Introducing a Collaborative Tool Supporting a Learning Activity Involving Creativity with Rotation of Group Members

Gustavo Zurita (Business Universidad de Chile, Chile)

Nelson Baloian (Universidad de Chile, Chile)

José A. Pino (Universidad de Chile, Chile)

Mary Boghosian (American University of Armenia, Armenia)

Abstract: There is consensus among curriculum developers of Business Schools that along with technical knowledge students should also be trained to acquire soft skills. Communication, collaboration, creativity, critical thinking and problem solving are mentioned by some authors as the most important skills for professionals of the 21st century to be successful. Students must perform learning activities applying these skills in order to develop them. In this work we present a learning activity intended for Business students which requires creativity in order to be performed. We developed a collaborative tool to support this activity, called Sketchpad. The students who used the system evaluated the contribution of the designed activity to creativity and the ability of the tool to support it through an open questionnaire based on the Creativity Factor Evaluation (CSI). A second evaluation was done concerning Sketchpad's collaborative support. Both studies showed a positive students' perception of the activity and tool value according to these evaluation dimensions.

Keywords: brain sketching, business schools, collaboration, creativity, mobile devices

Categories: L.2, L.2.3, L.6.2