Short Version
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
Short Version Edith Ackermann, David Gauntlett, Thomas Wolbers, Cecilia WeckstrĂśm LEGOÂŽ Learning Institute 2009
Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
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Introduction Digital technologies are changing the ways in which we play, learn and create. This report explores what it is like to ‘grow up digital’, and looks at the similarities and differences between physical and virtual activity. The idea of systematic creativity shows that effective creative activity is often facilitated by systems and platforms, whether in music, architecture, or the LEGO system. In the digital realm, the systematic and platform-based approach takes an even stronger role. Blending the physical and digital LEGO® idea enables systematic creativity through immersive play, learning and creative experiences for children of all ages. This summary is based on a detailed 86 page report, Defining Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm, written by Edith Ackermann, David Gauntlett, Thomas Wolbers, and Cecilia Weckström, and published by the Lego Learning Institute.
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Contents
Systematic Creativity
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Bridging the virtual and physical through play
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Drivers of play in the digital realm
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Embodied Cognition
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The essence of digital creativity
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A digital LEGO system in play
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
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Systematic Creativity Systematic Creativity The LEGO® Learning Institute’s 2008 report, ‘Defining Systematic Creativity’,
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established some conclusions which will be built upon here:
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Creativity is the ability to create ideas and things that are new, surprising, and valuable.
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Systematic creativity is a particular form of creativity that combines logic and reasoning with playfulness and imagination, and is therefore central to many different types of activities and disciplines, whether ‘art’ or ‘science’.
Children and adults develop creativity through the attitudes of curiosity and playfulness. These orientations enable us to be creative in one (or more) of these three key ways:
1. Combination - combining existing elements to produce something new, surprising and valuable. 2. Exploration - developing something new in order to expand our understanding of an area or creative domain. 3. Transformation - making something which transforms the way we see or understand the world. There are many myths about creativity, which tend to suggest that it is a unique and magical property, typically held by an isolated artistic genius. In reality, everyone has the potential to be creative, and creativity is found in all fields and professions, often resulting from inspiring collaborations. Rather than resting on unpredictable ‘Eureka!’ moments, creativity is a process of thinking and combining, exploration and iteration. Creativity does not necessarily begin with a ‘blank page’. Great creative achievements come from working with a particular system or set of tools to make something that has never been made before. Indeed, for children to develop as creative thinkers, they need constraints – a structure or framework to guide their activity, but also enough freedom to explore and experiment.
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
Children, young people and growing up digital In recent years the debate around technology has intensified. Technology can be seen as a force for young people’s liberation – a means for them to reach past the constraining influence of their elders, and to create new, autonomous forms of communication and community. Technology is said to be helping to create a generation that is more open, democratic, creative, and innovative than before.
Has childhood changed? Every child needs to be held, heard, and respected for who they are. Children also need room to explore, grounds to settle in, friends to share with and, most importantly, they need to be given a second chance if they make a mistake. Certain interests and abilities relate to age, or developmental stages, and are reasonably predictable, although personal identity is shaped by many different factors, from individual family background to general cultural trends.
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
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New ways to play, learn and create We have identified six distinctive, related areas of difference to previous generations. Each area constitutes a dimension that, together with others, informs how today’s children play, learn, and create.
1. Sharism — Today’s children increasingly like to circulate half-baked ideas and diverse links, usually at a fast pace, instead of keeping things to themselves. They are more likely to mingle before they make, and share before they think, leading to a growth in co-creation over individual construction.
2. Shifting identities — Boundaries are shifting between what is perceived as me (private) and not-me (public), between where I/mine ends and where you/yours begins, and between what gets incorporated (taken in) and projected out (objectified, seen as ‘other’).
3. Border crossing – More than in previous generations, today’s children engage in parallel adventures, and belong to multiple tribes. They move between virtual and physical worlds, and may be more interested in crossing borders, both geographic and cultural. Optimists argue that this engenders a deeply felt sense of belonging to a global family or village.
4. Literacies beyond print — Writing is becoming more like a quick assembly, or collage, of cut-and-paste fragments, whilst reading becomes a more active process of highlighting, earmarking, annotating, linking, and tagging. Today’s children tend to mix and match media rather than start from scratch: they borrow from those who inspire them, and address their creations to those who matter. They make their own mark by adding, reconfiguring, and repurposing.
