At the completion of projects undertaken by Enquiry and Change Schools, Cre8us asks school coordinators, practitioners and Creative Agents for links to useful resources which they feel have been of benefit to them and they would like to share with others. Hopefully you will find something that may be useful to you below.
Animation projects:
The World's most popular education blogging service...Edublogs lets you easily create and manage student and teacher blogs, quickly customise designs and include videos, photos and podcasts - it's easy, safe and secure.
A brilliant source of tools and links you can use to help you with presentations, slideshows, video, audio, drawing, music, creating quizes and polls...and much more!
Support and advice from a practitioner who has worked with Cre8us on creating a podcast - including software and links to school podcasts.
Podium is a PC based podcasting software tool, designed specifically for education. It is easy to use and allows students of any age to create, edit and publish podcasts all from a simple interface.
Audacity is free, open source software for recording and editing sounds - available for use on MacOS X, Microsoft Winows, GNU/Linux and other operating systems.
A great website for making your own books/publications. Blurb BookSmart is free, easy to use bookmaking software which allows you to quickly import pictures and text into professionally designed book templates and page layouts. And when you have finished creating your masterpiece they can print them for you.
Artweaver lets you paint creatively with the help of a huge range of painting tools. You can create sketches from photos, experiment with colours...and they even have a free version you can use. Great for beginners or more advanced users.
The Freesound Project is a collaborative database of Creative Commons licensed sounds. Fressound focusses on sound and allows users to browse different sounds using keywords and search the open database for sounds that you can use.
An Open Source vector free graphics/illustrator editor, with capabilities similar to illustrator, CorelDraw or XaraX using a Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) file format.
A free programming resource where you can create and share your own interactive stories, games, music and art.
Pencil is an animation/drawing software programme for MacOS X, Microsoft Windows, and Linux. It lets you create traditional hand-drawn animation (cartoon) using both bitmap and vector graphics. Pencil is free and open source.
Topic specific research:
The Holocaust:
Creativity Resources:
WEAVE offers an ordered environment for adults and children to represent their multiple realities and weave possible worlds from a combination of recycled materials, artefacts, light and space. Providing a palette of experiences for exploration and expression through activities including art, music, movement, dance, imaginative and role-play activities.
- Harts Ladder of Participation: (available to download in pdf format at the bottom of this page)
Harts Ladder of Participation is a useful model for thinking about children's citizenship, how they learn, and how we interven in that learning. We often find ourselves moving between 'rungs' on this ladder. Experience of the 'middle rungs' is often needed by children to develop the skills that will enable them to move further up the ladder.
The Creativity Wheel was created by 'Creative Partnerships' as a framework for assessing pupils' creative development. The Wheel contributes to the assessment for learning and personalised learning process, by helping teachers to tailor their teaching towards pupil improvement, involvement and motivation. The Wheel is a way of sharing goals with pupils, involving them in an ongoing process, and allowing teacher and pupil to review and reflect together on creative development.
Publications to inspire your creative journey...
For all schools...
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'All our futures: Creativity, Culture & Education' (National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education, 2000): this is the summary of a major report on the future of education. Creative Partnerships springs, at least in part, from this report. The full document is out of print although you can buy used copies by following the link to Amazon.co.uk or view a pdf version
here.
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'Out of our minds: Learning to be creative' (Ken Robinson, Capstone Publishing, 2001): Why is it essential to promote and develop creativity and how can this be achieved? Dr. Ken Robinson suggests what all organisations, including schools, can do to recover people's creative talents.
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'Dr Seuss: Hooray for Diffendoofer Day!' (Jack Prelutsky and Lane Smith, Picture Lions, 2004): Meet Dr Suess' creation, Miss Bonkers, in a joyful and playful book which for children and adults alike celebrates teachers who have belief, vision and ability to enable different ways of learning and explores how a creative school might look.
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'Creativity in Schools: Tensions and Dilemmas' (Anna Craft, Routledge Publishing, 2005): A long critical look at the role of creativity in schools today, setting out the main points of the current debates, contextualising the key concepts, and examining the implications of creativity.
For secondary schools...
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'Creativity in Secondary Education' (Martin Fautley and Jonathan Savage, Learning Matters, 2007): Examining the political and education context behind creativity developments in schools with a particular forcus on dilemmas faced by trainee teachers. Looks at what creativity is, how it evloves, and how it can be nurtured.
Publications on creativity, education and creative learning...
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'Multiple Intelligences - best ideas from research and practice' (Mindy Kornhaber, Edward Fierros, Shirley Veenema, Pearson Education, 2004): This text is based on original research from Harvard University's 'Project Zero', to show teachers and administrators how to successfully integrate Multiple Intelligence Theory into their schools and classrooms, including some detailed case studies.
- 'The Unschooled Mind: How Children Think & How Schools Should Teach' (Howard Gardner, Basic Books, 1993): Why are children not mastering what they ought to be learning at school? Howard Gardner shows how ill suited our minds and natural patterns of learning are to current educational materials, practices, and institutions.
- 'Creativity - flow and the psychology of discovery and invention' (Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Harper Perennial, 1996): Drawing on nearly one hundred interviews with creative people in every field and thirty years of research on the subject of creativity, Professor Csikszentmihalyi uses his famous 'flow' theory to explain the creative process and shows how creativity can enrich all of us.
- 'Creative Children, Imaginative Teaching' (Florence Beetlestone, Open University Press, 1998): This book sets out to explore what creativity means in both practical and theoretical terms for children, teachers andf the context in which they work. The key areas of planning, resourcing, organising, managing and assessing creativity are dealt with.
- 'Renaissance in the Classroom: 'Arts Integration and Meaningful Learning' (Gail E Burnaford, Arnold April, Cynthia Weiss, Lawrence Elbaum Associate, 2001): A six year project developed innovative approaches to school improvement in which artists and educators co-planned for an integrated curriculum. This text offers an account of the learning and legacy developed through the project with copious practical examples.
- 'Language and Creativity: The Art of Common Talk' (Ronald Carter, Routledge, 2004): This text explores the creativity inherent in everyday spoken language. Illustrated with engaging examples, and integrating current theory from language, literature and creativity, this book reveals the creative choices that ordinary people demonstrate in everyday informal communication.
Creative learning environments...
- 'A Place to learn: Developing a stimulating learning environment' (Penny Cartwright, Kym Scott, Judith Stevens, LEARN, 2002): This is a collection of resource packs developed over a period of time to support aspects of developing a stimulating learning environment.
- 'The Outdoor Classroom: A Place to Learn' (Hilary Harriman, Red Robin Books, 2008): This book is a great source of inspiration for using the outdoor environment to develop learning across the whole curriculum.
- 'Forest Schools and Outdoor Learning in the Early Years' (Sara Knight, Sage Publications, 2009): Learning outside the classroom is an essential part of early years education, and this book looks at the opportunities the Forest School experience can offer young children for learning outdoors and how this fits into the early years curriculum.
- 'Playing and Learning Outdoors: Making provision for high-quality experiences in the outdoor environment' (Jan White, Routledge, 2007): This book will give practitioners the ideas to develop rich and stimulating outdoor play provision in Early Years settings. An inspiring and accessible book with a practical approach to learning through play outdoors.
Many thanks to the schools, practitioners and agents who have shared these useful resources. If there are other resources which you have found useful and would like to share, please contact Gemma Smith (Programme Coordinator): .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)