Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13

Developing conceptual frameworks for creativity,

ICT and teacher education
Avril Loveless ∗ , Jeremy Burton, Keith Turvey
Education Research Centre, University of Brighton, Falmer, Brighton BN1 9PH, UK
Received 30 October 2004; received in revised form 25 July 2005; accepted 26 July 2005

Abstract
This paper presents the first phase of a study in teacher education, which explored how a conceptual framework for creativity
with information and communication technology (ICT) might be developed and expressed in professional development for primary
education pre-service and newly qualified teachers. The Creativity and Professional Development Project (C&PD) involved 16
education ICT specialists in the final stage of their BA in an English University. They participated in the project to investigate their
classroom practice in the use of ICT to promote creativity in the making of digital video movies, and to reflect upon the development
of their pedagogy with ICT in primary classrooms. The analysis focuses on the student teachers’ experience of engaging in creative
activities to prepare, teach and evaluate a school-based project, and identified themes of their understandings and personal experience
of creativity, the contribution of ICT, and their reflections on professional development. This analysis raises the issue of designing
learning experiences, which promote and support creativity with ICT in the context of teacher learning. A conceptual framework to
describe creative practices with ICT in teacher education was developed from the study.
© 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords: Creativity; ICT; Teacher education; Primary education; Professional development

1. Introduction: creativity and the context of the study

‘Creativity’ is currently a term used often in policy and practice of Primary education in the UK. After many years
of concern about lack of creativity in the curriculum (Kimbell, 2000; NACCCE, 1999; Robinson, 2001), government
agencies engaged in consultation and policy development to include national initiatives to develop materials to promote
pupils’ creativity (QCA, 2004), and a national primary strategy, named ‘Excellence and Enjoyment’, for teaching to
improve standards in pupil attainment, measured in national testing arrangements (DfES, 2003). Creativity is therefore
now discussed as ‘a good thing’, promoting both personal expression and enhancing opportunities to engage in the
complexities of problem-solving in the economic and cultural landscape of the 21st century.
There are, however, concerns that both the definition of ‘creativity’ and the practical experience of creative processes
become simplistic, unproblematic and unable to reflect the complexities and challenges of developing creativity in
the curriculum and pedagogy. Prentice (2000) highlights the dangers of a complex and slippery concept leading to
confusions and contradictions which do not help educators to focus on the purpose and possibilities of creative processes
in the curriculum. Hartley (2003) draws attention to the ways in which government and business are attending to

∗ Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected] (A. Loveless).

1871-1871/$ – see front matter © 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tsc.2005.07.001
4 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13

creativity and emotional literacy in education, attaching them to ‘practice which remains decidedly performance-
driven, standardised and monitored’ (p. 16), and harnessing them for instrumental purposes in the knowledge and
service-based economy. Craft also acknowledges the tensions and dilemmas which creative processes can raise within
teachers’ professional practice and development, such as the culturally specific nature of creativity; the desirability
of perpetual innovation in a consumerist economy; the potential challenges to the status quo; the organization of the
curriculum; the role of the teacher and ‘professional artistry’ in a centralized pedagogy; and the tensions between
teaching for creativity, creative teaching and creative learning (Craft, 2003). In this study, the focus was particularly
on developing approaches in teacher education to prepare for teaching for creativity.
The Creativity and Professional Development Project (C&PD) was established in the School of Education in
Brighton University, supported and funded by the Teacher Training Agency for a 12 month period from March 2004.
The project had three key aims: to enable primary student teachers to investigate their classroom practice in the use of
information communication technology (ICT) to promote creativity in a range of curriculum subjects; to reflect upon
the development of their confidence and competence in pedagogy with ICT in primary classrooms in the transition
from initial teacher education (ITE) to qualified teacher status (QTS); and to share their experiences with teachers,
mentors and University tutors. Phase 1 of the project focused on the student teachers’ final semester in ITE. Phase 2
focused on their first term as newly qualified teachers (NQT) in school. This paper presents the analysis of the first
phase which was informed by work in the areas of understandings of creativity, creative practices with ICT, and teacher
learning in professional development.