5. A culture of gaming or ‘simuling’ — There is a growing expectation that the tools at hand, and the worlds to dwell in, are responsive and forgiving. Risks can be taken, as the ‘undo’ button means you are always given a second chance. ‘Simuling’ refers to the creation of an alternative world, physical or virtual, that is ‘true to itself’ – but not necessarily a ‘simulation’ which mimics an existing reality. This quality of digital technologies encourages both a culture of iteration (try again, build on top, take what you find a step further) and rapid prototyping.
6. A culture of bricoleurs – Today’s children are increasingly digital bricoleurs, eager to modify content by hacking, mashing up and modding. When older, they develop new ways of making things (crafting, fabricating), of making things ‘do things’ (controlling, programming), and of repurposing, mending, and trading things (recycling). These six dimensions form a system. They are mutually reinforcing in shaping how digital natives play and learn, and how they come up with ideas, or create things that are new and surprising to their friends and community. Clearly, not all youth exhibit all the traits described here, yet the trends are worth paying attention to. The world as a whole is increasingly wired, and we are charged with preparing our youth to face the challenges of the future.
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
Continuous learning The key to thriving in today’s knowledge economy is the capacity of to keep learning, produce living knowledge, collaborate and be creative. Educators should adopt the notion of the ‘edgeless school’, which sees the classroom as just one site of learning and connects it with the others which exist in children’s everyday lives. The ability of the digital realm to support learning experiences depends on whether the learning experience can be structured by specific goals, providing opportunities to reflect and interpret alone and together, receive immediate feedback and have numerous opportunities to apply learnings in new contexts. Importantly, it should be possible to learn from others.
The changing nature of play A LEGO Group study of children who were relatively ‘advanced’ in the use of digital technology, in 2008, identified five key findings regarding the changing nature of play:
1. The digital context has transformed children’s play. Fixed devices bring children’s play into non‐traditional areas of the home, such as the office; whilst children increasingly own what they can carry, and Gameboys, Nintendo DS’s, mobile phones are all vehicles for more independent play and connecting with others.
2. The desire for tangibility is a barrier for digital products. Not only do parents struggle with the notion of what constitutes ‘a good gift’ when it comes to products in the digital realm, children also long to have a tangible outcome of play. It gives them an enhanced sense of ownership and allows them to display creations they are proud of.
3. Play moves seamlessly across physical and digital. More than any other generation, children today see play spaces as fluid and connected between bricks and bits, or physical and virtual environments. Children know what is real and what is not, but they perceive the boundaries as more fluid and full of connecting links.
4. Digital play is driven by the desire to live out stories. Traditional play has often involved creating stories around characters and environments, through which children explore and learn about the world around them and understand their place within it. Digital play is driven by the same impulse. Most children have a couple of areas of interest about which they are really passionate, and around these themes children will often form a web of content and expertise, a universe, which fuels their stories.
5. The expanded play offered by networks is pulling children online. Online networks enhance social play, and the networked digital playground is always on. Spending time with peers is one way children define an identity independent from their parents, and learn to collaborate. Being online allows children to expand the collaborative audience for displaying, testing and affirming.
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
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Bridging Bridging the virtual and physical through play The digital realm can augment play in different ways, and the more compelling play scenarios are those where the virtual and physical each play a part in enriching the experience. We can identify four distinct kinds of play that successfully incorporate the affordances of the digital realm into rich expanded play experiences:
1. Play in an evolving virtual world – such as many online games, social virtual environments, and computer games;
2. Play with ‘smart’ things – such as talking dolls, intelligent bricks, relational bots, sensing devices;
3. Play in mixed realities – such as Wii, augmented reality, location based devices, tangible table tops, the web of things;
4. Play in multiple modes – combining any of the above together, or with more traditional play, conversation, and everyday life, moving back and and everyday life, moving back and forth between digital and physical, between solo play and playing with others.
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
Drivers Drivers of play in the digital realm 3
Digital play is driven by friendship, and by interests. Friendship-driven activity is social and often connects children with those they know already. Interest-driven activity more often draws upon the global network of enthusiasts for any topic. Drawing on research by Mizuko Ito et al, and Nick Yee, we can identify three modes of participation that describe different degrees of commitment to media engagement:
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Social: a relaxed, friendship-driven mode, with no particular purpose or goal apart from enjoying the connection with others.
