A presentation by Jamie Leo (@jleonyc) on creativity, prepared for 140edu.com State of Now conference, July 31, 2012 in New York.

1. Hi.
I’mJamieLeo
:)
@JLeoNYC

2. In 8th grade I acquired two
astounding sources – and in
combining them, I thought I’d
invented blacklight art.

4. Bob + Joe Switzer:
flourescent pigments

5. and their by-product:
Day-Glo ®

7. I brought one of my works to my
8th grade art teacher.
She was not impressed.
She said “the best artworks
humanity will ever create HAVE
already been made, and the best
we can do is copy the
masterworks.”

8. If I we had Google in 1966, I could
have told her that the man who
founded the Day-Glo® factory was
an art teacher.

9. Louis Prang
1824-1909

10. So here we are in this great
Edmund Catalog feeding frenzy.
We’re no longer merely building
upon the past, we're lucky enough
to build in real time.
We have tools to build our
future, in the present.

11. Twitter x 500 million
collaborate globally w/ students, govs, orgs, authors
summaries • share questions • write poems + haiku
discussions • micro-reviews • daily word games
edit coherent stories based on pre-existing tweets
create group fictional character • curate art shows
students poll students • follow class trips virtually
ideas & quotes from historical figures
ask experts questions • subscribe to #hashtags
responses to books + posts • retweet events • invites
bulletin boards • greeting cards • tests/quizzes
inventories + lists • slogans + chants • tweet chats

12. I wrote a blog post on a passionate
educator who is building gardens
for school kids living in urban food
deserts.
I didn’t invent the wheel; but ended
up ‘tweenterviewing’ him to
underscore how important Twitter
is to his realizing these urgently
needed gardens.

16. We all are IMPROV masters.
The minute we awake it's improv
time. We've made a hundred
unique, expressive choices all
before we reach for our morning
toothbrush (being sure not to live
our precious lives on autopilot).

18. With so many tools at our
disposal, we become curators.
We’re digital hunter-gatherers.

26. Even the tools we ‘know’ can be
retooled and stretched.
At a recent tech hackathon, my
team used PowerPoint™ as our tool
of choice. And we won. Don’t be
afraid of pushing the limits of what
you know.

29. 135 million people are
gaming taking tests
for entertainment.
Leveraging this love of
challenges can be
transformative.

31. Make getting
lost part of your
practice as an
educator.
(Take time to take elements
out of context. Share more.)

32. So you can better
help your students
lose their way.
The world can’t wait to see what they’ll find.
We won’t invent the wheel…

33. Look up: hippo rollers
But we certainly haven’t exhausted it’s possibilities.

34. 1963 smiley face designer:
Harvey Ball (paid $45)

35. references + links + credits:
jamieleo.com/140edu
slides:
slideshare.net/jleonyc
:)
your favorite creative hybrids:
#createtwit
keep in touch:
@jleonyc
jamie@jamieleo.com

36. IMAGE CREDITS
Edmond Scientific Catalog
Sea King helicopter, Royal Canadian Navy
from collection of David Wall THANKS
psychedelic moiré poster detail: uncredited Dean Kephart
tape dispenser: James Leo, aged 11, 1966 Jean Hunt
Louis Prang detail: William Merritt Chase Peter Fahrni
altered Prang packaging, c1965 K. Anna Moore
Ecocentricblog.org screen grabs: © GRACE Robert Burns
school gardeners: Berkeley.net nutrition Tami O'Neill
newsletter brush your teeth: Doug n Kristi Kyle Rabin
Bermingham/Flickr Robert Harberts
'Alice shrinks’: adapted by John Tenniel Aimee Levine
wind farm: fieldsbh/Flickr colleagues at GRACE who lent their support
hippo water rollers: Imvubu Projects, Project Howard Gardner, Benjamin Bloom, Robert
H Marzano!
Harvey Ball's Smiley Face: Ideafinder.com
STAT SOURCES
135 million people are gaming as many as 500 million Twitter
source: IGN 2010 users
source: Mediabistro /