We Think - A Discussion in Mass Inovation and Participatory Culture

The link below allows you to explore what Charles Leadbeater's book (We Think) is about, and find out other links and information to do with ways of thinking.

http://contemporarymediaissues.wetpaint.com/page/We+Think+-+A+Discussion+in+Mass+Inovation+and+Participatory+Culture

For a better undersatnding of the book we think click HERE!

Lego serious play

Plato says ‘You can learn more about a person in an hour of play than you can in a life time of conversation’ and Lego serious play was used as a talking tool to get everyone interacting and thinking that the Lego was not just a piece of plastic but could be a metaphorical resemblance of a person or how there personality could be. We started off by gathering on the sofas in the Automatic were we were given a plastic elephant toy and was told that the elephant was a metaphor of the personality of a new teacher that will be having us next week. The elephant was passed around the room and a series of answers were given to do with the personality of the teacher. Answers such as a very bold person, very helpful, likes to engage and interact with people and is a good listener. The first model was to build a tower, the only rules being it had to be on a green base and have a figure on the top. This was my first model that I built, and as you can tell most if it is very symmetrical. This could identify what my personality is like or what am like as a person. Also the model I built isn’t so high off the ground this is because I like to be stable in what I do and in anything practical I am involved in. In some cases I felt slightly uncomfortable talking about the building because I felt like I was giving to much information away about myself especially when we were told to build the second tower which had to consist of adapting to the tower to reflect on what you bring to the team.

Comparing to the other model I added

many more Lego blocks and a net. This resembles that I like to have a back up plan to any of my ideas if they fail on me or I don’t think that they are good enough. I would bring stableness and creativity to the team as I like to think of myself as creative, mainly through production or drawing my ideas.

The third model was a core element of a successful team. Once all the models were finished we then used a technique called landscaping to place the elements of the team in proximity of each other in order to understand the group’s concept of essential teamwork components.

Finally are team gathered all the Lego buildings and place them a pens width away from each other to show which was the most important and strongest part to the cycle of teamwork. Once we had are own models in the right place we realised that there were a few parts  missing to complete the cycle, so we made models to fill in what we needed in order for it to work. The one model we had to remake was the communication between students. We decided to place small character models in a line

and link them up from there heads using rope. This suggests that we all should work together and every idea should count in making the final product. Starting from the right all of the small models cluttered together resemble the ideas. A majority of us made these as are first models so it shows that were creative in what we think. Moving further into the middle the tall black model was the key that holds it all together a bit like the brain of it all and the connection between everyone in the group. This helps everything move a long smoothly. Further down into the left corner was the outcomes and the production and editing side to teamwork. This method  helped show are creative side to one another and it was brilliant to see how Lego can help with story telling and how its used to not only say what you mean but build what you think about. I would defiantly use Lego to create ideas to help with explaining what I mean and how I will go about making my ideas in future presentations.

Edward De Bono

My favourite method that we studied was the random stimulus. It is basically solving problems through a creative approach, some of the problems may not be obvious but by using Convergent thinking and other creative thinking techniques it can be solved with many solutions and ideas. To put are lateral thinking to the test we were given De Bono’s random thinking cards and random word sheets.We were then told to write down things that relate to the cards. After a lot of thinking and planning and we had all the information in front of us that we needed we then had to come up with an idea for the screen school using just these words to think of a product of some kind. Are ideas had to be feasible so many of the ideas we had down had to be rearranged or changed dramatically in order for it to work. One of are ideas were to have glow bug lights instead of light bulbs within the screen school. Automatically this is never doable but with slightly changing the idea to replicas of the glow bugs made out of plastic we were able to make are idea more realistic and a possible idea for the school.

Creativity and Concept (Divergent & Convergent thinking)

Concept extraction was the topic for session two and we then considered Divergent and convergent thinking. Divergent thinking is a method used to generate ideas which can then make possible solutions. You start with one object for example a paper clip then find as many different uses for that paper clip as possible. The more ideas you come up with the more unique your answer will be. This helps with trying to think outside the box and getting rid of the first ideas that come into your head. It somehow digs the unusual ideas out which can be more relevant to the question asked, even if your idea is not possible. Convergent thinking on the other hand is often used in conjunction to Divergent thinking. It brings as many ideas as possible together to form one object or one idea.

This is used in many schools during multiple choice test for intelligence. We gave this test a go to find out what intelligence type we were. I found this type of creative thinking really interesting and it helped me a lot in being able to branch out to new ideas and not worry about them being wrong as there is no right or wrong answer. The test showed that I was special-visual am better at looking at art work or drawing my ideas on paper rather then writing them down. After doing this test it was time to think of ways in which to transform the teaching room into a better space for learning, we generated ideas and concepts and also placed these on the wall. We placed concepts on top of the line but didn’t give anything to specific to give to the contractor. We matched up the ideas and concepts and then added ideas below concepts and concepts above ideas - to generate more ideas and concepts. Overall I found this way of thinking to be more challenging because some of the concepts weren’t as straight forward as some of the ideas where. It was easier to find ideas then concepts because we were constantly thinking about ideas and most of them weren’t doable. This challenged are creative mind in order for us to come up with exclusive ideas. Also it helped with teamwork and working in groups you wouldn’t normally work with so it gave me an insight of how other people work and what ideas they had.    

A reflection of Creativity and Concept

Throughout this module we have been introduced to many creative thinking techniques, to make us understand and be able to think outside the box, therefore challenging our own ways of thinking. This will help us in the future to think of ideas that are unique and possibly never been tried before.  

Firstly we had to understand the basics of creativity and what it means to be creative. In the first session we brainstormed definitions of creativity and pinned them up on the wall, in order for everyone in the room to look around and see what the different definitions were and what other people thought creativity was.

There were many different interpretations of the word creativity and many of use gave examples such as: development of something smaller, speaking freely, looking inside the bigger picture to the smaller picture and ignoring limits. These were just a few examples people gave. At first I was unsure what I thought creativity was. Was it being artistic? Or being open minded about difficult situations? I came to the conclusion that both of these answers were to do with being creative along with many other answers I gave. It wasn’t about getting the right answer because we all think differently and word may mean something different to other people.

 We also researched theories and theorists and people who we thought to be creative in whatever industry there from whether it be Film directors, Actors, Witters, Cinematographs etc. During this first session we also looked at ways of recording are creativity through sketch booking. There were many ideas captured in the sketchbook that could be used within an idea or trying to build on an idea to make it better. Sketch booking is a great way to write or draw down any ideas or memories that could be used in the future. I have started to use this method because it not only helps me plan my ideas but it helps with remembering what I have done in the past.