Video Games, good or bad for education?

I do not play video games, i don't really care for games at all. I do not have any games on my phone, i feel that they are just addicting and add stress to a persons life. I've never used games for education though. I guess i believe that games could be helpful in the education world, but within reason. A person like me who has zero interest in games would not want to be taught in this way what so ever, games just annoy me, so if i had to be taught using video games i wouldn't learn anything and going to school would be horrible for me. The one thing i do think is good about gaming and learning is that the student doesn't realize they're learning because they're too interested in playing the game. I would never want to attend the Quest 2 Learn school system, that is not the kind of learning i like. But for others it would work really well, like for my brother it would be great. He loves playing games and figuring things out. Everyone learns differently, so as a teacher, you should talk to your students to see in what way they would to learn or how they learn to be the most successful in the classroom. Also by using all technology within moderation.

Walt Disney's Creative Genius

Think about your favorite movie as a little kid, there is a pretty good chance that it was a Disney movie, I know mine was. My favorite movie a kid was Cinderella. I feel that Walt Disney created the vision of love and optimism for children. We all watched the princesses and princes fall in love, and I know I always wanted my life to be just like those movies. Those movies give me hope still for a happy ending. The remarkable man, Walt Disney, created that for me as well as many others through his animations. To me, Walt Disney is a creative genius.

Many people view creativity in different ways, not all people think and feel the same way about what is and is not creative. I feel that creativity is originality, being yourself, letting your mind wonder. The word genius to me means being abnormally smart and almost all knowing and having ideas that no one else has thought of or uses them in a new way. According to Robert Dilts the author of the article, Walt Disney Strategies of Genius, The simple yet worldwide appeal of Disney’s characters, animated films, live action features and amusement parks demonstrate a unique ability to grasp, synthesize and simplify very basic yet quite sophisticated principles. Disney was also responsible for a number of important technical and organizational innovations in the fields of animation and film-making in general.

A creative genius was born on December 5, 1901 in Chicago Illinois, Walt Disney. Walt attended McKinley High School in Chicago. There, Disney focused on drawing and photography, and wrote for the school paper. At night he attended the Academy of Fine Arts, to better his drawing skills. His father was not fond of all his focus on the arts, but his mother and brother, Roy, always encouraged him to continue his passion for the arts. Besides drawing, Walt had picked up a knack for acting and performing. According to the author of JustDisney.com during the fall of 1918, Disney attempted to enlist for military service he was rejected because he was under age, only sixteen years old at the time. Instead, Walt joined the Red Cross and was sent overseas to France, where he spent a year driving an ambulance and chauffeuring Red Cross officials. One source said his ambulance was covered from front to back with Disney cartoons. Those cartoons were transformed into the movies we all know and love today.

 Walt Disney has written and created so many stories and movies. The movies and stories are mostly directed towards the younger generation of children, but the movies and stories can be watched or read by all age groups. Walt Disney falls under the category of a genius I feel, because of his wonderful creations. Walt Disney created all of the fairytales we all know and love still to this day. He is a genius who made true love a reality known by all who was aware of his creations. The stories of Cinderella, Belle, Snow White, Jasmine, and Ariel are the positive stories parents almost always tell their children about. The stories may not be real, but they will always get us through the bad days. The stories Disney created are still being remade today into more a modern time, but none of the remakes will ever be as good as the stories of Walt Disney. His genius is timeless and is still loved and respected in the year 2012 and it will continue to be, simply because of his creative genius. Walt Disney transformed the entertainment industry, into what we know today. He explored the fields of animation, and found new ways to teach, and educate. Walt Disney may not be a genius in the way that Albert Einstein is, but never the less he is still considered a genius, well at least I feel that he is, and I hope you do too.  

The genius Walt Disney

The word genius to me means being abnormally smart and almost all knowing and having ideas that no one else has thought of or uses them in a new way. A person i feel that is truly genius is Walt Disney the creator of Disney. Walt Disney has written and created so many stories and movies. The movies and stories are mostly directed towards the younger generation of children, but the movies and stories can be watched or read by all age groups. Walt Disney falls under the category of a genius i feel, because of his creations of movies and stories. Walt Disney created all of the fairytales we all know and love still to this day. He is a genius who made true love a reality known by all who was aware of his creations. The stories of Cinderella, Belle, Snow White, Jasmine, and Ariel are the positive stories parents almost always tell their children about. The stories may not be real, but they will always get us through the bad days. The stories Disney created are still being remade today into more a modern time, but none of the remakes will ever be as good as the stories of Walt Disney. His genius is timeless and is still loved and respected in the year 2012 and it will continue to be, simply because of his creative genius.  Walt Disney may not be a genius in the way that Albert Einstein is, but never the less he is still considered a genius, well at least I feel that he is, and I hope you do too.  

