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Creativity Should Precede Technique
By Rick Nigol
 Our daughter wants to be an
animator. She will be going to university or college next year and
has been checking out various computer animation and digital media
programs. Interestingly, none of these programs really care about
the applicant's computer programming skills. They are looking for
talented and creative artists. They will help them hone these skills
and then teach them how to channel them appropriately in a digital
environment. In fact, we heard from some that students will be free
hand drawing and doing story boards for a long while before they
ever touch a computer.
What's this got to do with eLearning you
ask?
I think eLearning professionals can learn from
the approach used in the animation industry. As I have written many
times in
the past, I think the eLearning industry places far too much
confidence in technology (e.g. authoring tools, learning management
systems, content management systems, learning objects, etc.), and
not enough on the human ingenuity and creativity required to make
these tools sing.
As part of her research, our daughter checked out
the Pixar site, her holy grail of possible future employers. They
have a very interesting FAQ section for budding animators. Many of
the things they say they are looking for in their animators are the
things we should be looking for in those who design and develop
eLearning. Here are some snippets from the Pixar site, followed by my take on
how these principles apply to an eLearning context.
Pixar: "Pixar places the
technology of computer graphics firmly at the service of the art of
animation, not the other way around."
eLearning
Context: "We should place computer software firmly at the
service of the art of learning, not the other way around."
Pixar: "What Pixar looks for
first and foremost in animators (is that) we want you to be able to
bring the character to life, independent of
medium."
eLearning Context: "What we look for
first and foremost in eLearning designers (is that) we want you to
be able to bring the learning to life, independent of medium."
Pixar: "A common question is,
"What software should I learn?" The answer is....software doesn't
matter; learning to animate matters."
eLearning
Context: "A common question is, "What authoring tool or
learning management system should I learn?" The answer
is....software doesn't matter; animating learning matters."
Pixar: "Realize that whizzy
technology is not great art."
eLearning Context: "Realize that whizzy technology does not, in itself, create a great
learning environment."
Pixar: "Computers don't animate.
People do."
eLearning Context: "Computers don't
teach / educate / train / engage / enlighten. People do."
In the animation process, it is only AFTER the
creative effort of animators working up characters and a strong
story line is completed, that the idea for the movie, TV show, game
is passed on to technical directors whose job it is to make this
vision a realty. In much the same way, eLearning programmers and
technicians should only start their work after an eLearning designer
has constructed the creative vision for the learning
experience.
Animators ensure that that the characters they
create are interesting and that their story lines are compelling.
Likewise, eLearning designers should ensure that the learning
environments they envision are based on principles of active
learning, interactivity,
realistic stories,
and are in the proper
context for the targeted learners.
Technology doesn't magically create engaging
animated stories out of a vacuum. Nor can it magically create
engaging eLearning environments. Both processes require the
intervention of creative human beings who understand the end goal
and bend the technology to their will (not the other way
around).
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