End of the Semester

     As the semester is coming to end, I’ve learned a lot throughout this class.  This class really taught me how to think creatively.  It gave me the write tools to write creatively.  The TED talks, and creativity exercises will be tools I use through out college.  They were really helpful to get the mind thinking creatively.  The past few weeks in class have been spent in the library preparing for our final project.  Going to the library with your group during class time really helped get the project going.  It was really easy to meet and get work done.  The last two days in class we have been doing presentations on our final projects.  It has been really interesting to see the presentations and how the groups ended their project.  It’s really hard to believe that all the projects were just started a couple of months ago and are now coming in.  It’s great to see that the outcome of others projects came out positive.
My group has made a lot of progress throughout the semester.  Our final outcome may not be finished till the following semester, but that is something my group and I are willing to work on.  Just because the semester is coming to an end, doesn’t mean our project should to.  I am personally really happy with the progress we made.  We’ve got pretty far by the school permitting us to put posters in the trashcans.  Just having approval from the school is a major step in getting our project going.  All we actually need now is for the clubs on campus to cooperate and get back to our emails.  Once all that happen, our project will actually be finished.  I am eager to see what next semester brings with bringing our project to an end.

Trash for Fun

     While doing research for my littering project I came across a video that helped people stopped littering.  The video was about a group of people that got together to try and prevent littering creatively.  They decided to go around a park and put and sound device in the trashcan so when people actually threw their trash away, it sounded like it was going down a never ending hole.  Once people heard that sound it really shocked and confused them which made them want to throw away more trash to figure out where the sound was coming from.  Everyone started crowding around the trashcan to see what was going on. It actually made trash fun to throw away.
My groups original idea was to decorate trashcans as basketball hoops so it would be entertaining for people to throw their trash away.  The idea that was shown in the video would be great to have in at a college campus.  If that idea could work in a park then it could surely work in at a college campus.  It really got peoples attention and that’s all you need to accomplish.  Once getting a couple peoples attention, it attracts others to see what is going on.
This video showed a great way how to solve a problem creatively, which is what our project is mainly all about.  It would be really cool to have something like this at a college campus to help prevent littering.  It would really get peoples attention, and people would actually want to throw away their trash all because of a sound the trashcan makes.  The only problem with putting this on a college campus would be that it would cost money.  The school may or may not be willing to spend money for trashcans that make sounds.

the link below is the video
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbEKAwCoCKw

Anything Besides a Backpack

     An in class creative exercise we had to do was about making some sort of small thing that you could carry your stuff around in.  This thing included items that you would carry around with everyday on a school day.  My list consisted of my school I.D. card, a pen, a notebook, a water bottle, and my cell phone.  All five of those items are very important because I do use them every school day.  I need my school I.D. to buy food and to also get back into my dorm.  Without my I.D. I wouldn’t be able to do any of those things.  I always write in pen unless I’m taking a test.  Pens are very useful to me.  I always need a notebook because in almost every class I take notes.  Everyday I have water bottle in my backpack because I know I will get thirsty at some point during the day.
I decided to create a miniature folder that I could simply fold up and put into my pocket.  When the folder was opened up it consisted of for pockets and on the side a place to put my water bottle.  Each item would go into a different pocket.  When I was walking to classes all I had to do was fold the folder up small enough to fit in my pocket.  This was convenient because I didn’t have to lug a backpack or a bag around all day.  I would be hands free.
It was really interesting to see what other people came up with.  One person said they would make theirs invisible and could use it whenever they wanted.  One person even added their on private study room to it.  The exercise really got people’s minds thinking outside of the box.  I really liked this exercise because it really made you think creatively, things that would never exist in real life.

Teaching With Trash

    As part as project three, my group decided to each come up with a research component.  I did an article which was called "Teaching With Trash".  "Teaching with Trash" is an article about students from the University of Idaho conducting experiments about littering around campus.  There were four students that were doing the project for the Department of Sociology and Anthropology‘s upper-division Archaeological Methodologies and Theory course.  Two students were undergraduate and the other two were graduate.   The main concern about littering were put into four zones. The four trash zones were; the football tailgating parking lot, the student recreation center, the library quad, and an alley lining sorority and fraternity houses.  Each student was assigned a zone a had to collect artifacts (trash).  The students mapped out where all the zones were and wanted to see if they could stop the amount of litter in those zones.
     The students decided to call their project The Campus Trash Project which started in the fall semester  of 2008 as class assignment.  The most common types of trash that was found around campus were cigarette butts, gum wrappers, beer bottles, and plastic cups.  To stop the littering around the football tailgating parking lot, students suggested designating trashcans to certain parking areas.  If there was trash around the area, the people would get fined.  That didn’t last to long, because no one followed that rule.  Students also found out that people were throwing their cigarettes on the ground near the library because they didn’t realize trashcans for the cigarettes known as “butt pipes” were right next to them.  Trash from the dormitories was falling out of trashcans and blowing onto the student recreation center.  The students suggested to stop the trash from blowing over was to get heavy duty lids to put over the trashcans.
     Overall, littering is a problem at a lot of college campuses, not just Kutztown.  This littering problem needs to be stopped and with students taking charge they can make a change.  It only takes a couple people to get the attention of others.  If one school can come with an "Adopt a Trashcan Program" so can other.  It will take a lot of effort, but one good role model needs to come forward in order for other schools to follow in the its' footsteps.

