Today I logged into my iGoogle page, checked to see who was Twittering among the folks I’m following on Twitter, and noticed that Maria had twittered about Roxik Pictaps. Since I have great respect for Maria’s ability to find all sorts of very cool stuff, I checked it out. Interesting digital toys, but more importantly, I went to the “about me” page to see who created this stuff. Stay with me now… you know how you can get lost on the web when you start exploring…
When I clicked, I found the Roxik guy staring me in the face from a TV sort of frame. So now I’m curious about his work and notice Roxik is “represented internationally by Unit 9.” Now I’m on the Unit 9 website exploring their work. I click on House Reel to see a gallery of their work. Fascinating and creative. A few examples include the very cute UPS widget, the Haagen-Daas “help the honey bees” website where you can even create your own little honey bee graphic, and more.
So how did these folks learn to create all this stuff? Are they digital geniuses? Did they go to school where our kids go to school? Come to think of it, are our kids going to learn skills that can help them create sites like this? Admittedly, not every kid is going to be a digital genius and follow the path that the folks at Unit 9 followed, but go take a look at Scratch and Alice. I think we have lots of digital toys, tools, resources to help nurture creativity in a digital world. We have to be willing and daring enough to use them. Is creativity important? You bet. Listen to James Paul Gee talk about creativity and how video games can and should be used in education.