Learning about Visual Notetaking from Giulia Forsythe
In the process of writing and finalizing the chapter on “Visual Notetaking” for my forthcoming eBook, “Mapping Media to the Common Core,” I found Giulia Forsythe‘s blog page “Visual Practice” and her WONDERFUL presentation a year ago for the 2012 University of Mary Washington Faculty Academy. Her presentation slides are available on SlideShare, and the entire 68 minute, recorded presentation is on Vimeo. I highly recommend you watch this entire presentation if you’re interested (as you should be) in learning more about visual notes.
Giulia Forsythe at Faculty Academy 2012 from umwnewmedia on Vimeo.
In her presentation, Giulia cites and recommends several books related to learning, cognition, brain research, drawing and visual notes. These include the following titles, which I’ve added to my own Amazon wish list.
Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain: The Definitive, 4th Edition by Betty Edwards
Keys to Drawing by Bert Dodson
Keys to Drawing with Imagination by Bert Dodson
Thinking in Pictures, Expanded Edition: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin
All the above links are to the Kindle eBook versions of the respective books.
Giulia also referenced “The Art of Changing the Brain: Enriching the Practice of Teaching by Exploring the Biology of Learning by James E. Zull.” Unfortunately it’s just available as a paperback from Amazon, but I found (via Google) an openly posted PDF version by a Vietnamese professor teaching in France. Not sure what the backstory on that is.
Giulia’s work as a visual notetaker has been and continues to be incredibly inspiring as well as challenging to me. As a teacher and a learner, I want to have the artistic and instructional courage of Giulia Forsythe.
Of the six “media products” in this first volume eBook of “Mapping Media to the Common Core,” visual note taking is definitely the one I feel most uncomfortable with and least skilled at doing. That’s exactly why I think I need to practice my visual notetaking skills more. As Giulia encourages us in this video, we ALL can learn to draw effectively, but we need practice. When I drew the icons for “Mapping Media to the Common Core,” in several instances I found icons I liked on iconfinder.net but then drew my own versions. I’ve learned this is something other artists do too.
My modified icon for “Visual Notetaking” is used with permission from an amazing original Giulia created last summer at Unplug’d 2012 in Canada.
Do you take visual notes YET? Have you taught your own students about visual notetaking or graphic facilitation YET? In addition to watching Guilia’s presentation video, check out some of the other videos and tutorials on the “Visual Notetaking” page of “Mapping Media to the Common Core.” VERY inspiring ideas to both apply personally and share with students!
Great presentation; Guilia has a really good way of getting her valuable information across! These are the sort of tools we should all be using, esp our kids. Thanks for letting us all know about this!