2. Building on a conceptual framework

In our work with creative practitioners, teachers, children and policy makers engaged in a variety of ‘creative expe-
riences’ in projects, workshops and consultations in recent years, we have been aware of the dangers of creativity being
perceived as ‘having good ideas’ or ‘making pretty things’, rather than the challenging, and often painful or frustrating
experience that characterizes the practices of creative people—the ‘hard fun’ and the ‘flow’ (Csikszentmihalyi, 1996;
Papert, 1993). We have therefore been developing a conceptual framework which might help us to capture the more
complex understandings of creativity for individuals and communities, and inform the design of teacher education
courses.

2.1. A view of creativity

A useful theoretical framework for recognising and developing creativity can be described as an interaction between
characteristics in people and communities, creative processes, subject domains and wider social and cultural contexts
(Craft, 2000; Csikszentmihalyi, 1996). This interaction of people, processes, domains and field can be seen in a view
of creativity described by the National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education (NACCCE, 1999).
Personal and community characteristics can be expressed in approaches to using imagination, the fashioning process
and pursuing purpose. These processes also draw upon knowledge, concepts and skills within learning domains that
provide conceptual tools and ways of working in fashioning and pursuing purpose. The levels of achievement of
originality for individuals, peer groups or within the domain are evaluated within the field, whilst the judgement of
value can relate to critical reflection for the individual as well as recognition of a unique contribution to the domain
itself. Creativity can therefore be seen in the interaction between a person’s thoughts and actions as individuals and in
communities, their knowledge and skills within a domain and with mediating cultural tools, and a sociocultural context
which can encourage, evaluate and reward. This has important implications for thinking about creativity and learning,
where the learning environment might either nurture or dismiss the development of creative individuals, groups and
communities.

2.2. Creative practices with ICT

The affordances of ICT can also be part of this creative interaction as people exploit the distinctive features of
ICT that enable digital technologies to act as tools in creative processes. The uses of ICT to support and promote
creativity have been described, reviewed and theorised in a range of our work in recent years. These include developing
understandings of ICT capability in the national curriculum (Loveless, 1995); projects in primary and secondary schools
 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13 5

Fig. 1. A conceptual framework for creativity and ICT, from Loveless (2003a,b), p*.

which explored the interactions between pupils and practising artists working with digital technologies (Loveless, 1997,
1999, 2003b; Loveless & Taylor, 2000); a review of creativity, new technologies and learning (Loveless, 2002), and a
proposal for a conceptual framework for creativity and ICT through discussions of the contribution of ICT to creativity
in the primary curriculum (Loveless, 2003a, see Fig. 1).
The framework for creativity and ICT attempted to describe the interaction between three elements of creative
practices with ICT: creative processes (for example, using imagination, fashioning, pursuing purpose and evaluating
originality and value), the features of ICT (for example, provisionality, interactivity, capacity, range, speed, automatic
functions and multimodality) and ICT capability as an expression of elements of higher order thinking-finding things
out, developing ideas and making things happen, exchanging and sharing information, and reviewing, modifying and
evaluating work as it progresses, through a breadth of study. Wheeler, Waite, and Bromfield (2002) also propose a
model for creative thinking with ICT which includes dimensions of problem-solving, creative cognition and social
interaction. A development of the framework would therefore need to incorporate the social interaction within the
community of activity.

2.3. Teacher learning

Teachers learn to be teachers in situations which are relevant and authentic, and their approach to their own learning
is also important in the development of their professional knowledge. Claxton draws attention to the effect that
approaches to learning can have on learning experiences, and identifies qualities of good learners being characterized
in resourcefulness, reflection and resilience in solving problems in relationships with others (Claxton, 1999). Putnam
and Borko identify the multiple settings in which preservice and practising teachers are able to develop their professional
understanding, expertise and integration of new knowledge. They locate their work in teacher development within a view
of cognition, which is characterised by being situated in physical and social contexts, social in nature and distributed
between individuals, other persons and tools. They emphasise that the key to these different settings as providers of
learning situations is the opportunities they provide for reflection, evaluation and exploration of new ideas (Putnam &
Borko, 2000). Professional development in ICT related initiatives has tended to reflect a model of ‘re-tooling’ teachers
with skills, rather than addressing their deeper professional needs and cultures (Triggs & John, 2004; Watson, 2001).
6 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13

The starting point for this study was therefore the use of this conceptual framework of creativity, ICT and teacher
learning to inform the design of the project. The analysis of data also explored emerging themes which enabled us to
develop the framework in more depth in relation to aspects of teacher learning.