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Exploratory: a curious, interest-driven mode, where the user searches, tinkers and remixes material based on whatever grabs them.
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Intense: a more determined interest-driven mode, involving a significant commitment of time, creativity and emotional energy in relation to a specific technology, genre, or media property, often with a goal of ‘mastery’ of this domain.
These modes are not exclusive, can be combined, or moved between, and do not necessarily come any one particular order. (The three modes are called ‘hanging out’, ‘messing around’, and ‘geeking out’ by Ito et al, whilst Yee calls them ‘social’, ‘immersion’, and ‘achievement’, respectively).
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Platforms Online platforms mirror the LEGO System itself, in that they provide a framework which invites participation, but then are open to any kind of idea, theme or content that will fit into the framework. To bring this alive they also foster a community, which is central to all the activity that takes place, sharing, discussing and inspiring.
The emotional rewards of participation Play, participation and creating in the digital realm are enjoyable because the economy of engagement is an economy of feelings, in which positive emotions – pride, curiosity, love and feeling smart – are the ultimate rewards for participation. It has been argued that most players turn to games specifically to produce the emotional high associated with accomplishing something concrete, feeling capable, and being recognised for their successes. Similarly, in online networks, users want to feel challenged, to make their mark on the world, and to make a positive difference. Whether in play, creativity or learning, the ability to get in ‘Flow’ is an essential prerequisite for continued engagement. The ingredients of Flow – immediate feedback, clear objectives, visible failure states, a staged set of challenges and the lack of time pressure – are essential in creating contexts for maximum possible engagement.
Similarities and differences between physical and virtual creativity The primary motivations for creativity remain similar regardless of context, but the digital realm makes it easier to collaborate and share, it can remove the constraint of materials, can be small and mobile, and with possibly a lower environmental impact. It typically, of course, involves less face-to-face social interaction. Between the physical and virtual realms, there is ‘hybrid’ or ‘mashup’ creativity, which brings the two worlds together. This realm adds a fruitful tension between real-life hands-on creativity and the less physical, often screen-based virtual worlds. The comparison of non-digital with digital does not necessarily show that online activity is ‘better’ or more convenient. Instead we should aspire to a powerful collaborative interface between the physical and the digital, enabling people to come together using a combination of physical and digital tools and environments, to create new ideas, art, play and knowledge.
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
Embodied Cognition
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
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Embodied cognition The idea that we need to ‘think with the body’ – and therefore that creative activity cannot simply be transposed to screen-based media – has gained support from a convergence of new evidence from psychology and neuroscience. These theories emphasise that cognitive processes such as learning and memory are strongly influenced by the way we use our bodies to interact with the physical world. Importantly, the shaping of the mind by bodily actions and sensations starts from the very first moments of our lives and is hence crucial for the successful development of a growing child. Research into embodied cognition has highlighted five qualities of the physical LEGO® System in Play that are essential for Systematic Creativity. They are therefore likely to be necessary to enrich hybrid or digitally augmented play, combining the virtual and physical realms in an expanded play experience. This experience should support:
Spontaneity – When a system has an inherent logic, and a set of constraints that can be grasped, it can support endless possibilities. It should be easy to pick up, and yet enable development, experimentation and expansion.
Multimodality – When a system offers a range of different materials, or interfaces, and engages multiple senses (such as sight, touch, and hearing), then our senses are able to educate each other, so that we can imagine new ways to use an object or a material. This enables more flexible and deeper learning about the environment, and richer exploratory possibilities.
Reduction of workload – We can increase our efficiency by arranging objects or visual reminders, within our field of vision, in order to reduce the number of things the brain has to deal with at once. This is true when building with physical LEGO bricks, and will have parallels in the digital realm.
Motor actions – Haptics (grabbing) and gesturing (waving, signaling) are important in reducing our mental workload when expressing ourselves, and equally appears to play a role in learning. Gestures prove useful for more intuitive control of digital realms and a way for younger children to understand and express their ideas or learning more readily.
Using a tool – Tools are useful for making actions simpler, achieving complex goals, and finding novel solutions. A good tool should encourage experimentation, and be self-explanatory. In a LEGO context an essential part of this is creating consistency between similar tools in the digital realm, and making it easy to learn from others using the tool. The more we can enable multimodality, support gestures, and create a close link to the behaviour of physical LEGO bricks, the greater the opportunity for children to be creative within a digital environment, and enable the creation of new, surprising and valuable tools.
