Creativity in the 21st Century
Creativity has always been largely based on collaboration and interaction. The 21st Century is seeing the rise of many new possibilities for these elements of creativity and their effects on the sharing of ideas and education.
I think the thing that most embodies societies current ideas toward creativity and education is the Creative Commons license. This simple thing allows ideas to be more free shared and built upon, more than they ever have been before. Old copyright laws were very restrictive lawsuits abounded any time copyright infringement seemed like it might be taking place. People were worried more about protecting their works than sharing them. The idea of Creative Commons shows the direction in which we are headed. It is a return to the idea of people creating things for the love of what they are creating than for personal gain. The freedom of idea sharing and building upon ideas can be seen all throughout technology today. Everything is about interactivity and immersion.
Web 2.0 and the read-write culture embody this ideal of idea sharing. Many tools exist so that any person, anywhere, can upload many different kinds of content to the internet. The immersion blogs and sites like YouTube show what interactivity is all about. Discussion boards and places to leave comments are all over almost any site on the Internet. A community is created where these features are provided and people can give instant feedback on things they experience, as well as carry on discussions. This format allows ideas to be freely shared and built upon, almost instantly.