3. The conduct of the study

The study focused on the experiences of a group of 16 student teachers, all ICT specialists focused on primary
education working collaboratively in using digital technologies to support creative digital video activities in primary
schools. The funding supported two teachers and three university tutors in participating in the project, and provided
10 ‘digital media labs’ of portable ICT resources which included a laptop, digital video camera, digital camera, music
keyboards and software for image and sound editing and manipulation. The research focus underpinning the project
was to investigate and understand the conceptual framework for creativity and ICT in teacher education, and inform
the evaluation and development of the teacher education curriculum.
Phase 1 of the project took place in the final year of a 4 year degree programme leading to a BA (QTS), awarding
qualified teacher status for primary teachers. The group of 4th year BA students were primary ICT specialists who
were confident in the use of ICT and able to focus upon the issues of pedagogy and professional development. The
equipment was used to support an existing taught module ‘Professional Issues in ICT in Education’ in which students
were required to work in school to demonstrate the following: critical comment relating their theoretical understanding
to the nature of the school-based study; evidence of pedagogical understanding; awareness of the role of national and
local policies for ICT in education; and use of a range of ICT resources to support the study. The research focus of
the project and the provision of the additional ICT resources enabled the course team to teach, assess and evaluate the
module in a different way by changing the models of the timetable and assessment and embedding the activities more
clearly in school-based innovation, reflection and evaluation.
The student teachers were given 2 days to familiarise themselves with the resources by investigating what the
hardware and software could do, working in groups of four to make a mini-movie with particular constraints of
timing and shots. They were shown the key features of the DV cameras and editing software, and then given 2
hours to solve the problems posed. The following week they were asked to work with digital still cameras and
music composition software. After 2 half-days of visiting schools and planning, the groups spent 2 days working
in small groups in two primary schools—one class of 5-year-old children and one class of 10-year-old children.
Eight students worked in pairs with small groups of six or eight children each class. Each group of children made
a short digital movie after negotiating ideas for content and narrative. A further half-day was spent in viewing and
evaluating the outcomes from all the groups, and a final half-day was used as an exhibition of the groups’ work and
critical reflections. Group feedback from this exhibition informed the students’ individual presentation of their module
assignment.
Data was collected throughout the four month period from group interviews, paired use of a ‘video box’ to
discuss questions, e-mail questionnaires, observations and postings in an online discussion forum. At the begin-
ning of the project the student teachers were asked to think about, write down, draw and discuss their ideas about
creativity in their own experience and in the use of ICT. They also asked if they could discuss the questions in
pairs in front of a video camera in the ‘video box’, to help them articulate their ideas in a situation which was
less formal than an interview. As the project progressed, they gave written responses to questions in the online
community using e-mail and a discussion board. At each meeting, focused group discussions were recorded, sum-
marising and reflecting upon the issues raised to date. Video materials of both ‘work in progress’ and the final
movies from the students and the children were also collected, viewed and discussed in the groups. This variety
of data was scrutinised in order to refine the focus of questions and observations for the next stage of activities,
and identify common themes, which might be described, or challenged by the initial framework for creativity and
ICT.

4. Analysis of findings

The analysis of data collected over the first phase of the project identified themes, some of which aligned with the
initial conceptual framework, whilst others highlighted how the framework needed to be considered and developed
further. The emerging themes relating to teacher learning were grouped into three areas: initial understandings and
 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13 7

personal experience of creativity; the contribution of ICT; and reflections on professional development and teacher
learning.

