Intercreating in the context of learner-generated DV production

Abstract

In this article we define and conceptualize the notion of 'intercreating' and how the notion relates to interthinking. This new characterization of the processes of collective creativity emerges from an empirical study, reported here, examining how intercreating was constituted in interaction between primary-aged learners who were working in groups to create digital video (DV) stories. The study focuses on one group, comprising three girls and two boys.Whilst the context of DV production was motivating for the members, their differing ideas regarding 'violent' versus 'soft' themes (representing their different lifeworlds) appeared to provoke conflicts. Despite initially disputational and superficial interactions, the group was subsequently able to negotiate joint strategies, constraints and norms and to establish and sustain intersubjectivity -which in turn appeared to be a prerequisite for intercreating. In this open-ended fictive DV task, there was relatively little common ground that could provide an initial basis for discussion and the suggestions made were accepted or rejected according to implicit, tacitly shared criteria. There was little evidence of explicit reasoning in talk; the norms and constraints in play related to the school-based nature of the task and it was these that were used as justifications for ideas or possible solutions. As pedagogical solutions, sub-tasks with tangible goals and the requirement to establish consensus on ideas seemed to facilitate and enhance group discussion. We suggest that intercreating, in the context of divergent fictive content creation, can be defined as a process involving shared meaning-making and group flow.

Using interactive technologies to promote a dialogic space for creating collaboratively: A study in secondary education

“…2) learning together from technological challenges; 3) engagement and generation of a shared pool of ideas; 4) development of intersubjectivity for opening up a shared cocreative dialogic space; 5) merge ideas to obtain a new perspective; 6) evaluation of ideas and 7) making ideas into reality. These facets coincide with the ones found in previous studies on collaborative creativity (Palmgren-Neuvonen et al, 2017;Sakr, 2018;Vass et al, 2014;Sawyer, 2012). In the present study, these typically co-creative facets were used intermittently in solving the different subtasks throughout the project until the small group of students achieved their common goal -i.e.…”

“…Based on the preliminary viewing of the video data, an identification of co-creative facets was done following a thematic analysis approach using principles from the Grounded Theory (Glaser & Strauss, 1967). The themes of this analysis were inspired by a thorough examination of the video data, the eight creative stages by Sawyer (2012;) and the five inter-creating facets of Palmgren-Neuvonen et al, (2017). For the purposes of this study as many as seven facets were operationalized and used as the analytic framework to explore the characteristics of collaborative creative processes that emerged when students used interactive technology dialogically.…”

“…In this vein, Hao et al, (2016) claim that generation and evaluation of ideas alternate during creative processes, and idea evaluation has positive effects on the group creative outcome. Exploratory talk (Mercer & Littleton, 2007) supports the combination and evaluation of ideas in which explicit reasoning in the form of arguments and counter-arguments is made visible (Harvey, 2013;Palmgren-Neuvonen et al, 2017;Vass, Littleton, Jones, & Miell, 2014).…”

“…Regarding the first strategy of building on another group member's idea, it involves recognizing his/her idea as promising and selecting it for further elaboration. Research has identified that building up on others' ideas is supported by a co-constructive talk typically referring to chaining, integrating, elaborating or reformulating each other's contributions to create meaning (Palmgren-Neuvonen et al, 2017;Rojas-Drummond, Albarrán, & Littleton, 2008). As regards the second strategy of combining ideas, it consists in recognizing the similarity between different ideas, abstracting a broader concept and integrating the ideas into a new conceptualization; all these actions create something new.…”

“…This paper focusses on small-group work around and through technology to capture the emergence of co-creative processes in a multimodal interaction supported by technology and understood as "multimodal ensemble" of communication (Goodwin, 2000) which can include different modes such as gaze, movement, gesture or talk. The data obtained have made it possible to develop a characterization of cocreative processes as a psychological inter-mental phenomenon (Glǎveanu, 2010;Palmgren-Neuvonen, Korkeamäki, & Littleton, 2017).…”