
The machine is Us/ing us

13. Peer Open
critiquing
User
generated
content
Networked
The machine is Us/ing us

14. Peer Open
critiquing
User
Collective
generated
aggregation
content
Networked
The machine is Us/ing us

15. Peer Open
critiquing
User
Collective
generated
aggregation
content
Networked Personalised
The machine is Us/ing us

16. Digital literacies
Jenkins et al, 2006

17. Digital literacies
Performance Simulation
Appropriation Judgement
Networking Multitasking
Collective Transmedia
intelligence navigation
Distributed Negotiation
cognition
Jenkins et al, 2006

18. Digital literacies
Performance Simulation
Appropriation Judgement
Networking Multitasking
Collective Transmedia
intelligence navigation
Distributed Negotiation
cognition
Play Jenkins et al, 2006

19. Creativity

20. Definition • Derived from Latin ‘creo’
to create/make
• About creating
something new (physical
artefact or concept) that
is novel and valuable
• Ability to transcend
traditional ideas, rules,
partners, relationships
and create meaningful
new ideas, forms,
methods, interpretations

21. Connecting, new knowledge & creativity 13
Connecting to
new people and
networks gives
you new insights,
and makes you
more creative
http://www.open.ou.nl/rse/Rory_Sie/CoCooN.html

22. Why is it important?
• Essential skill to deal
with today’s
complex, fast and
changing society
• Discourse and
collaboration are
mediated through a
range of social and
participatory media

23. Stages
• Preparation: identifying
the problem
• Incubation: internalisation
of the problem
• Intimation: getting a
feeling for a solution
• Illumination: creativity
bursts forth
• Verification: idea is
consciously verified,
elaborated and applied

24. Technologies
• Can promote creativity in
new and innovative ways
• Enable new forms of
discourse, collaboration
and cooperation
• Access and repurpose
knowledge in different
forms of representation
• Aggregation and scale -
distributed and collective

25. Key questions
• What is the nature of creativity?
• What are its key characteristics?
• What is the relationship between
creativity and general intelligence?
• How can creativity be fostered and
supported?
• What is the nature of collaborative
creative practices?
• How can technologies be used to
promote and support creativity?

26. Open resources

27. Open resources

28. Open resources

29. Open resources

30. Open courses

31. Open design
Shift from belief-based, implicit
approaches to design-based, explicit
approaches
Learning Design
A design-based approach to
creation and support of courses
Encourages reflective, scholarly practices
Promotes sharing and discussion
Conole, 2010b

32. Open research

33. Open research

34. Open research

35. Open research

37. 23
Weller: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2010/07/thoughts-on-
digital-scholarship.html

38. 23
Digital scholar:
Open
Digital
Networked
Weller: http://nogoodreason.typepad.co.uk/no_good_reason/2010/07/thoughts-on-
digital-scholarship.html

39. Cloudworks
Cloudworks audio presentation

40. Final thoughts
Open, participatory and social media enable new forms
of communication and collaboration
Communities in these spaces are complex and
distributed
Learners and teachers need to develop new digital
literacy skills to harness their potential
We need to rethink how we design and support learning
Open, participatory and social media can provide
mechanisms for us to share and discuss teaching ideas
in new ways
We are seeing a blurring of boundaries: teachers/
learners, teaching/research, real/virtual spaces, formal/
informal modes of communication and publication

41. The future?
• Limitless potential of
technologies
• Individual, tools and
collective
• Augmented and
gesture technologies
• Blurring the
boundaries of real World Builder
and virtual worlds

42. References
 Conole, G. (forthcoming), Designing for learning in an open world, Springer
 Conole, G. (2010a), Review of pedagogical models and their use in e-learning, http://
cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/2982
 Conole, G. (2010b), Learning design - making practice explicit, ConnectEd conference, Sydney, 28th
June 2010, http://cloudworks.ac.uk/cloud/view/4001
 Galley, R., Conole, G. and Alevizou, P. (submitted), Community Indicators: A framework for building
and evaluating community activity on Cloudworks, Interactive Learning Environments.
 Conole, G, and Alevizou, P. (2010), A literature review of the use of Web 2.0 tools in Higher
Education, HE Academy commissioned report, http://www.heacademy.ac.uk/assets/EvidenceNet/
Conole_Alevizou_2010.pdf
 Galley, R., Conole, G. and Alevizou, P. (2010), Case study: Using Cloudworks for an Open Literature
Review, An HE Academy commissioned report.
 Alevizou, P., Conole, G. and Galley, R. (2010), Using Cloudworks to support OER activities, An HE
Academy commissioned report.
 Conole, G., Galley, R. and Culver, J. (2010), Frameworks for understanding the nature of
interactions, networking and community in a social networking site for academic practice, The
International Review of Research in Open and Distance Learning.
 Conole, G. and Culver, J. (2010) 'The design of Cloudworks: applying social networking practice to
foster the exchange of learning and teaching ideas and designs' Computers and Education, 54(3):
679 - 692.
 Conole and Culver (2009), Cloudworks: social networking for learning design, Australian Journal of
Educational Technology, 25(5), pp. 763–782, http://www.ascilite.org.au/ajet/ajet25/conole.html.