4.1. Understandings and experience of creativity

The student teachers’ definitions of creativity were wide-ranging, from ‘creative’ qualities in all individuals, to a
focus on having ideas, or the making of tangible products. The contexts in which they defined creativity were not
domain-specific and not aligned with common perceptions of creativity being associated with the performing arts.
Some described creativity as ‘in all of us’ and expressing identities:

Bobby: Creativity is in all of us, I feel. Creativity is in the wider world—Brighton as a place is very creative, with
sexualities, different things going on, all the protests. Creativity is tied in with culture.
(Video Box)

Others described creativity as as embodied in made artefacts:

Lee: I think that creativity has got to be about actually making something. If you asked me initially, I think that
creativity is about producing something like a cake decoration, or craft work or a piece of art.
Toni: Lesson plans are creative. You are creating something.
(Video Box)

Others described creativity in expressing imaginative ideas:

Jo: When I think of creativity, I just think it’s having ideas. And imagination.
(Video Box)

Many discussed the experience of being engaged in activities that they thought were creative, and focused not only
on the ideas and outcomes, but also on the feelings in that engagement. They described enjoyment, enquiry, excitement
which lead to their greater involvement, and desire to follow things through. One student commented on how creativity
emerged from enjoyment and promoted the asking of questions such as “Oh, how does this work? What does this do?”.
Others discussed the experience of engagement and immersion in creative activities:

Seb: When you get really involved in it, really passionate about it, and it’s not really work, if you’re enjoying it.
Not even when you are playing, when you’re writing or something like that. When you really get into it and
you’re enjoying it and you’re not really thinking about the work.
Charlie: Like they say, ‘Flow’,
Seb: Yeah. You see it in children when they are really deep into something and excited, and they find something
out and they come and tell you, and they’ve enjoyed it.
(Video Box)

Some also commented on the difficulties of recognising creativity in themselves, defining it in others and providing
environments which promoted and encouraged creativity. They discussed the limitations in their perceptions of their
own creativity and their opportunities to be creative in their own teaching in school:

Phil: I think it’s easier recognising other people’s creativity than your own.
Viv: We’ve been brought up to have rules, regulations and structured lessons. We always have a routine, so it’s difficult
to think outside the box.
(Video box)

In response to the question ‘How do you think you have been able to engage with creative processes during the last
two sessions?’ many focused on the opportunities, and frustrations, of working in groups to develop creative ideas.
They commented on the experience of offering their ideas to the group and learning how to adjust them, rethink and
8 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13

develop new ideas through discussion. One group highlighted the word ‘compromise’ in describing this experience,
and acknowledged the difficulty of having to put aside, or compromise their personal ideas within the group activity.
All groups recognized how they had engaged with a cycle of creativity activities and processes, from developing initial
ideas, through fashioning and reworking, to presentation and evaluation.

Jan: I feel that I have been able to engage with creative processes in ways that I haven’t had the opportunity to do
before. I feel that being able to work in small groups during session one and then in pairs during session two,
allowed me to be creative with my peers. I have been able to use my imagination to develop my ideas and to be
creative with other people’s ideas. I feel that I have also seen that creativity is a process rather than simply one
activity. I have seen that there is a process from developing an idea to working with that idea and then developing
it further with the technology.
(E-mail feedback)

During the activities the groups expressed a range of emotions, from anxiety and reluctance to make mistakes at the
beginning of the activities, through enthusiasm in developing ideas, frustration and irritation when things did not go
smoothly, to the need for perseverance. An example of the affective elements of the experience noted in the observations
was laughter. Laughter featured in all the stages and one tutor commented ‘We don’t get this much laughter in our other
modules, do we?’ After an interim group ‘critique’ session, one student suggested that the project might be summarised
in a comment made by one of the children filming a shot of her friend who was clearly enjoying her role for the movie:
‘I can see her laughing’.
After the presentation of all the groups’ work, the students remarked upon their feelings of pride and achievement
in what they had done. They later observed that their own experiences of generating ideas in groups, excitement and
frustration in shooting and editing images, and enjoyment and pride in exhibiting the final movies were echoed in
the children’s experiences. They also recognised that their earlier experiences with playing and exploring with the
equipment had enabled them to support the children’s ideas in a more flexible manner.
The preparations and planning for the work with children created some degree of initial anxiety and tension in the
groups. The organisation of the visits to schools, discussion with teachers and children and integration of ideas for
DV work with the planned curriculum frameworks was challenging. One student wrote in the online discussion forum
‘I had no idea that this module was supposed to get so stressful!’. The class teachers were willing to let the projects
develop from the children’s ideas and gave the groups carte blanche to deviate from the initial curriculum planning,
but many of the students found it unsettling to be faced with open-ended learning outcomes. The class teachers were
willing to suspend ‘normal’ timetables for the 2 days of the project, but the organisation was challenging and intensive,
given the constraints of time.

