Learning Objectives

When you have completed this session, you should be able to
• create a blogpost,
• visit the forum and
• reflect on questions raised in the readings.

Reading

Sir Ken Robinson - an internationally recognized expert in culture and education says "We are educating people out of their creativity", and he claims a radical rethink is needed for our school systems.
Please listen to his enjoyable and rather provocative presentation (from 2006) on the TED portal by clicking the "Play" button on the navigation bar! (Choose subtitles for your language before starting the video!)

Video!

If you would like to know more about Sir Ken Robinson, visit his web site: www.sirkenrobinson.com

Here are some pictures from a Hungarian vocational school (Krúdy Gyula Secondary School, Hungary):

These pictures show unusual feature in the curriculum! Is this an exceptional school?

Exercises

1. Attend the Discussion on Agora, on the subject “Are the educational methods we use suitable for developing creativity and can e-learning help?” The red and blue character figures will navigate you there!

2. Open your learning diary and write a short note about your experiences.

3. Csikszentmihalyi said that “It is not that students cannot learn, it is that they do not wish to…if educators invested a fraction of the energy on stimulating the students’ enjoyment of learning that they now spend in trying to transmit information we could achieve much better results” (Csikszentmihalyi, 1991, p. 1). Write a report discussing the issues in this quotation in your learning diary!

Remark: if you have already your own blog on the net, you are free to use that one as a learning diary. If you do not have such a blog, but you would like to create one for yourself, please see the "Google Blogger" book in the TC01 module. It will help you through the processes of how to create and manage a blog!

References

1. TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design - www.ted.com) is a nonprofit organization, established in 1984 with the purpose to publish thoughts worth for listening to, ideas, and introduce people who should be paid attention on. Videos can be subtitled and thanks to some enthusiastic colleagues there are more and more videos subtitled in different languages.

2. Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1991). New Horizons for Learning. Retrieved October 1, 2008, from New Horizons for Learning: http://education.jhu.edu/PD/newhorizons/future/creating_the_future/crfut_csikszent.cfm