The question of creativity and potential modes for collaborative learning

No Right Brain Left Behind: A Speed Innovation Challenge for Creative Education | Design for Good | Big Think

I've recently read the primer for The Future of Learning Institutions in a Digital Age, which was a fantastic set of preliminary guiding principles that, in short, encourage institutions to look to collaborative projects and tasks as opposed to the traditional 'instructor as authoritarian' and modality of competition. One of the recurring statements is the fact that we, as an internet culture, are already learning together, working together and interacting with each other in this way, and that major educational institutions (the old money ones) are designed directly in opposition to this. So, the question becomes - are students really not doing as well as they could because the internet is such a distraction? Or is it because they aren't being properly catered to?

So above is a link to a few words on another book I will likely read, and this is a thought that has come to me often - what really is creativity? We sort of get sold on the whole high school identity slots that the creative people are the artists, which I propose isn't true. Creative environments, other than that of art exist, and projects need to reflect and/or demand that. Let's have the students approach a specific problem and be charged with doing the research to find a solution. Let's encourage creativity as defined as being able to imagine and adapt and form solutions. Is the quarterback on the football field choosing to run an audible any less creative than the emo kid smoking pot under the bleachers, drawing cartoons of monsters?

Equal value, I say.