4.2. The contribution of ICT

The students were asked to consider ‘How do you think the technologies have helped you, or hindered you, in being
creative in these activities?’ They highlighted the affordances of ICT to try out lots of ideas, revise and make choices.
They described how they felt that they had used their imagination and collaborated to produce a mini video story, and a
slide show story about their toys. In order to do this they had to master the use of the technology, collaborate, pool ideas,
discard ideas that did not work, edit their work and show it to their colleagues. The provisionality of the technology
enabled them to try things, then discard or edit them easily. The immediacy of seeing their work in progress, without
the constraints of limited film footage, allowed them to move on quickly to produce an acceptable product.

Chris: . . .Having said all of that, the ’technologies’ have enabled me to weave several ideas together and so—like
making a collage but without the glue! Being able to go back and change things (in most cases), is a nice way
to build up what you are doing with more confidence.
(E-mail feedback)

There were, however, frustrations with the technology when particular functions were unfamiliar, or the software
was not able to produce the effects they wanted to show. There were times when their lack of knowledge of particular
techniques felt like a hindrance to the flow of their ideas, as they had to stop to study the manual. There were other
 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13 9

times when the technology did not work as expected or the software did not seem to respond consistently. They did,
however, describe ways in which they went about solving the problems and irritations:

Chris: The technologies are only limiting when you don’t know how to do something that you know the software
is capable of! This is where collaboration with colleagues is helpful—two heads and all that. This though,
sometimes limits what the end result might have been compared to what it has become.
(E-mail feedback)

Another key constraint was the time taken to produce the desired effects with the resources, which would do justice
to their ideas. The time limits in the practical workshops and school-based work sometimes restricted how much of
their thoughts and ideas could be put into action. They described the technology as time-consuming, not necessarily
because of lack of technical familiarity, but often because they would get caught up in one aspect of the activity and
find it difficult to remember the ‘bigger picture’ and move one. Working in a group around a shared laptop and camera
was also a frustration at times:

Micky: Plus, of course, when you are in a group, everyone needs to ‘have a go’ and understand what you/they are
doing, at each stage so, in effect, can take 3/4/5, etc., times longer!
(Interview)

There was, however, agreement that the positive contribution of the ICT resources outweighed the frustrations and
enabled them to engage in a range of creative processes, from initial ideas to working with the media and presenting
work for a critical audience.

Toni: I think the technologies helped immensely as they were so easy to use-take the music for example, when I saw
and heard J’s example one I thought Oh no there is no way I’ll be able to produce something that good, but it
was so easy to use it made everyone a composer!! It was also because it was easy to use that there was little
stress and lots of reward.
(Interview)
Seb: I know that I’m creative when I’m excited by something and I’ve got to find something out. I quite like it when we
do practical ICT modules. You can really get to grips with things like different media – like images and photos –
and you have to find ways to present it to other people and you’re thinking, right, like different audiences, how
are they going to want it, what’s going to work.
(Interview)

4.3. Reflections on professional development

At the end of the four month project, the student teachers were asked to reflect upon their own learning and
professional development as they moved into the transition from achieving qualified teacher status at the end of their
course of study, to their new posts as newly qualified teachers. These reflections were captured through focused group
discussions, presentations and a section of the written assignments. The main themes identified in expressing their
learning experiences were: the challenges of working in groups; the contribution of ICT and how to develop creative
teaching for creativity in the classroom.
Although the student teachers had often worked in groups during their course, they rarely had the opportunity
to work intensively over a short period to prepare, try out and evaluate such a project in school. They particularly
appreciated the opportunity to work with other ICT specialists in this intensive mode, not only to strengthen their own
content knowledge, but also to develop their pedagogic content knowledge and pedagogic knowledge in the out-of-
classroom settings requested by the children. The focus on creativity and ICT afforded the opportunity to practise and
advance their ICT capability in a context which was more challenging than many of their previous school placements.
As well as learning to work with colleagues, they acknowledged the need for teaching strategies to support creative
and collaborative group work for the children. Despite being experienced and successful student teachers nearing the
end of their training, they recognized that they learned much by working with small groups of children. One student
expressed this progression in her professionaldevelopment:
10 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13

