I have a friend who always seems to be at the edge of what is cool and awesome. She shared this video on her reading blog on the last day of school before the spring break which is why I missed it and didn’t see it until now. It is the work of one of my favorite author/illustrators, Peter H. Reynolds, in collaboration with the Partnership for 21st Century Skills. It is one of those videos we should have playing all the time in our schools and classrooms and highlights the importance of collaboration, communication, critical thinking and creativity – the 4 C’s of a 21st Century education.
Here is the poster mentioned at the end of the film. Download it here.
The presentation above is a really great example of an effective use of graphics to get across a message to your audience. The content is also really interesting if you are interested in pursuing visual recording. I particularly liked the couple of slides (which I have copied below) that give a few tricks for quickly sketching words and ideas into pictures.
Now, I know it says that visual recording is not about being artistic – and I somewhat agree, somewhat disagree. I look at some of these visuals and I am blown away by how awesome they are and then struck with the “I couldn’t possibly…” disease! The more I look into it, the more I realize that it is like anything else: get a few good tools under your belt, practice, practice and did I mention you might want to practice?
The next video is from Rachel S. Smith who is a visual recorder/visual facilitator and she is specifically speaking about using the iPad for this. Her talk (which is done in Brushes) is really interesting and she gives information on four apps that you could use if you wanted to give this a go. A great suggestion she makes if you are someone who is wanting to give this a go but don’t currently have a conference to attend, is to try it out on a YouTube video – or a TED talk. The four apps she gives information on:
Ideas by Adobe (free) – according to Sarah but the app I found was $9.99
What about a stylus? I have not used one on the iPad (although when John finishes his apple pie, he is going to hunt one down from an old phone of his so I can give it a go). If I were to buy one, however, the cosmonaut would be my choice.
sonya terborg 