Children and young people today are accessing and engaging with digital technology more frequently and from ever younger ages, spending more time in digital spaces than ever before, using a range of mobile apps, social media platforms, connected devices and online games. While digital devices and social media channels can be seen as a distraction in the development of learners’ creative thinking skills, today’s economies and job characteristics demand more employees to be creative and to fully utilise digital technologies (WEF).
The rapid pace and advancement of digital tools often moves more quickly than educational pedagogies which results in schools being unable to access and realise the potential of digital technologies. While not dismissing any negative outcomes to digital, recent research (UNICEF 2024) highlights the potential experiences or features in digital games that can contribute positively to children’s creativity and well-being, allowing them to experience a sense of agency, feelings of achievement, imagine different possibilities, create original ideas, construct and empowering creative expression.
'Children can imagine different possibilities, act on original ideas, make things, and explore, construct and express facets of themselves and others.’ (UNICEF, 2024)
Lots of great work has been done from Sir Ian Livingstone’s NexGen report which introduced Computer Science into the National Curriculum, to UKIE: Prepare young minds for the workplace of the future through the introduction of a Digital Creativity GCSE to better develop digital skills.
So how can we build on this great work to take it to the next stage. How can digital become more engaging when you fuse it with creativity.
Can creativity give humans the edge over machines? Ensure that we are working with rapid advancements like AI.
Being more playful and a renewed push on the importance of learning through play (The Play Commission).