For our first multimedia assignment I chose to read the article Digital Ghosts in the Classroom by Ashley Hinck. In this article Hinck highlights the fact that templates and digital shortcuts are constantly being used in the classroom (by both students and teachers). I found this article interesting because I never really thought about the strict guidelines in most digital platforms and how limiting they are to creativity. One of the main points she highlighted in this article that really resonated with me was the fact that students are so scared of doing something wrong. This is an ideology that is built into all students brains early on in education, the idea that you either “got it” or “got it wrong”. If I’m being honest, I’m also a victim of this ideology having a fear of failure in the trial and error process and shying away from experimenting with new ideas. Hinck claims the school system is set up to have students shy away from trying new things because of a fear of failure. This shuns students away from taking risks, stunting their creativity and original thoughts leading to a generation of students with a thought process more in tune with robots than humans. This article helped open my eyes on the importance of avoiding limiting digital platforms and learning how to work in more experimental, trial-and-error spaces.
Like most things so far in teachers college, this assignment made me step out of my comfort zone. I decided to create a sketchnote even though I don’t have the most pristine artistic skills, but I believe that this skethnote helped me think more creatively. Looking at a blank canvas is a terrifying endeavour at first, but all this freedom sparked many ideas which then allowed me to follow the creative process to wherever it was going to lead me. I experienced firsthand how limiting digital platforms can be while I was creating my sketch note for this assignment. While formatting the word “creativity” in PowerPoint I found that many of the ideas for how I wanted to design this word were not possible on PowerPoint. Having premade templates is nice when you are trying to make a quick PowerPoint but when you are attempting to implement creative ideas the premade template becomes extremely frustrating.