Littering Project

     Over this semester we have been working in groups on projects that are based on problem solving creatively.  My group has been working on the littering issue on campus.  This project was a three main step process.  It’s composed of a proposal, emails, research papers, and the final outcome.  So far my group has been working very effectively.  Littering is a major problem on campus, and I don’t think many people realize that.  Our main point is to try and get people to stop littering and realize that they are harming the environment.  At first we came up with the idea to have different clubs each decorate their own trashcan and put them around campus.  That idea didn’t really work out because of cost and who would supply the materials.  The second idea we came up with was to get clubs to make posters and put them in trashcan panels around campus.  There a few select trashcans around campus that actually have panels that you can slide posters into.  The posters would include facts of littering and so on.
The get this idea going we first had to get approval from the university to put the posters in the trashcans, which we did.  We then had to send out emails to clubs around campus asking them if they would like to participate.  Some clubs got back to us, but we are still waiting for a lot of replies.  It would be a really great way to end the semester if we could get a couple of posters in the trashcan panels.  As the semester is narrowing down and with barely any replies back, our task is becoming difficult.  We are really hoping to have a couple of poster up by the end of semester, and even they’re not we hope to make it happen next semester.

It's Better Then Cleaning It

       It’s Better Then Cleaning It”, is an in class creative thinking exercise which we had to come up with ways how to use a paintbrush, other then painting things.  We had to come up with at least ten ways.  This exercise was pretty challenging and took everyone a while to come up with things.  I only got to six things you can do with a paintbrush.  They were; using a paintbrush to clean things, a spatula, to dust things, drum stick, make a lamp shade out of paintbrushes, and a weapon.
I figured you could use a paintbrush to clean things with.  You could make the paintbrush wet or dry, use to get dirt of counters.  Using a paintbrush as a spatula I would make the bristles of the paintbrush hard first, so it would be able to flip food.  The ends of the paintbrush would make a good drum stick cause they’re just hard wood.  I thought making a lamp shade out of paintbrushes would be a cool idea because they could look like an actual lamp shade.  The lamp shade would be made with the paintbrushes facing down so the ends of them would all be touching.  Lastly, a paintbrush could be used a weapon because it is hard.  The only problem is that it is a little small, but still could be used for protection.
Overall, this exercise was pretty challenging, but it really going your mind thinking.  Once you got a couple things going in your head, it was easier to think of more.  Hearing other peoples’ ideas also made you think of more things you could do with a paintbrush.  This exercise was a really good way to get your mind thinking on the creative level.  I think doing exercises like this before writing a paper would help a lot of people open of their minds.

MUTO Animation

     The video MUTO was really interesting to watch.  It had to do with animation being drawn on this wall outside.  The drawing started out with a thick streak and turns into a bunch of different things throughout the video.  I’ve never really seen anything like that kind of animation.  I like how the video started out with a bunch of hands which evolved into some one eyed thing crawling around.  It was pretty amazing to see each figure become something else.  There was a bunch of cool shapes and figures involved making other ones. I really liked how the animation drawings were on real life things like the walls.  It looked real, but at the same time looked animated.  Some parts of the video kind of grossed me out.  Some stuff was a little weird, but that’s creativity.  Whoever made this video wasn’t afraid to try something new and different, which is why this video is so interesting and creative.  Once you start watching the video it gets you hooked on it because you want to see what’s going to happen next.  It was pretty cool to see that so many different objects could evolve from the first one.
Overall, this video showed how much can really come out of creativity.  Creativity can come to a person within a second, and drawing things out really help.  It looked like it took a lot of time and effort to put into this video.  This video also shows how much fun creativity can be.  The video made it seem like the creator didn’t even have to think about what he was going to draw next.  It made creativity seem fun and simple.  I also think drawing is a great way to show creativity.  Creativity can go a long way by just starting out drawing a line and turning that line into a person, and making that person into another drawing.

