The 16th International Scientific Conference  

eLearning and Software for Education  

Bucharest, April 23-24, 2020  

10.12753/2066-026X-20-170  

WHY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES BOOST CREATIVITY

Augustin SEMENESCU, Vincentiu Daniel ANTONESCU, Ionut Cosmin CHIVA, University POLTEHNICA of Bucharest, 313 Splaiul Independentei St., Bucharest, Romania,  

augustin.semenescu@upb.ro, vincentiu.antonescu@gmail.com, cosmin373@yahoo.com

Abstract: The use of digital technologies in education has been advocated by many researchers  (Aldrich, 2004; Quinn, 2005). These as well as the Higher Education Institutions' Educators strongly  encourage the adoption of information technology for teaching and learning. Educators continually  improve their practice by learning from and with others and exploring proven and promising practices  that leverage technology to improve student learning. Educators are using the technology to create,  adapt and personalize learning experiences that foster independent learning and accommodate learner  differences and needs. This article presents a variety of ways in which digital technology can enhance  innovation by facilitating the necessary conditions for the development of students' creative ideas and  the implementation of these ideas in current activities. According to Kampylis and Berki (2014, p. 6):  'Creative thinking is defined as the thinking that enables students to apply their imagination to  generating ideas, questions and hypotheses, experimenting with alternatives and to evaluating their  own and their peers' ideas, final products and processes'. Creativity is an active process necessarily  involved in innovation. It is a learning habit that requires skills as well as specific understanding of the  contexts in which creativity is being applied. The creative process is at the heart of innovation. We  describe - in the first part- conditions necessary to generate and implement creative ideas. Also, we  examine - in the second part - how digital technology influences each of these conditions, , the most  memorable way to get people into an innovation. The paper is based on a literature survey and author  research  

Keywords: Implementation, Innovation, Educational technology, Creativity  

I. INTRODUCTION

The present moment is marked by sustained efforts towards the development of the  "knowledge-based society", as a process that ensures the achievement of the objectives of increasing  economic competitiveness, social welfare, cultural integration, professionalism and quality in terms of  products and services. The knowledge society implies:  

- expanding and deepening the scientific knowledge and the truth about existence;  - use and management of existing knowledge in the form of technological and organizational  knowledge;  

- the production of new technological knowledge through innovation;  

- unprecedented dissemination of knowledge to all citizens through new means, using the  Internet, e-book and electronic means (elearning) as a priority.  

The use of new information and communication technologies is one of the main key  competences affirmed by the European Commission, and ICT is found in all areas of social and  professional life, the development of specific ICT skills being a necessary condition for the  individual's integration into the labor market and society.  

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Today, due to both the technological, cultural, social context, and to the focus of educational  activities on the development of skills for the 21st century (communication, civics, cooperation,  learning to learn, use of new technologies, etc.), in the education and training systems there is a shift  of emphasis from basic skills training to developing key competencies - a set of knowledge, skills and  attitudes needed for access to the labor market, personal development and lifelong learning.  

Learning consultant Marc Prensky [13] stated in 2001 that "Our students have changed  radically. Today's students are no longer the people our educational system was designed to teach. ”  He also returns in 2011 with another statement in which he estimates that the life of the circle of a  representative person, newly hired today in the field of work, aged 21, included, on average, 5,000  hours of video games, the exchange of 250,000 e-mails, instant messages and text messages, 10,000  hours of cell phone usage to which 3,500 hours of time spent online can be added."

Currently, students are subjected to many external stimuli. The continuous emergence of new  technologies must also determine the teaching staff / trainers to introduce these new technologies into  the didactic activity in order to motivate and to attract the students in the teaching-learning-evaluation  activities.  

At present, there are five realities that we have to deal with, regarding this new generation of  young students:  

- they have extensive technological knowledge, but this does not necessarily make them media  connoisseurs.  

- they are content creators, which outlines their notions about property and privacy.  - they can perform multiple tasks, being often in a state of "continuous partial attention",  which means that the border between work and free time is quite permeable.  

- they play video games, which gives them different expectations on how to learn, work and  pursue a career.  

- they very quickly label certain events, products and people, which leads to a very clear and  vehement opinion.  

 The existence of these realities indicates that many didactic activities will be disrupted by the  intervention of mobile phones and mobile learning (mLearning), whether or not this is provided for in  the official plans of the trainers. With the rapid development of personal computers in the twentieth  century and the explosion of mobile phone use in the last 10-15 years, we began to see a change from  the classroom model of training with an instructor in front of the class, to a diverse mix of approaches  to learning from many different backgrounds. The introduction of a wide variety of new learning  technologies has had an impact on the training methods. Teaching staff need to adapt on the go, to be  dynamic, modifying the teaching strategy according to the new technologies that appear and that are  suitable for the activity being taught, so that they succeed in motivating the current students to be  active in the classrooms.  

