Resumen:
People are continuously solving problems in their everyday activities. Some of these are «routine» problems that are easy to solve and have obvious and well-known criteria for identifying the solution by applying knowledge directly. Other problems are considered «complex» or «intractable» problems which people are unable to easily come up with a solution even if they are considered to have an adequate level of intelligence. In this case, divergent thinking and eventually creativity can make a difference in devising new solutions.
Creativity is therefore important for learning and future personal development, especially in the case of children and teenagers, and as a consequence it is also relevant for the whole society. How it can be fostered as well as evaluated in Information and Communications Technologies (ICT) settings seems to be a key issue for research. Despite advanced technology is being used to provide ICT systems according to creativity theories they rarely assess creativity itself, what brings up doubts on whether technologies actually provide some benefit in the expected direction. Moreover most of the computer-mediated approaches used to address creativity have been designed to support single-user interactions and so fail to consider other important dimensions of creativity, such as collaboration, reflection and divergent thinking in group face-toface scenarios.