Note-taking is an important skill that I have taught at various grade levels. In high school, it is has usually included outlining. I want to give students the tools they will need in college to take good notes so they can use them to study for exams. But I have certainly used note taking after college, for numerous staff meetings, church committees, and for doctor’s visits when I had cancer. My biggest problem is reading what I wrote because my handwriting is horrible. I used to have a little keyboard on my PDA which helped me take notes but to use a cellphone is not that practical. If I don’t have my computer I usually have a Moleskine notebook to take notes.
Recently at Core 77 they have been blogging about Sketchnotes. It is a form of visual thinking that “through the use of images, text, and diagrams, these notes take advantage of the ‘visual thinker’ mind’s penchant for make sense of—and understanding—information with pictures.” What I liked about this idea is that you have to listen, synthesize and visualize the information all in real-time. I think it would be something that my students, many who are visual learners would enjoy doing, but also it would make them process the information then, rather than taking notes and not responding to the material. As it is visual it would also help them remember the material better.
Now you don’t have to be an artist to do this. One of my student’s mother does a similar thing as a vacation log. She is an artist so hers did have more flair. Edith Schaeffer gave examples in her book The Hidden Art (p. 53-60) of how she used sketching to explain sermons to her children, drawing a simple picture and using main words.
If you want to see more examples, just Google ‘sketchnotes’ and they have over 24,000 examples as people share their sketchnotes after conferences. Here is a video showing the sketchnotes of a keynote speech at Internet Week 2011.
http://www.viddler.com/explore/core77blog/videos/23/
Where could you use this idea?