Education kills creativity

I feel that creativity is put below education, I feel that education is killing the creativity of people. The school systems are placing the arts at the bottom of the importance level. The arts are only required a very limited amount, for an example one semester, or one full year. The important subjects schools feel are Important are subjects like math, English, history and science and the arts are taken as somewhat of a joke. The core subjects in school do not let students be creative and let their creative side shine, they have strict rules to their subject and they do not change. The way one solves math problems do not change, and there is one way to solve the problems. History is what it is and it doesn't change. Science is fact and it does not change. English can be creative if you're writing a creative essay, but other than that, the only subject students can be creative in is the arts. Students can be creative in art classes and in their writing.  Teachers need to let their students be creative, the school systems need to let the students be creative and not surround them in core subjects. Right now I am being creative in my drawing class, we draw something different every class and it is relaxing in a way because it lets me be creative. The arts and being creative is important to education and to students, being creative helps students in the long run of their lives. At the moment education is killing the creativity side of people because art is not required like the core subjects and that is a problem that should be solved.

Revision and creativity

Revision plays in to my creative process in a way that makes my final piece the best it can possibly be, I reach my full potential as a writer. When you write a first draft, then read over it to make revisions, that process helps the writer determine what points in the paper are necessary and what points are beneficial to your argument. Revisions of a paper help to make sure the paper flows well and makes sense to the reader, so the reader can understand exactly what is going on in your paper and where you're going in the paper, what points you're trying to make and get across to the reader. When revising a paper, one should read over it very carefully, and sometimes one will have someone else read their paper to make sure what the writer is saying makes sense to the reader and the writer.  I had an issue with writing my paper and having it make sense to the reader. I went to the writing center and I feel that helped me tremendously with my creative writing process. The tutor helped me realize some of my sentences did not make sense and also why they did not make sense to the reader, but in my head it did make sense. The tutor had me read my paper aloud and that helped me see what I was doing wrong. Going to the writing center helped me be more creative with revising my paper, I used new ways of revision that I would not have thought of before going there for help. Revision is a great way to reach your full potential when writing a paper and I fully recommend going to the writing center if you ever run into any trouble, it was a great help to me!

A creative man, Henry Darger

When anyone in our class hears the name Henry Darger i can almost promise you we think "the crazy dude who was obsessed with kids" or something along those lines at least. I feel that Darger is just a different kind of man, I do not feel he is mentally ill. Henry was treated like he was mentally ill and put into an insane asylum, but i do not think that was right. The people around him never wanted to take the time to get to know him, but then again, Darger was very closed off to people, he only had one friend. The people who lived around him were always kind though, and they helped Darger when he needed them, especially when it came to rent money, or when he was very sick and dying. Darger was very closed off to the world, he mostly kept to himself in his apartment drawing and writing his huge book of roughly 30,000 pages. I feel Henry was truly a creative man, i feel this way because he created his own world though his story. Even though some of the events that took place in his story were based on his life and this world, doesn't mean he isn't creative. He created characters that eventually became his friends, he loved them and he never wanted to leave them. Darger drew huge pictures the size of a school white board, and it was drawn on the front and the back. He had wonderful artistic skills, he used many different tactics to draw is characters and backgrounds, he copied, traced, enlarged, and he also used his imagination. Henry had a very out there imagination, one that I had never seen before, which makes him very unique in my eyes and that is why I feel we should care about his art and his creation. He seemed like a wonderful man with a rough life, but he did not let the unfortunate events of his life bring him down, he created wonderful and interesting pieces that are now displayed in a museum, if a person is in a museum, I feel that it is necessary to pay attention to him and his works of art.  

John Cleese

The tactic that John Cleese uses about humor is a good way to go about being creative. When people are serious that usually leads to people thinking inside the box and following rules. Humor is a good way to think outside of the box and think lightly about a topic, this tactic I feel is more effective than being in a serious manner all the time. Some comedians are said to be creative thinkers, they make people laugh, and I feel that is on the creative side, I could not stand in front of a crowd and make people laugh with the thoughts in my head like comedians can. Television shows are sometimes humorous and the writers in my opinion would be creative, for an example the show, Spongebob Squarepants is a funny show, and the writers were creative in making it funny. The writers thought outside of the box and being outside of the box is a main idea in my definition of being creative.  Using humor to reflect creativity is an idea that I support and agree with. When a person uses humor as appose to seriousness, the person thinks about things in new ways, humorous ways that most people can understand. Using humor in a classroom is more understandable than seriousness because we as students can relate to the humor being used. When we go back into our notes at the end of a chapter to get ready for a test, the things we remember are the topics we can most likely relate to, because it is easily remembered in our minds. Serious topics are usually said to be boring in way. Humor is creative in the sense that people understand it more often than not. Creativity can be used in many different ways, but the way John Cleese decided to use it works in his favor. As a student having been assigned this video to watch, I feel it was interesting and humorous, which I feel is most memorable when learning and creative as well.