papershine

This is an illustration I did for the Unturned Stone, as a teaching tool for Fred’s workshop on using winch skyline systems for moving stone and other materials in remote areas. A well planned winch system is safe, efficient and protects the environment. They are incredibly simple tools but can be very complex to set up properly.
The illustration was made into a huge poster that Fred uses at the start of workshops to explain the basics of the system. Everyone in the class has a copy for structured note-taking, on 11″ by 17″ paper, usually folded to be the cover for all their other handouts. The big graphics stays up on the wall for the duration of the course. People refer back to it frequently. It’s always illuminating for people to see the graphic after they have firsthand experience with the system. Parts and pieces start to fit together into a cohesive whole. The hands-on knowledge and the conceptual schematic coalesce into a more complete understanding of how the system works and how to set it up and use it safely and efficiently.

Today I facilitated board retreat for a local non-profit. We used what I call a Focus Donut to get to the heart of the efforts for the coming year. This is what it looked like just before lunch. We filled in the center after we ate, before moving onto more operational concerns. I had limited space to work with; the backboard on my easel was a sheet of plywood plucked form a scrap pile and trimmed for the job. Worked very well too. It still had an extra bit hanging off to the right that I used for a really narrow “parking lot.”
I like color coded themes.

Weather versus climate.

Today I sat in on a geography class for education students at UNCA. It’s a survey class, giving future teachers a broad look at key concepts in social studies for grades 6-12. Today’s topics included the distinction between weather and climate. Weather is immediate, what’s it doing outside right now? It’s called the Weather Channel, not the Climate Channel. Climate is the overall weather patterns, here depicted by annual rainfall.

I attended the class to explore the ways that graphic note-taking can support students to get more out of their classroom experiences. I hope to compare my notes from the day with those of students in the class.

Movement is one of five interrelated themes of geography explored in class today. Throughout history people have moved from place to place bringing with them a wealth of new things.

This past weekend we had the last two days of the 20 hour mediation course. I have posted all of the notes I took during the four days. We spent a lot of time in role plays and natural, flowing conversations, which I did not document. Graphic notes such as these are intended for people who attended the course, but are fun for anyone to decipher. I did these with Sharpie’s and watercolor pencils on regular paper. I did them at my desk. Notes done on big paper with a whole class create a different record, one owned and understood by everyone in the group.

We talked about what do to in case of an

We had a most interesting discussion about what to do when a brainstorming session goes south…

I am taking a basic mediation course put on by The Mediation Center in Asheville. The course is based on facilitated conversation, micro-lectures and lots of role-playing. It’s been enlightening. I’ve been taking graphic notes during the talky parts of the curriculum. Page two, below, includes a collective definition of mediation, and compares the process against litigation and abitration, in which a guy wearing a floppy tophat decides the solution to your conflict. Not sure what I was trying to accomplish there.

On the first day we did fairly typical, if blazingly fast, introductions. On day two, we started with this slightly more unorthodox and familiar approach.

This is a description of the process of active listening, an essential skill of good mediators, facilitators and trainers. It’s about being present and being curious, which are probably different ways of saying the same thing.

A fun little icon from a recent meeting graphic.

Recording the employment policy discussion noted below.

Thanks be to Trish for the photo.

Last week I recorded a day long round table discussion on enhancing competitive employment opportunities for people with developmental disabilities. Thirty-five local leaders in the field from Oregon and Washington met and discussed the challenges that people face in finding meaningful work they enjoy that pays. It was an extremely professional discourse, moderated by C.J. Webb from OTAC, focusing on policy inititiaves and the issues of putting effective policy into widespread practice.

I tried to keep my recording balanced between image and word. Policy discussion doesn’t always suggest vibrant imagery, but the conversations about work and people lent themselves to pictures. My favorite image was one of a person being given a job, that turned out to be a bottomless pit, a reminder that too many people with disabilities are placed in jobs and left there, without thought of growth and development or a career path. By many’s people’s reckoning, getting any job is supposed to be good enough.
At the end of the session, the group did a ’round’ with everyone suggesting policies, practices or strategies that would help Oregon change its policy around employment. This was rapid fire and I stuck to just writing the words, as fast as I could.

I used a nice Sakura marker for black outlines and soft pastels for the highlights. Lovely to look at, but not the best arrangement for retouching in PhotoShop. The colors in these digital images are at once faded and harsher than the paper.

Paper is shine.

Image links to larger, legible versions of some of the day’s conversation.

A reminder from P.A.T.H. training to facilitate and record the process as a duo.

It’s typically assumed that the primary value of taking notes is as a document for later reference. Good thought, but most notes are so vague and hard to follow that they muddle rather than clarify. The further you get away from the learning event, the more obscure the notes become. The real value of taking notes is how the very action of transposing the given information helps you work with the new ideas.

Graphic note-taking helps you realize both outcomes: engaging the material more fully and creating a useful reference for later. Using images, words, color and movement to capture the presentation accesses the parts of your brain where you keep pictures and visual structures. You build new connections between the latest information and what you’ve already tucked away in your head. And even a simple doodle will help to jog your mind later about the ideas shared in the moment.

The notes below are from Edward Tufte’s recent seminar on Visualizing Information. I filled ten sheets of copy paper with notes like this. I used a black Sharpie and a small set of watercolor pencils. Tufte is interesting, but this task defnintely helped to keep me involved and engaged with the information. Some of the visuals are just silly doodles that kept my pen and mind moving as he spoke. I sketched out basic versions of the graphs, tables and other visuals he referenced in his lecture. These images are available in his books (distributed as part of the seminar fee) but my notes help me see the big ideas all in one place. I only need to go to the book if I’m looking for the details of the actual grpahic.

As I prepared the notes for scanning and loading to papershine, I found myself adding detail. These additions were only possible because of the way I took the notes in the first place. My recollection of this lecture is stronger because of the visual notes. The notes also make me feel confident that I could lead someone else, even who didn’t attend, through the key points of Tufte’s presentation.

And now I recall just how long the line was to get into the rest room.

Image below links to a larger, more legible version.