Creativity Brain Training Games

Join us on a global game of Tic Tac Toe.  Ok, it's not really Tic Tac Toe but the aim is to get 3 in a row, and did we mention it's on a global scale?  We are fortunate to live in a world where we are provided with some phenomenal tools, and more imortantly, they are largely free.  I also believe we are only just scratching the surface of what we can do with them.  This challenge is just a bit of fun but remember, games are often inspiration for bigger things.  Let's dive in and get started.

Our world has a reasonable level of redundancy built into it.  In fact, it has a lot of redundancy built in.  This is actually a good thing as it gives us a great deal of flexibility.  Predominantly it meaans that sinple mistakes will not hinder us but it also means we can tweak things to better suit us while still getting the intended outcomes.  Creativity is largely possible due to this redundency though it's something we rarely appreciate.

This week we're scaling.

Game:  There are 3 random words below.  Place them in the following sentence and finish the sentence off.

On a scale of __1__ to __2__ this __3__ is a ...

• moss
• thistle
• vinegar

They say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  Well what if several pictures were worth a single word and involved a barrel of creative thinking?  That's what this weeks challenge seeks to do and it is a great way to explore your creativity.  The thing about pictures is that there are many words you could use to describe them and we are going to use that to our advantage this week in a game that will really get you thinking. So let's dive in and play Hasty Hieroglyphs.

This weeks post applies predominantly to education but is actually applicable in many areas.  So even if you're not an educator it should still be some food for thought.  The modern world is increasingly obsessed with assessment.  There is a firm desire to increase the level of education of students and it is largely seen that we need to measure every aspect of their ability, to create a detailed picture of what works, what doesn't and where our students are at, such that we may then know what to change to make it better.

This week we're intertwining.

Game:  There are 3 random words below.  Explain how one of them effects another one, which in turn effects the third random word which in turn has some effect on the first word you picked.

• staple
• passport
• octopus

Confirmation bias is something we all suffer to some extent.  Confirmation bias is when we seek evidence, or specifically remember evidence or interpret evidence in a certain way to suit our current point of view.  Anything that disagrees with our point of view, we decide to ignore or discredit or try really hard not to see.  It is a normal human trait and there are valid reasons why we do it but it is detrimental to our creative thinking.  It is those very points of view that we seek to hide oureslves from which most often hold the best creative opportunities.

I like my watch.  It doesn't have many features except for telling the time and the fact that it glows in the dark, and stuff that glows in the dark is always funky.  I wouldn't change it for a digital watch at all.  We live in a world that is increasingly becoming digital.  Now this offers a multitude of benefits, most of them quite obvious.  It also has some hidden disadvantages.  Creativity is something that indirectly suffers from this constant push to implement everything in digital. 

This week we're philosophising.

Game:  There are 3 random words below.  Put them in any order you like then explain what this order says about life in general or a certain aspect of life.

• cemetary
• porch
• summit

Flipping a coin should be a fairly random exercise.  Once the coin is up in the air and you have given it a resonable flick, the rest is up to chance.  Chance is great for creativity.  When we don't know what's going to happen it enhances the adventure.  But what if we could control that which is seemingly uncontrollable?  What if it seemed random purely because we did not fully understand the behaviour of a flipped coin?  Creativity is also often about discovering that which before seemed but a mystery to us.

There has been a lot of debate recently around the Apple V Samsung court case and its outcome.  I won't go into the details of it here,  you can easily find about it on other sites.  What I believe this case shows, and what most people are missing, is the difference between features and implementation.  Implementation is the valuable part here but is largely missed as it is the intangible.  So lets dive in and take a look.