43. •
References
Jenkins, H., Clinton, K., Purushotma, R., Robison, A.J. and
Weigel, M., (2006), Confronting the challenges of participatory
culture: media education for the 21st Century, http://
digitallearning.macfound.org/atf/cf/%7B7E45C7E0-A3E0-4B89-
AC9C-E807E1B0AE4E%7D/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF
• Weller, M (2011) The Digital Scholar. Bloomsbury Academic
• Loveless, A M (2007) Creativity, technology and learning – a
review of recent literature Futurelab, http://archive.futurelab.org.uk/
resources/documents/lit_reviews/Creativity_Review_update.pdf
• http://robwall.ca/2009/03/10/creativity-is-the-new-technology/
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvIQP-EBPqc
• http://vimeo.com/3365942
• http://blogs.hbr.org/video/2010/05/andrew-klavan-on-how-21st-
cent.html
• Questionmark http://www.flickr.com/photos/crystaljingsr/3914729343/

44. Acknowledgements
• Snoopy http://www.flickr.com/photos/andertoons-cartoons/2754475964/
• Juggling http://www.flickr.com/photos/r8r/4109502436/
• Social media http://www.flickr.com/photos/intersectionconsulting/
5045734278/
• Creativity http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://
content5.videojug.com/89/89cae62c-c95f-a407-cf09-ff0008ca3c71/how-to-
improve-your-creative-thinking.WidePlayer.jpg%3Fv5&imgrefurl=http://
www.videojug.com/film/how-to-improve-your-creative-
thinking&usg=__bEFuNbKuJOK09BS2c9VJfCgPdo8=&h=360&w=640&sz=3
3&hl=en&start=44&sig2=0ftqDrzlzNjiQdVg2NawBQ&zoom=1&tbnid=-
vw_2HkT2g1nOM:&tbnh=96&tbnw=170&ei=zg-gTeA8iJs6zLiQNQ&prev=/
search%3Fq%3Dcreativity%2Bthinking%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari
%26sa%3DX%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1293%26bih%3D571%26tbm
%3Disch0%2C1123&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=954&vpy=161&dur=2679&hovh=
168&hovw=300&tx=221&ty=96&oei=yg-
gTdmaENTh4gbxt6j9Ag&page=3&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:22,s:
44&biw=1293&bih=571

45. Acknowledgements
• Ladder http://www.flickr.com/photos/sbluerock/110561528/
• Voicethread http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://
www.elearningclouds.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/
VoiceThread.png&imgrefurl=http://www.elearningclouds.com/
tag/voicethread/
&usg=__7L1fZGuSPbDZZkSyT0m27qHVvFE=&h=356&w=4
90&sz=151&hl=en&start=0&sig2=sNNsNslPKl_Ucq4YaPbiK
A&zoom=1&tbnid=FmSySUW83Pk8aM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=1
66&ei=6hWgTZGmCt2R4gbguNz8Ag&prev=/search%3Fq
%3Dvoicethread%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dsafari%26sa
%3DX%26rls%3Den%26biw%3D1293%26bih%3D571%26tbm
%3Disch%26prmd
%3Divnsl&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=120&vpy=257&dur=135&hov
h=191&hovw=263&tx=166&ty=72&oei=6hWgTZGmCt2R4g
bguNz8Ag&page=1&ndsp=18&ved=1t:429,r:6,s:0

46. Acknowledgements
• Secondlife http://www.google.com/imgres?
imgurl=http://3.bp.blogspot.com/
_bsWh9JKbOZ0/SxYN0s1MWJI/
AAAAAAAABuk/Pvj5ETXXSRU/s400/
MUVErs%2BPatient%2BRoleplay
%2BSimulation%2B2.jpg&imgrefurl=http://
muversllc.blogspot.com/2009/12/medical-
roleplays-in-second-
life.html&usg=__OZyvO6Qsvqlprr4cqytvD