Using Digital Technology to Produce Creative Outputs
Using digital technology for increasing digital creativity in a PE
Using digital storytelling for practicing a job interview in a PE
Nowadays many digital tools, technologies and techniques exist for creating visuals and knowledge outputs. Companies are more and more producing these outputs in-house, as these tools become easier to use. When using this technology, employees need to use their creativity while recognising and resolving conceptual complications.
There are many creativity tools available online for use in a PE. Trainees have ready access to a multitude of online digital technology for creating promotional and social outputs for their PE operations.
In a web-based learning environment, online creativity tools and resources seem to inspire trainees to generate new ideas positively. In addition, brainstorming and knowledge-sharing activities through digital technologies enable trainees to view a topic from multiple perspectives, which can also help to perform idea generation tasks better. Design tools enhance creative thinking skills by providing design features for learners to develop their original ideas (1).
Imagine your PE has to create an innovative marketing campaign designed to build brand awareness and drive sales of your product or service.
Your goal is to produce a creative digital output that can be promoted on social media, website or used in email marketing.
- Come up with ideas for your new marketing campaign. Brainstorm with your team what message and to what audience you want to deliver.
- Decide on what kind of digital creative output you want to produce to best deliver your message.
- Find out which tools, technologies, and techniques fit best to your needs when producing a creative output for your marketing campaign.
- Choose a marketing channel where your creative output will be published and promoted
There are a whole range of tools, technologies, and techniques you can use when producing creative outputs. Choosing the right methods and tools is just as important as using them. The process of finding what will work for your team, your ideas, and your project can be trial and error, but there are a few things to consider that will help your team to make choices and find the right tools to try out:
What do you actually need to do?
Defining what kinds of outputs you are looking for and what these outputs should achieve will help you to look for tools that actually suit your needs. Here are a few suggestions to get you thinking about how you might start using the concepts and tools:
- Do your research on various creative output examples to get inspiration or to see if there is anything you are already doing in your PE that might be similar (see source 2).
- Use different brainstorming tools to develop ideas for your marketing campaign (source 3). Think about what you want to communicate or engage your audience with – do you have any material or data that would be good ?
- A design tool needs to be chosen depending on an output type (audio, visual or a mix of that).
How much time do you have ?
Time is key when learning new digital tools and techniques.
- Learning could vary widely depending on the tool, the complexity and the familiarity. Do you have time to explore a range of tools or do you need to focus on a few ? (source 4)
- Make sure you try out tools with test ideas or data before you start using them for your project. This will give you an idea of the functionality of the tool whilst also helping you to learn how it works.
- Think about the possibility of spending some time training on digital tools (e.g. tutorials on Youtube).
Do you need to buy anything ?
If your school does not have a budget to spend on the project, you might have to adapt to what you can do with free and open source tools.
- 13 Types of Creative Content Marketing and Why They Work
https://www.webfx.com/blog/marketing/13-types-of-creative-content-marketing-and-why-they-work/
- A List Of Things Students Can Create To Demonstrate What They Know
https://www.teachthought.com/learning/things-students-can-create-to-demonstrate-what-they-know/
- Visual Collaboration and Brainstorming Tools for Student Teams
https://culanth.org/fieldsights/visual-collaboration-and-brainstorming-tools-for-student-teams
- Best Graphic Design Software Comparison (Top 10 Tools 2022)
Knowledge:
- Knows that there are many different types of digital content (e.g. audio, image, text, video, applications) that are stored in various digital file formats.
- Knows that design tools need to be chosen depending on an output type (audio, visual or a mix of that).
- Knows that digital content, goods and services might be protected under intellectual property (IP) rights (e.g. copyright, trademarks, designs, patents).
- Aware of the legal limitations of using and sharing digital content (e.g. music, images) and the possible consequences of illegal actions.
- Knows how to combine information, statistical content and visuals using available apps or software.