Lee: “When we begin our teacher training we are desperate to have a class to ourselves and get on with teaching.
However, at this final stage of my training I can see that peer collaboration enhances creativity in our teaching
and learning.”
(Written response)

It was recognised that ICT made a contribution, not only to the creative processes and outcomes of the activities
themselves, but also to a deeper understanding of pedagogy and purpose in using ICT to support learning. Observing
the children’s direct manipulation and physical engagement with the technologies, gave the students further insights
into issues of child development and design of ICT tools. The project gave the children access to technologies which
their parents use and they reported the ICT activities to be authentic – ‘like my dad does at home’ and ‘it taught us to
do things properly’ – and required active engagement in the processes of planning, filming, editing and evaluating the
DV movies. The students also observed the relationships between composition and communication, authorship and
audience. In creating the movies, the children drew upon a range of knowledge of content, narrative, visual literacy and
ICT capability, but had not necessarily explored issues of engagement and interactivity for the audience. One student
noted,

Jan: ‘What was purposeful for creators is not always so for the audience–some of the children were not as interested
in the final movie as the movie-makers.’
(Written response)

Another contribution of the technologies was described in the students’ use of the DV to record children working.
It enabled them to look back at the interactions of the pupils and observe:

Phil: ‘. . .collaboration and ‘thinking work’ going on without the teacher.’

(Written response)

A significant theme in the students’ conversations and reflections was the challenge to develop teaching strategies
to support creative activity in the classroom. Having had the opportunity to experience their own creative processes
and emotions within the taught module, they recognised the importance of being ‘given permission’ to try things out
in open-ended activities. This enabled them to see the potential of ‘play as a starting point’, as two student partners
described their approach to helping the children to engage with the technologies and ideas for their movie. They were
also able to understand the need for compromise and improvisation in responding to the children’s ideas and working
out how they might be realised in a realistic manner with the tools available.
The students expressed their growing understanding of the role of the teacher in supporting creative activity. They
were initially concerned that they did not wish to provide too much guidance, which might ‘stifle’ the children’s ideas,
but later realised that they were able to offer a ‘safe space’ for the children to experiment, by modelling the creative
processes themselves. By engaging in discussion and interaction, sharing ideas, solving problems with the children,
and being seen to ‘figure out’ some of the technical challenges, they were able to reassure the children that the student
teachers knew enough to be helpful, but not so much that they dominated the development of ideas. One student
recalled,

Toni: “. . .it was a balancing act of modeling and sharing ideas without directing too much. . .. Modeling creativity
can be hugely beneficial as it enables the children to see how it is done.”
(Group discussion)

Two concerns that the group did not feel had been resolved through their experience were the authenticity of a
short-term ‘one-off’ intervention by visitors as a model for teaching for creativity, and the nature of assessment. They
recognised that they had been given the opportunity to play, plan, do, evaluate, reflect and revisit their own creative
activities in working together and making digital videos over a period of four months. This contrasted with the time
constraints of visiting the schools for an intensive period of days in which the children worked hard and worked well,
but with little time for consolidation and review. One student remarked that perhaps they had tried to do too much
 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13 11

with too many in too little time. There was also a challenge to think more carefully about the assessment of processes,
progress and critical evaluation. Another student commented,

Toni: “Written work is privileged in the current educational system. Assessing the final piece wouldn’t have taken into
account the creative journey that each child had undergone with the group to produce the end product.”
(Group discussion)

The reflections of three members of the group summarise much of the discussion about what they felt they had
learned from the experience of the project:

Chris: “. . .the challenges of democracy, flexibility, problem-solving skills, trial and error approaches. . .. The many
‘what ifs’ enabled the children to adapt an original and purposeful project, across domains, which gave a huge
amount of satisfaction, whilst offering pupils the opportunity to evaluate what they had achieved and so judging
value. ICT skills were developed by learning to use new equipment and software; in editing and creating a
sequential story that was able to be produced out of sequence (thus allowing for new ideas and after-thoughts)
and in camera angle, perspective and design.”
(Written response)
Phil: “Prior to the project I saw myself as an uncreative person and I felt apprehensive about the project. Being
able to discuss and share ideas with each other built my confidence and allowed me to see that I am a creative
person.”
(Written response)
Nita: “Through recording ourselves during this project, working with other ICT specialists, being able to work with
groups of children and reflecting critically on what happened has enabled professional development to take
place.”
(Written response)