Figure 1. Cloud for better understanding the modern training methods

Times have changed. We live in a dynamic time, when nothing is more popular than mobility.  The more, the more diverse. If you are being mobile, you will have only benefits. If you are not, try to  become mobile as fast as possible: the world is not waiting for you ...

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II. DEVELOPMENT OF A STIMULATING LEARNING ENVIRONMENT  

The modernization of the teaching process regarding the organizational climate, the secure  environment for the active involvement of the students, the educational relations, the complex  educational communication, the teaching-learning-evaluation methods, the use of modern means of  training and self-instruction, the emphasis of the practical-applicative character of the seminars and the  modernization of the forms and instruments of didactic evaluation / self-evaluation reprezent a  priority.  

At the same time, in education, in the last years, wellbeing has become an important  component at least in the vision of those responsible for the quality of education and the life of the  beneficiaries of education.  

Studies show that the professors’ well-being has a significant impact not only on the learners'  outcomes, but also on the students' own social and emotional well-being, creating a pozitive learning  environment, which leads to the improvement of the quality of relationships between the professsors  and the trainees.  

The support of the teaching staff for the development of an environment conducive to the  educational process within the institutional structures of the UPB is a priority in the general strategy. From the perspective of organizing the teaching activity, the specialized literature indicates 4  ways of organizing the classroom according to the number and integrated teaching tasks:  „Frontal Pedagogies are teacher-centred. The lecturer situated at the front elaborates on a  subject, shows a presentation on the screen or chalks a formula on the board. The expert explains and  elaborates about a topic, and the students take home individual work or group assignments. Active  learning components are gradually being brought into these practices, such as direct interaction with a  feedback tool.  

Mixed Pedagogies are student-centred. Students follow classes with alternating practices, such  as a frontal introduction and subsequently working in student groups on assignments. The teacher and  assistants walk around to help where needed.  

Meet & Collaborate focus on team work and group assignments. Students have to apply their  knowledge in projects and learn to communicate, collaborate and cooperate in teams while they are  coached by the instructor.  

(Digital) Exams are the testing situations where students demonstrate what they have learned.  Digital exams on computers bridge the online practices of tomorrow and digital exam halls can also be  used for computer practical.” [ 14].  

Thus, it is up to the professor/teacher to choose a form of organization according to the  facilities of the classroom / computer lab, thus leading to the creation of a favourable environment for  the creative act, for a stimulating learning environment.  

Besides adapting the learning environment, the professor must also adapt the content to the  needs of the new generations. The 21st century generation manifests itself differently as this  generation has grown within the digital environment. The adolescent, pupil and student of the 21st  century are connected and multifunctional, autonomous. They are learning a thousand new things just  by accessing the Internet. Download and upload files, browse and chat online, publish and create. In  education, they force the change of the pedagogical model, from an approach based on training and  centered on the teacher to one oriented to the learner and based on collaboration.  

What are the motivational factors of this generation [4]?

- They want freedom in everything they do!  

Technology is the tool to bypass the common social constraints as well as the tool for the  search for freedom, to build one's own path and to express oneself.  

- They want to individualize, to personalize.  

Today's technology allows to adapt the interfaces of the applications according to the wishes  of each individual, giving them the possibility to change them. Internet users not only surf the Internet  but also create it by adding online content  

- Fun / playfulnessneed to be the components of work, school and social life.  

The games have led to an innovative type of thinking. From these games the students know  that there are always many ways in which you can complete a task.  

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- They want speed!  

Asynchronous communication (e.g. chat) is outdated. Synchronous, real-time discussions  (such as whatsapp) with a global contact database have made communication with friends, colleagues  and superiors faster than ever. Technology influences the way people who use the computer think and  behave in their daily work.  

Knowledge is more accessible than ever due to the Internet, but the true potential of the  latter is only just beginning to be noticed. The new technologies will increase the degree of sensitivity  and reception of new information, will increase stimulation, imagination, enthusiasm, will lead to  another level of professor/teacher-student relations, will increase the level of involvement in the  collective activities of students, will make the educational process more efficient.

In this context, professors present knowledge, skills and work processes representative of an  innovative professional in a globalized digital society. At the same time, teachers in order to create an  attractive learning environment need to collaborate with students, colleagues, parents, as well as  community members using digital tools and resources to support student success and innovation;  

And most importantly, the professor models and facilitates the effective use of current and  emerging digital tools to locate, analyze, evaluate and use information resources to support research  and learning.

Figure 2. The cloud of „Start transforming your classroom today!”  

