Creativity in practice

Social media in higher education

Abstract

Creativity, both as a professional capability and as a personal attribute, is acknowledged as an important dimension of education for a fast-changing world, relevant to future practice in the professions and for learners and teachers. New social media tools, which place creation, publication and critique in the hands of web users, have been recognised as having a role in democratising creativity, making the means of production and distribution accessible to most of the developed world. Using these tools to facilitate learning activities in higher education can promote creativity and many other related capabilities: digital literacy, independent learning, collaboration and communication skills, and critical thinking. It requires creativity on the part of teachers to develop and manage learning environments and tasks that are not traditional and may be quite experimental. This paper asks some university teachers who are innovating their teaching by using social media to reflect on how creativity informs their practice and the learning of their students.