5. Discussion

It would be easy to present the outcomes of this first phase of the C&PD project as a ‘victory narrative’ of another
successful example of the creative use of ICT with young children. The student teachers were able to engage with,
and reflect upon, creative processes in order to prepare and support similar creative activities for the children. The
experiences were shared and enjoyable and offered activities which were considered to be worthwhile, both in the
application required to learn new techniques and ways of working, and in the pleasure gained by engaging in the
processes from beginning to end. The analysis of Phase 1 of the project indicated that the interactive model of creativity
was useful in designing and describing the development of creative practices with ICT, which exploited the features
of the technology and supported an authentic ICT capability.
In the experience of the student teachers undertaking the module and participating in the project, there was evidence
of imaginative engagement with ideas, collaborative work, focused and purposeful fashioning activity, evaluative
critique and encouragement to persevere with unfamiliar equipment, new ICT skills, and different approaches to
planning learning experiences for children. The ICT resources were used to develop and communicate ideas, drawing
upon distinctive features and affordances. In some ways, the project is conceptually similar to many other creative
intervention projects in and out of school settings.
One of the contributions of this study, however, is the focus on the student teachers’ reflective commentaries on
their understandings and experiences of creativity, the contribution of ICT and their professional development. The
early conceptual framework that was used to inform design the teaching of the module and the wider project has been
developed by our placing it within the particular context of teacher learning (see Fig. 2).
It is important to consider the questions raised by some of the comments about and tensions in the experiences, as
these provide some indications of the challenges to teacher education. The creative approaches adopted included play,
problem-solving, group work, planning, preparation and the teaching strategies needed to facilitate the activities. It is,
however, in these aspects of the project that we needed to return to our initial description of creativity as an interaction
between characteristics in people and communities, creative processes, subject domains and wider social and cultural
contexts. We needed to pay attention to the learning approaches of the people, their engagement in communities in
12 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13

Fig. 2. A revised conceptual framework for creativity, ICT and teacher learning.

which creativity can flourish or be stifled, and their understandings of some of the contradictions in the wider social
and cultural context, in order to address some of the issues raised for teacher education.
The learning approaches of the individual student teachers played an important role in their capability to deal with
the challenges of play, problem-solving and perseverance, and the variety of emotions experienced through the process.
They also had to draw upon their skills in relating to each other and negotiating, compromising and improvising within
the working groups. The student teachers in this study expressed their initial anxieties in being ‘given permission’
to work in open-ended activities which seemed to contradict their previous experience of more prescribed planning
for specific outcomes. Through this project experience, however, they recognised the importance of careful planning
and analytical evaluation to support improvisation. Teacher education courses – initial teacher training and continuing
professional development – highlight current thinking and research in such areas as approaches to learning, multiple
intelligences and group work. Yet designing opportunities for student teachers to experience, model and evaluate these
in their practice is a challenge in the context of a schooling and teacher training system characterised by centralised
pedagogy, monitoring and inspection, and aspirations focused on standards of achievement in a limited range of
‘measures’.
A challenge for teacher education is to model professional development which acknowledges and addresses the
concerns and contradictions of promoting creativity in schools using ICT. It is not sufficient to present a utopian
view of ICT transforming education for creativity in the ‘Knowledge Society’ without recognising the constraints of
curriculum, assessment and prescribed pedagogy. Neither is it helpful to be discouraged by a dystopian view in which
both creativity and ICT are appropriated to sweeten the pill whilst perpetuating the status quo. A more promising
way forward may be to adopt a more ecological approach that encompasses people, practices, values and technologies
interacting within particular local environments in which the spotlight is on the human activities, which are served by
the technologies, rather than the technologies themselves (Holloway & Valentine, 2003; Nardi & O’Day, 1999).
A conceptual framework for creativity and ICT must describe not only the interaction in the activities themselves,
but also the interactions between the activities and the wider contexts of policy and practice as they affect people and
communities. By engaging in creative practices within the C&PD project, the student teachers experienced tensions
and resolutions that helped them to ‘read the world’ in which they were acting in a more informed and interrogative
manner.
The current ‘climate’ in English Primary schools is favourable for creativity, but it will require critical analysis,
courage and chutzpah to push at the crack in the door in order to promote substantial creative experiences. We need to
acknowledge that being creative is ‘hard fun’ and will require sustained support in recognizing learners’ and teachers’
imaginative ideas, application and confidence to evaluate and develop their work.
 A. Loveless et al. / Thinking Skills and Creativity 1 (2006) 3–13 13