III. THE INTEGRATION OF NEW TECHNOLOGIES  

In today's society, there is an acute need to restructure the educational system, which implies  first of all the adaptation of the educational process to the economic, social and political changes but  also the assimilation of the new information technologies. Just as students should use technology to  improve the learning process, increase productivity, and develop creativity, professors should use  technology to support their instructional practices. The use of new technologies is part of the 21st  Century Skills competences, along with communication, critical thinking, problem solving and  collaboration.  

From this point of view, teachers should explore the latest trends such as:  

- Gamification - the practice of applying the elements and rules of the game in a (teaching)  activity. Examples of such elements are goals, badges, competition, immediate feedback and difficulty  levels.  

- Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) - also known as "Bring Your Own Technology" (BYOT),  is an initiative in which students bring their own mobile devices to the spaces in which they are  learning. This is often seen as an alternative to 1: 1 programs due to low maintenance costs, although  students without devices cannot attend.  

- Webinar - an online seminar or workshop in which the facilitator and participants view the  same screen at the same time. Usually, the webinar has an audio component that the facilitator controls  and a feature that allows participants to discuss by entering text, responding to polls and asking  questions.  

- Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) - an online course that includes video lectures,  reading materials, problem sets and a large community of students.  

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- Open Educational Resources (OER / RED) - any online educational material that is freely  accessible and openly authorized for public use. Such materials can be online courses, lectures, topics,  exercises, questionnaires, interactive simulations, games, etc.  

Professors/teachers should use their knowledge in the field for teaching and learning, as well as  technology in order to facilitate the evolution in the learning process of students, creativity and  innovation, both face-to-face and in virtual environments.  

In view of the expertise of the authors of the latest years, we present some of the tools /  technologies used in the course / seminars / project activities with a focus on students that:  - promotes, supports and models creative and innovative thinking and inventiveness.  - involves students in exploring real-world problems and solving authentic problems using  digital tools and resources.  

- promotes student reflections, using helpful tools to discover and clarify the level of  conceptual understanding and thinking, student planning and creative processes.  - model the collaborative construction of knowledge by engaging in the learning process with  students, colleagues and others, both face-to-face and in virtual environments  

Figure 3. Mind map: Formal Learning-Informal Learning  

Table 1. Applications used by UPB teachers and students  

Learning Platform:  

Moodle(https://curs.pub.ro),  

Microsoft Teams(https://teams.microsoft.com/)  

Classroom (https://classroom.google.com 

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Quizzes & Surveys  

https://docs.google.com/forms 

https://forms.office.com/ 

https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/ 

https://quizizz.com/ 

https://quizlet.com/ 

Presentations & Documents&Video/Animation  

https://www.office.com/ 

https://drive.google.com/ 

https://prezi.com/  

https://nearpod.com  

https://www.emaze.com/ 

https://www.powtoon.com/  

https://www.moovly.com/ 

https://move.vyond.com/  

https://hihaho.com/  

https://animoto.com/ 

https://slidedog.com/ 

Resource development  

Canva(https://www.canva.com/)  

Snagit (techsmith.com/snagit.html)  

Audacity (https://www.audacityteam.org/)  

Sway- Office(https://www.office.com/) 

Pixabay (https://pixabay.com/)  

SoundCloud (https://soundcloud.com/)  

Genially (https://genial.ly/)  

Screencast-O-Matic  

(https://screencast-o-matic.com/)  

Piktochart (https://piktochart.com/)  

Adobe -Suite (https://www.adobe.com/) 

Web/blogs  

Google Sites(https://sites.google.com/)

Joomla (https://www.joomla.org/)  

WordPress (https://ro.wordpress.com/)

Browsers  

Google Search

Web Resources  

TED (https://www.ted.com/)  

YouTube(https://www.youtube.com/)  

Vimeo (https://vimeo.com/)  

Wikipedia(https://en.wikipedia.org/)  

Coursera (https://www.coursera.org/)  

Edx (https://www.edx.org/)

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File Sharing  

WeTransfer (https://wetransfer.com/) OneDrive(https://onedrive.live.com/) Dropbox (https://www.dropbox.com/) Google Drive(https://drive.google.com/)

Email  

mail.upb.ro  

https://mail.google.com/ 

https://mail.yahoo.com/ 

https://outlook.live.com/  

Chat, discussion&video meeting  

Microsoft Teams(https://teams.microsoft.com/)  Skype(https://www.skype.com/ )  

Zoom (https://zoom.us/)  

Cisco Webex (https://www.webex.com/)  Google Hangout or Meet  

(https://hangouts.google.com/ sau  

https://meet.google.com/)  

Loom (https://www.loom.com/)  