Mind Pumping- Sleep Schedule

During spring break I changed my sleep schedule to see what would happen.  At school I usually go to bed around 11 p.m. or 12 a.m. because of early classes.  While I’m at school I usually take a nap every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.  If I don’t get a nap on those days I tend to go to bed earlier.  When I was home for break I stayed up an hour or more later each night.  Starting with Friday I went to bed at 12 a.m. and woke up at 11 a.m. the next day.  I had a good amount of sleep that night.  Saturday night I went to bed around 3 a.m. and didn’t wake up till 1 p.m. the next day.  As the week went on I had a higher tolerance of staying awake later.  For example, if I went to bed at 2 a.m. one night, the next night I wouldn’t be able to fall asleep till 2 a.m. or later.  I was so used to staying up late.  Each night would get worse and worse, I literally couldn’t fall asleep until it was about the time I fell asleep the night before.  I wasn’t tired at all, but once it was later then the night before that’s when I started to get tired.
Friday the 11th I decided to test my limits to the max with a couple friends.  We didn’t go to sleep till about 6:30 a.m. in the morning.  It was really hard to keep my eyes open by 5 a.m.  I really don’t know how we were able to stay up that long.  We almost watched a whole series of the show Real World on On Demand.  By the 21st episode I couldn’t take anymore and finally had to go to bed.  Of course the last episode would have another part to it, but I really couldn’t keep my eyes open anymore.
As a result I managed to pull an all nighter.  The next night I wasn’t able to fall asleep till 5 a.m.  I probably won’t try this sleep schedule again because I’m not tired when I should be going to sleep.  It completely messed up my sleep schedule for school, which is why I’m up right now writing this…

Just Play

To start off class today we did a game activity called “play”. We moved all the chairs to the side of the room and sat on the floor with partners.  With a parents we played a bunch of hand games including rock paper scissor shoot, thumb wars, and the game when you slap each others hands.  We played those games for about minutes or so, and then with our partners had to come up with our on hand game.  My partner and I came up with a more difficult version of rock paper scissor.  The rules were you started off playing the original version and who ever lost had to pick a number between one and five.  You then played the game with the numbers one through five.  The basic concept of our game was to try and come up with combinations to always win.  It was a little confusing and somewhat worked out in the end.
The activity we played today came from interview we read with Kevin Carroll.  Kevin Carroll was all about play.  He believed that playing would make people more creative and relaxed.  After playing the hand games it really got your mind thinking on how to make up your own game.  It was much easier to think of a game because you were already relaxed.  One of the suggestions that was made during class was to try one of these hand games before you take a test.  I know I go into tests feeling nervous and stressed.  I think if I played a hand game before a test it would help relax me, and make me laugh.  Hand games are a good way to get your mind off something.  You’re so focused on the game that you forget about everything else.  The hand games are also a lot of fun.  It reminded me of when I was a little kid and was bored.
We also watched a video of a man who thought that everyone should play.  He started off showing a picture of the cover of the New York Times.  The picture was a bunch of little kids playing around.  He then said that kids not only need to play, but adults do also.  He then showed another picture of a polar bear and a husky.  At first it looked like the polar bear wanted to fight the husky, but the husky was in play mode and wagging its’ tail.  The polar bear saw that the husky wanted to play and instead of fighting, the polar bear and the husky started to play.  I thought that was really amazing just by the husky wanting to play, it completely changed the polar bears mind about wanting to fight.  I think everyone should try and take a little time out of their schedule and play.  Whether it be a hand game, a board game, or just having fun.  It would really help relax and lower and stress.

What's the best kind of super power?

     Today in class we did a creative thinking activity that asked us who are favorite super hero was, and what super power is the greatest.  At first, I picked wonder woman because she can become invisible and can fly.  I thought that being invisible would be one of the best super powers because not would be able to see what you were doing, or what you were even wearing.  I thought it would be fun to be invisible just to mess around with people by moving stuff around in their room.  I’ve always wanted to know what it would be like fly.  Flying would be so much easier than walking or driving.  There would be no traffic in the sky.  Wonder woman also the super strength and speed.  I wouldn’t really want to have super strength, but I would love to have super speed.  If I had super speed I would join the track team and win every race.  I would then eventually go to the Olympics and become the world’s fastest person.  

     After we all wrote down what we thought the best super power was, everyone shared their thoughts and the powers were put on the board.  After hearing everyone else’s super power, I decided to change mine to the power to freeze time.  I thought that was the best super power because by freezing time you can do whatever you want.  If your tired and want to go  back to sleep, all you have to do is freeze time and go back to sleep for a couple more hours.  I also like the power to freeze time because it’s kind of like being invisible.  No one would if it was you that did something.  

     I liked some of the other powers like the super reading.  It would be so convenient to have super reading and retain all the information you read.  You would probably get A’s on every test and know about everything.  I also liked the power to have any power.  It would be really cool to have all the super powers and just switch them off when ever you needed another one.  It wouldn’t really work though because you need a power to begin with.  Out of all the powers that were discussed, I definitely would like the power to freeze time.  I think it’s better than all of the powers because it kind of like all the powers combined. You can do anything you want without anyone knowing.