Exploring Learning

Recently, I have implemented some time at the start of each lesson for creative writing. I have allowed learners to bring in their own 'special' books and have given them 20 minutes at the start of each class to explore and play with language, as well as put into practice some techniques we have been learning. I have tried a variety of methods to inspire their creativity including:- free writing - no boundaries, write what you want/feel art-inspired - we visited the IB art exhibition and they wrote based on the work that 'spoke' to them walk-around - we moved about the school and stopped in various places to write what we saw/felt/heard/smelled etc. breathing kindness - to build on the work we are doing to develop kindness in our current unit, based on the novel Stargirl , we did some meditation. Each inhalation 'sucked' out of the world something unpleasant, negative or unkind. Each exhalation transformed that into something pleasant, kind and positive ...

In my post ' Evolution technology: Visual Digital Literacy ', a response to the MOOC 'Digital Cultures and E-learning' via  Coursera  and The University of Edinburgh, I explored the notion of how visual representations are considered less scholarly or rigorous than written exposition. I use, as an example, artist Ebon Heath, whose beautiful word sculptures expound my thinking that visual representation is just as valid as written explorations of thinking. His three dimensional poetry rebuts any criticism that we can only think and explain sufficiently in the written form. The final assignment of the course asked for a digital representation of an element of the course that had impacted on us, or that we wanted to explore more. I admit that I did find it difficult to express my learning of the course in a visual way, as I am, by default, a writer. However, I think that being taken out of my comfort zone actually made me think harder and really consider what it was I w...