Perceptions of Digital Tools and Creativity in the Classroom

Introduction

As children are becoming more familiar with computers, the Internet, and other digital technology from a young age, more emphasis is being placed on digital tools (Jenkins, Ito, and boyd, 2015; Martinez and Stager, 2013). Digital tools encompass both digital technology, like an iPad, and digital media, like YouTube or an iPad application (Jenkins, 2009). Digital tools include both physical and interactive technologies such as littleBits (“EDUCATORS – LittleBits,” n.d.), adafruit (adafruit, 2012), and micro:bit (“Micro:Bit Educational Foundation,” n.d.), which offer interventions for creating and learning. Additionally, the development of virtual technologies such as Google Classroom (“Google Classroom,” n.d.), Apple Classroom (“‎Classroom on the App Store,” n.d.), and other educational applications, (e.g., Epic) (“Epic!,” n.d.), offer digital alternatives for teaching, managing assignments, and monitoring classroom technologies (“Google Classroom” n.d.; “‎Classroom on the App Store” n.d.). All of these resources are developed to facilitate teaching or improve children’s digital literacy which refers to evaluating and composing information via digital media (Lankshear and Knobel, 2008; diSessa, 2000; Papert, 1980). Many studies focus on digital literacy and improving assignment and grading management, yet there is still a need to address how digital tools assist children’s development of digital creativity as an intersection of the creativity and digital media (Sefton-Green and Brown, 2014; Papert, 1994; Resnick, 2017). While digital tools exist for children to learn coding and problem solving, (e.g., ScratchJr) (Rusk, 2017; “Scratch – Home,” n.d.), there is still a need to identify, fund, and provide professional development for a model that successfully integrates digital tools to teach digital creativity to elementary age children (Papert, 1994; Resnick, 2017; Wagner and Dintersmith, 2015). One model that illustrates the integration of digital tools across curriculum is the Pedagogy Wheel (Carrington, 2012). The Pedagogy Wheel combines the cognitive categories of Bloom’s Taxonomy (Anderson et al., 2000; Bloom, 1956) (i.e., Remember, Understand, Apply, Evaluate, and Create) and a well-known pedagogical framework called SAMR (i.e., Substitution, Augmentation, Modification, and Redefinition) (Puentedura, 2009). This model can be used to provide professional development framework that emphasizes teaching critical and creative thinking skills by using digital tools.