Skills:
- Creative thinking skills to develop a project with peers
- Critical thinking skills to evaluate ideas
- Planning and collaborating using digital tools and techniques
- Using different tools and techniques to create accessible digital content
Attitude:
- Open to using innovative & creative thinking to develop projects with peers
- Open to creating something new from existing digital content
- Inclined to combine various types of digital content and data to better express facts or opinions for personal and professional use
- Respectful of rights affecting others (e.g. ownership), only using legal sources for downloading digital content (e.g. audio & visual material)
Through this WebQuest trainees will learn to create and edit digital content in different formats and to express oneself through digital means.
There are many definitions of what a digital story is, but they all coincide in pointing out that digital stories combine traditional means of telling a story with different types of digital multimedia: images, audio, and video (graphics, text, recorded audio narration, video and music to present information on a specific topic).
In the classroom, digital storytelling tasks offer advantages that include heightened trainee engagement, creativity, problem-solving, and likely interaction and group dynamics skills, not to mention increased literacy with digital technology.
Digital storytelling is not only used in employer branding to attract top talents, but also more often used as a tool in selecting a right candidate.
Practicing digital storytelling in a PE can also help trainees to see the opportunities of using storytelling tactics in future job interviews and be more successful.
A Practice Enterprise represents different departments of a business such as reception, purchasing, human resources, operations and marketing, so trainees are able to undertake the tasks required by a particular PE department.
This task is for an individual trainee and assigned as the final PE project:
- Creating a story related to a personal experience in a PE as a five-minute digital presentation.
- Presenting the story in a form of a job interview with a trainer or to the group of other PE trainees.
- Before trainees start creating their personal digital story, they should watch some examples and should be introduced to its main characterisitcs and steps.
- Before using any technology, they should develop an idea for a story and create a plan to help organize both the ideas and resources.
- The planning process may involve writing out the story, choosing images, music and any other effects that they want to use in the final version.
- Some question guidelines that could make it easier for the trainees to develop a good script and storyboard: What event that most affected your decision to join a PE activity? What previous experiences, interests, knowledge in your life prepared you for a PE activity? Acquired skills, knowledge and personal development in a PE? The highlight of your PE experience? etc.
- In order to create a digital version of the story, trainees should choose a software depending on their degree of computer literacy and time which they can dedicate to learning the software (iMovie, Windows Movie Maker, powerpoint, etc).
- The final product reflects the trainee’s inner reflections about the learning experience in a PE.
- Practicing the digital storytelling may help trainees when applying for their future jobs: not only with self-presentation, but also being capable to understand the stories of their potential employers.
- What is Digital Storytelling and How Can I Use It to Help My Students?
https://scienceandliteracy.org/digital-storytelling-in-the-classroom/
- How the World’s Top Employers Use Digital Storytelling to Build Their Employer Brand
https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/how-worlds-top-employers-use-digital-storytelling-build-focardi
Knowledge:
- Knows that there are many different types of digital content (e.g. audio, image, text, video, applications) that are stored in various digital file formats.
- Knows that design tools need to be chosen depending on an output type (audio, visual or a mix of that).
- Knows that digital content, goods and services might be protected under intellectual property (IP) rights (e.g. copyright, trademarks, designs, patents).
- Aware of the legal limitations of using and sharing digital content (e.g. music, images) and the possible consequences of illegal actions.
- Knows how to combine information, statistical content and visuals using available apps or software.
Skills:
- Writing skills: formulating a point of view and developing a text
- Visual literacy: the ability to produce and communicate through visual images
- Technology skills: learning to use a variety of tools
- Presentation skills: deciding how to best present the story to an audience
- Problem-solving skills: Learning to make decisions and overcome obstacles
- Assessment skills: gaining expertise critiquing their own and others’ work
Through this WebQuest trainees will learn to create a personal story by using digital technology, practice presenting it in interview form or to a bigger group of people.
Through this WebQuest trainees will learn how storytelling in an interview can help them answer questions like ”Tell me about yourself” and ”What makes you unique”.