Abstract
With the development of new digital technologies, the internet, and mass media, including social media, it is now possible to produce, consume, and exchange information and virtual creations in a simple and practically instantaneous way. As predicted by philosophers and sociologists in the 1980s, a culture of “prosumers” has been developed in communities where there is no longer a clear distinction between content producers and content users and where there is a continuous exchange of knowledge that enriches the whole community. The teaching of “digital creativity” can also take advantage of the fact that young people and adults are particularly attracted to these fields, which they perceive akin to their playful activities and which are normally used in an often sterile and useless way in their free time. The didactic sense of these experiences is that we try to build a cooperative group environment in which to experiment, learn, and exchange knowledge equally among all the participants.
TopIntroduction
If traditional societies based the centrality of their experiential area in the succession of seasons, a consequence of the primacy of agricultural work, industrial societies had the experiential center in the relations of production, considered as the sign of the self-realization of the individual. The contemporary era has experiential centrality in consumption and in its evolution in prosumerism. (Piergiorgio Degli Esposti, 2015)
With the development of new digital technologies, the Internet, and mass media, including social media, it is now possible to produce, consume and exchange information and virtual creations in a simple and practically instantaneous way. Think of websites like YouTube, Wikipedia, Instagram, Flickr, but also stores (marketplaces) and dedicated sites for the purchase and sale of artistic digital semi-finished products such as Deviant Art, Sketchfab or for multimedia applications and games such as Steam itself or the stores of Android, Apple or gaming platforms such as Steam, Unity. As predicted by philosophers and sociologists in the 1980s, a culture of “prosumers” has been developed, which means communities where there is no longer a clear distinction between content producers and content users and a continuous exchange of knowledge that enriches the whole community.
At the same time, the skills of digital creativity are increasingly in demand in the professional market, especially in the field of marketing, in the field of entertainment (cinema, music, art), and in the same area of Education and Training (Report on World Development 2016 - The World Bank). The teaching of 'digital creativity' can also benefit from the fact that young people and adults are particularly attracted to these fields. They perceive akin to their playful activities and are typically used in a sterile and useless way in their free time.
Both the authors have experienced that it is possible to build a cooperative group environment to test, learn, and exchange knowledge equally among all participants. In particular, they experimented with ways of learning that allow enhancing people’s creativity by motivating them to learn in a more in-depth and rewarding way, and in turn to teach others even when they do not feel sufficiently prepared, to understand better the complexity of the context in which they operate. Within the same educational path, the creations of the various participants can be shown, shared, and remixed, favoring the “open-source” circulation of the works produced to progressively create increasingly complex settings and ideas, without having to use pre-built materials provided by companies or individuals, mostly not cheap and not within reach of most educational institutions. As will be seen shortly, the didactic activity can be developed along different complexity lines, in which the material generally needed for these experiences can be basic or optional. Before proceeding with the analysis of the necessary skills and technical tools, it is essential to consider what assumptions this study is based on:
Key Terms in this Chapter
Modeling: In 3D computer graphics, it indicates the process of developing a mathematical representation of any surface of an object (inanimate or living) in three dimensions using specialized software. The result of this process is called a 3D model.
Cardboard: A low cost VR viewer, designed to favor the development and commercial diffusion of virtual reality, which allows you to transform any smartphone into a perfect and functional Virtual Reality Viewer.
Virtual Environments: Computer-generated spaces that can contain objects that can be manipulated and people. These can be text-based virtual reality or multi-user chat or games, 2D interactive environments, as well as immersive 3D environments, i.e. real immersive virtual reality environments (virtual, augmented, or mixed).
Augmented Reality (AR): An interactive experience in which objects residing in the real world are enhanced by computer-generated information, sometimes through multiple sensory modalities.
Prosumer: A combination of the words supplier and consumer that can identify six different types of behavior regarding the interaction between user and acquired goods: do-it-yourself prosumer, self-service prosumer, personalized prosumers, collaborative prosumers, monetized prosumers and economic prosumers.
Graphic Engines: A software development environment designed to allow people to create video games for consoles, mobile devices, and personal computers.
Head-Mounted Display (HMD): A display device, worn on the head and used, with different shapes and structures, in many fields, including games, aviation, engineering and medicine.
Gamification: It is the application of game design elements and game principles in non-gaming contexts in order to solve problems or learn in a fun and facilitated way to make the learning curve less steep, also allowing to improve user involvement.
Online Community of Practice (OcoP): Also defined as a virtual community of practice (VCoP), it is formed by a group of people united by the common interest in a specific field, each with their own level of specific experience, who participate together in a shared learning process that develops through Internet with a view to sharing knowledge.
Digital Cultures: A concept that practically expresses the relationship between people and technology, describing how technology and the Internet are shaping the way we interact as human beings, or how we behave, think and communicate within society.