Supporting Creative Learning Experience with Compositions of Image and Text Surrogates

We are exploring new roles for interactive systems in supporting creative processes and aiding in idea formation. combinFormation is an interactive system that uses the information resources of the internet to promote creative thinking. Image and text representations are collected and manipulated in a composition space, which invokes complementary human cognitive subsystems to promote understanding and emergence. An agent works to help the human find relevant information and see combinations of information elements in new ways. combinFormation was introduced into the curriculum of an undergraduate course on The Design Process, in which students’ primary responsibility is to develop new inventions. This paper presents our field study and results that demonstrate combinFormation supports students engaged in creative learning experiences. Our goal is to transform the educational paradigm of reproducing existing knowledge toward producing new knowledge.