Pat Parrish and I participated in a panel on Creativity and Instructional Design at AECT in Anaheim, organized by Greg Clinton of Georgia and Brad Hokanson of Minnesota. Panelists each submitted a one-page synopsis of their thoughts; these were compiled into a handout. My synopsis is here. Brad Hokanson placed the video of our panel discussion online - a thoughtful thing to do, even if it doesn't hit the YouTube charts!
What I said was - we don't understand creativity very well, but it's at the heart of what we do. Cognitive theories are good at explaining processing of thinking, but not where cool ideas come from in the first place. Every designer needs to come up with creative solutions to problems - and the art of visioning or imagining possible solutions - that often takes years of experience.
Stephen Downes was also a panelist. As an outsider and occasional critic of instructional design, he did a good job keeping us on edge and provoking the discussion.
