Dealing with The Daily Create

This week I was introduced to a very interesting site that was created to share an awesome concept with the world: daily creation.  From what I can tell, the original premise was for The Daily Create to be almost like a class for people to follow along with and participate in, but it also allows for people to freely start and stop as they need and like.  It was meant to be free and open to public participation, so many people seem to use it as more of a challenge or goal to achieve.

The biggest function that draws people in is how it necessitates a variation in the use of technology in order to achieve each daily create goal.  Therefore, many of the people I know of who have participated use it to either increase their familiarity with the different modalities of technology or improve their preexisting skills.  Some people have even instituted themes in their daily create challenges such as a “Getting to Know Me” theme or a “Documenting My Child’s First Year” theme.  Such themes, and others like them, are amazing because not only are skills being learned and refined but memories are being made and cherished throughout the process.  On the other hand, there is no real need to have one grand unifying theme other than “Here is What I Wanted to Create”.

In my life, I think it will inspire me to find different ways to meet each creative goal even with the limitations of a lack of regular internet connection and an intense schedule in my personal life.  At the moment, I have been incredibly busy trying to help my mother during my stay in Kansas while she takes care of her parents (my grandparents) who are very, very ill.  Therefore, it has been very taxing trying to stay on top of classwork while also making sure that all of the housework, cooking, and childcare is handled.

In my classroom, I think it would be a very good tool to inspire creativity among the students.  Each day, while they would have to complete a task, would also be given starting directions for the class so they would not be terribly lost.  As such, they would be introduced to new sites and new manners of presenting information in a way that did not leave them stranded and clueless.  With that being said, they may be inspired to be creative to meet a goal, to share a story, or some other reason that will inevitably be of some import to them.