BigBlueButton (https://bigbluebutton.org/)  WhatsApp (https://www.whatsapp.com/) 

Colaboration  

Padlet (https://ro.padlet.com/)  

Slack (https://slack.com/)  

Microsoft Teams(https://teams.microsoft.com/)  si SharePoint  

Trello (https://trello.com/)  

Google Drive(https://drive.google.com/) si  Jamboard https://jamboard.google.com/ 

Using these tools professors can plan or adapt relevant learning experiences that contain digital  tools and resources to promote student learning and creativity. At the same time, they can develop  technology-based learning environments that allow all students to pursue their curiosity and become  active participants in setting their own educational goals, managing their own learning process, and  evaluating their own progress. And last but not least, teachers can customize learning activities to  address students' various learning styles, work strategies, and skills using digital tools and resources.  Thus, teachers offer multiple and varied training and summative assessments harmonized with content  types and technological standards and use the resulting data to help with learning and teaching.  

IV. CONCLUSIONS

This pedagogical approach assumes that learners need to be change agents and promoters rather  than waiting for directions from the teachers who instruct them on what they should study. The  teaching staff who train them, if necessary, become guides and facilitators, providing support to those  

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who learn to reach new levels of knowledge. Learning has become a "do-it-yourself" (DIY), "just in  time" (JIT) exploration of several sources, giving rise to knowledge for a particular purpose or interest.  Professors/teachers - if they use new technologies - can plan, develop and evaluate authentic  learning experiences and assessment that incorporate contemporary tools and resources designed to  maximize contextual learning and knowledge development!  

„However, we must not lose sight of the fact that for both traditional lessons and in the case of  teaching with technology, the teachers have key factors in designing meaningful and purposefully  oriented learning activities."[11].  

Reference Text and Citations  

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[3] Cairneagle Associates, "MOOCs: Opportunities for their use in compulsory-age education," Cairneagle Associates,  UK, 2014.  

[4] T.D. Chicioreanu, mLearning, editura Printech, ISBN 978-606-23-0326-6, 2014  

[5] E. F. Díaz, C. R. Hoyos and A. C. Salvador, "The Pedagogic Architecture of MOOC: A Research Project on  Educational Courses in Spanish," International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, vol. 18, no.  6, pp. 18-35, 2017.  

[6] R. Herschbach , "Technology as Knowledge: Implications for Instruction," Journal of Technology Education, vol.  7, no. 1, pp. 31-42, 1995.  

[7] M.G Ianoș, "Online feedback in learning. Students’ perceptions”, The 13th International Scientific Conference  eLearning and Software for Education, Bucharest, ROMANIA, ISSN CD 2343 – 7669, April 27th-28th, 2017  [8] I.G. Jaurena, J. Callejo and Y. Agud, "Evaluation of the UNED MOOCs Implementation: Demographics, Learners'  Opinions and Completion Rates," International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning, vol. 18, no.  7, pp. 141-168, 2017.  

[9] R. L. Konsbruck, "Impacts of Information Technology on Society in the New Century,"  www.zurich.ibm.com/pdf/news/Konsbruck.pdf, Switzerland, 2009.  

[10] J. Li, "Construction of Modern Educational Technology MOOC," International Journal of Emerging Technologies  in Learning, vol. 12, no. 9, pp. 105-116, 2017.  

[11] L.Manasia, A. Pârvan, M.G. Ianoș, “Memories from the future. Is digital intelligence what matters in the  forthcoming society?”, The 10th International Conference on Education and New Learning Technologies, Palma,  Spain, , pp. 7899-7906, ISBN: 978-84-09-02709-5, 2nd-4th of July, 2018  

[12] H. L. Mencken, "Chapter 1. The meaning of progress," in On progress: its reality, desirability and destiny, Thomas  Gale Moore, 1994, pp. 1-24.  

[13] M. Prensky, „Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants“ in On the Horizon ,MCB University Press, Vol. 9 No. 5,  October 2001  

[14] P. Zanden and I Loon, "Cookbook Education Spaces” in Taskforce Education Spaces, [Online]. Available:  http://homepage.tudelft.nl/9c41c/Cookbook_Education_Spaces_v2_0.pdf, 2018  

[15] Q. Wang, B. Chen, Y. Fan and G. Zhang, "MOOCs as an Alternative for Teacher Professional Development.  Examining Learner Persistence in One Chinese MOOC," Foundation for Information Technology Education and  Development, Inc. (FIT-ED), Quezon City, Philippines, 2018.  

[16] "www.aging.com," [Online]. Available: https://www.aging.com/what-is-modern-technology-and-how-is-it changing/.  

[17] "www.collinsdictionary.com," [Online]. Available: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/dictionary/english/modern technology.  

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