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
The essence of
The essence of digital creativity •
Creating and sharing ideas and things within a community;
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Exploring, combining and transforming ideas and things, in collaboration with others;
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Integrating offline activity with online social networks;
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Using graceful tools, which encourage tinkering and experimentation;
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Experiencing freedom, to be original, without constraints on materials or time;
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Enjoying a gift economy, where elements, ideas, and support can be shared;
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Feeling pride and recognition for contributions; Experiencing an effective connection between the physical and virtual worlds,
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with an active, ‘hands on’ orientation to the space and ideas;
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Expressing individuality and making a difference within the system.
The six faces of digital creativity Digital creativity is experimental and can be said to have six interconnected faces:
THE CONNECTOR: Making connections between diverse domains; from individual ideas to inspired collaborations; and between the virtual and the physical worlds.
THE GIVER: Sharing the gifts of experience, ideas, and knowledge with a group or community; contributing to collaborative projects which are much greater than the contribution of any individual.
THE ARTIST: Taking up new opportunities for expressive communication; breaking down the division between ‘online’ and ‘offline’ to open up connected worlds of play, learning, and creativity.
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
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THE SCIENTIST: Using problem-solving skills, and logical thinking, to make the most of digital environments; and innovatively engineering new connections between digital and real-life environments.
THE BRICOLEUR: Making, repurposing, recycling, mending and trading, inspired by the global community of makers, hackers, and hobbyists, who put things together in new ways.
THE ACTIVIST: Stimulating and enthusing around any issue of shared interest, raising awareness in creative ways through online social networks.
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Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
A digital LEGO® System in Play The physical, tangible nature of LEGO bricks means that making and sharing is simple and feels natural. To make the most of the affordances in the digital realm, it should be just as easy to produce creations, pick them apart, share them with others and reuse them in a multitude of creative contexts. A platform in the digital realm should be able to support both the interconnection of parts and creations, as well as linkage over time, and across communities. A valuable system must therefore embrace the following design principles:
1. Multiple points of entry – Enable users to engage at their level of experience and complexity, making it easy to get started.
2. Experimentation – Encourage play, problem-solving and tinkering, with no way to make a ‘mistake’. Equally, users should be encouraged to take their time.
3. Engagement – Encourage emotional engagement by providing opportunities for the positive emotions of pride, curiosity, love and feeling smart.
4. Evolvability – Enable the experience to evolve from simple to complex as users become more sophisticated, and provide meaningful dimensions for mastery.
5. Linkage – Enable multiple creative experiences to connect over time and creations to be modified, re-used and shared on users’ terms.
6. Spontaneity – Encourage discovery of new experiences and new ways of engaging with existing experiences, as well as ways of combining these.
7. Community – Encourage connections, interaction, collaboration, giving gifts and connecting personal experiences into a wider world of creativity.
8. Extensibility – Encourage the creation of new value, novel combinations and sharing of content by providing open systems and platforms for user‐created value.
A note on digital ‘clutch power’ The difficulty of creating an enduring method of connection between creative components in the digital realm is not to be underestimated, as this involves far more than a visual reference to the physical studs and tubes of the LEGO System. It is more about mirroring the experience of the engineering brilliance behind ‘clutch power’ – the ability of LEGO bricks to be joined or disassembled easily, yet stay connected firmly, even in young hands – and the uncomplicated route to unlocking imagination and creativity through this easy and natural combination of elements. Similarly, diverse digital content should be held together by consistent, reliable connectors.
Systematic Creativity in the Digital Realm [Short version]
A 21st Century LEGO速 System in Play A holistic LEGO System enabling creative experiences that embrace the affordances of both the physical and virtual is a compelling vision for the 21st Century: A holistic LEGO System bridging the virtual and physical alongside the artistic and scientific modes of inquiry has the capacity to form the foundation for developing critical 21st Century literacies: the ability to play, collaborate and create, in ways that flexibly combine, explore or transform our knowledge or emotions, bringing us to a new place in the world. As the LEGO Group continues on its journey to invent the future of play, the LEGO idea, once simply conceived in the form of a brick, proves to be a powerful metaphor and tool for the kind of creativity possible in the 21st Century.
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