Revista simpozionului Eficiență și calitate în educație - 19 mai 2017 Eficiență și calitate în educație | Page 83

CREATIVE AND COLLABORATIVE LEARNING TECHNOLOGIES – INSIDE AND OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM Victoria Șerban, Colegiul Național „Gheorghe Lazăr” Sibiu Abstract: This paper argues in favour of using learning technologies in order to enhance students’ creativity and collaboration, two of the most important 21st century skills. Some examples of such digital tools are given with brief explanations and illustrations. The idea of moderate and carefully planned use of technology is suggested in order to ensure a safe and productive learning environment. Key words: creativity, collaboration, digital tools, ICT skills. It is common knowledge nowadays that in schools we are trying to prepare students for jobs that do not yet exist and for tasks that we cannot possibly imagine. And still, as teachers, we need to make the most of the situation and educate students for the unpredictable future. One way of doing this is to focus on developing 21 st century skills that would enable our students to ask the right questions, engage in meaningful discussions, negotiate, work in a team or find the best solution to any problem. The four Cs - communication, collaboration, creativity and critical thinking – are among the most frequently cited transferable or applied skills, considered to be of critical importance in order to succeed in today’s world. ICT skills are also on top of the list. Still, to paraphrase Sir Ken Robinson, it might be argued that technology kills creativity and critical thinking, not to mention communication. Information is readily available and the internet can give us an answer to any problem. So, why think, anyway? A class full of students waiting for the teacher to look the other way so that they can quickly type a message on their phones or check their friends’ latest photo on Facebook is probably not an uncommon sight. Can we turn these tools for distraction into tools for learning? Should we ban them altogether and engage in creative tech-free activities that will help our students grow or is it possible to make these gadgets our allies? It cannot be denied that using different platforms and applications can foster students’ language acquisition, improve their spelling, pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary or their receptive and even productive skills. This paper will focus, however, mainly on how we can help our students develop their creativity and collaboration skills with the use of technology, which makes it all the more enjoyable and motivating for them. The platforms, applications or websites suggested below are just a few examples which will try to prove that, if used appropriately, students’ creativity, critical thinking and communication skills can be enhanced by using learning technologies. The target audience ranges from quite low levels (e.g. starters) to more proficient learners, each tool presenting distinctive features, which enables educators to choose whatever suits the needs of the students. Creative Presentations In her article entitled “Making thinking visible in the English Classroom: nurturing a creative mind-set” in Creativity in the English language classroom, Chrysa Papalazarou argues for the visible thinking approach whose aim is “to nurture students’ thinking by ‘externalising’ it when they engage with content, by making it visible.” (37) Publishing their work and active sharing, which involves valuing other people’s work, are underlying principles of this approach. This, together with the idea that students should be media creators not just media consumers nowadays, is reason enough to consider how they can present their work using digital tools. When aiming to present information on different topics, students can work individually or in groups in order to create presentations using different instruments 83