Acknowledgement

The Creativity and Professional Development Project is supported by the Teacher Training Agency.

References

Claxton, G. (1999). Wise up. London: Bloomsbury.

Craft, A. (2000). Creativity across the primary curriculum: Framing and developing practice. London: Routledge.
Craft, A. (2003). Limits to creativity in education: Dilemmas for the educator. British Journal of Educational Studies, 51(2), 113–127.
Csikszentmihalyi, M. (1996). Creativity: Flow and the psychology of discovery and invention. New York: HarperCollins.
DfES. (2003). Excellence and enjoyment. Retrieved 3rd May 2004, 2004. from http://www.dfes.gov.uk/primarydocument.
Hartley, D. (2003). The instrumentalisation of the expressive in education. British Journal of Educational Studies, 51(1), 6–19.
Holloway, S. L., & Valentine, G. (2003). Cyberkids: Children in the information age. London: RoutledgeFalmer.
Kimbell, R. (2000). Creativity in crisis. The Journal of Design and Technology Education, 5(3), 206–211.
Loveless, A. (1995). The role of IT: Practical issues for primary teachers. London: Continuum.
Loveless, A. (1997). Visual literacy and new technology in primary schools: The glebe school project. Journal of Computing and Childhood
Education, 8(2/3), 98–110.
Loveless, A. (1999). A digital big breakfast: The glebe school project. In J. Sefton-Green (Ed.), Young people, creativity and new technology: The
challenge of digital arts. London: Routledge.
Loveless, A. (2002). A literature review in creativity, new technologies and learning: A report for NESTA Futurelab. Bristol: NESTA Futurelab.
Available On-line http://www.nestafuturelab.org.uk.
Loveless, A. (2003a). Creating spaces in the primary curriculum: ICT in creative subjects. The Curriculum Journal, 14(1), 5–21.
Loveless, A. (2003b). Making a difference? An evaluation of professional knowledge and pedagogy in art and ICT. The International Journal of
Art and Design Education, 22(2), 145–154.
Loveless, A., & Taylor, T. (2000). Creativity, visual literacy & ICT. In M. Leask & J. Meadows (Eds.), Teaching and learning with ICT in the primary
school (pp. 65–80). London: Routledge.
NACCCE. (1999). All our futures: Creativity, culture and education. Sudbury: National Advisory Committee on Creative and Cultural Education:
DfEE and DCMS.
Nardi, B. A., & O’Day, V. L. (1999). Information ecologies: Using technology with heart. London, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Papert, S. (1993). The children’s machine: Rethinking school in the age of the computer. New York, London, Toronto, Sydney, Tokyo & Singapore:
Harvester Wheatsheat.
Prentice, R. (2000). Creativity: A reaffirmation of its place in early childhood education. The Curriculum Journal, 11(2), 145–156.
Putnam, R. T., & Borko, H. (2000). What do new views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning? Educational
Researcher, 29(1), 4–15.
QCA. (2004). Creativity: Find it, promote it. Retrieved 22nd January 2005, 2005. from http://www.ncaction.org.uk/creativity.
Robinson, K. (2001). Out of our minds: Learning to be creative. Chichester: Capstone Publishing Ltd.
Triggs, P., & John, P. (2004). From transaction to transformation: ICT, professional development and the formation of communities of practice.
Journal of Computer Assisted Learning.
Watson, G. (2001). Models of information technology teacher professional development that engage with teachers’ hearts and minds. Journal of
Information Technology for Teacher Education, 10(1 & 2), 179–190.
Wheeler, S., Waite, S., & Bromfield, C. (2002). Promoting creativity through the use of ICT. Journal of Computer Assisted Learning, 18(3), 367–378.