Sketchnote World Tour

In February when I saw the list of summer professional development opportunities from our local educational service center, "Sketchnoting with Sylvia Duckworth" jumped off the screen. I immediately registered for the chance to learn from a master! I've had an iPad Pro and Apple Pencil for 3 years, but I hadn't taken enough time to find an appropriate app and practice digital drawing.  This week the dream became a reality and I was able to attend the Sketchnoting World Tour. I showed up early and sat in the front because I didn't want to be distracted! 

We started with analog (or pen and paper) doodles with our neighbor. Back-and-forth drawing enabled us to loosen up and get to know the people at our table. The light bulb was the doodle that I started. Didn't it turn out cute?

Our next activity was to draw a self portrait in under a minute. This timed exercise was to get us ready to doodle quickly and not get too caught up with perfection or details. This was really hard! There wasn't time to erase and my perfectionist tendencies were in turmoil. As you can tell below, my eyes were the last thing I worked on! 

The next activity was so much worse! We had to take a picture our our neighbor and draw a portrait in a minute as well. It's one thing to make yourself look crazy, but you don't want to make another person look crazy. Thankfully, my neighbor was super nice and gracious with her portrait! ​
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Meet Luann Hughes, Senior Executive Director of Technology for Rockwall ISD. She was a joy to sit beside and very complimentary of my drawings!

Then it was time to learn! For us iPad and touchscreen Chromebook users, Sylvia showed us how to set up our digital paper in the Autodesk Sketchbook app. There are layers so she showed us how to create a grid on the first layer that can be deleted when the sketch is done. I loved having the grid to help align my doodles and make them symmetrical. Then she took us through her doodles...and boy, does she have a TON of free resources available! More on that in a bit...

You can tell from these first drawings that I had to get my pen width down and then I was off! She moved quickly because sketchnoting isn't supposed to be perfect. Hard lesson for me! I kept hitting the "undo" button...but I was thankful for an "undo" button which those with paper and gel pens didn't have! At the bottom, I had some leftover "grid" that I added to the drawing layer, not the back layer, and that was a lesson learned. I wanted all of my doodles on one page, but that didn't work out, so I had to make 2 more pages. (see below)

I think I did pretty great doodling with the iPad for the first time!

A bonus for the session was a FREE copy of Sylvia's second book. Of course I had to get it signed!
This book basically outlines the session I attended where she discusses the "why" about sketchnoting with students plus gives step by step directions on doodles. I referred to the book often when working on  my final project for the day...

TAAA DAAA! She gave us time to work on sketching plus challenged us with a choice of activities. I chose the "My Selfie Sketchnote" activity and had SO. MUCH. FUN. creating it! I have a few things I want to add plus I want to add some labels, but overall, it's a great start! I think I need to start sketching everywhere I go now. 

So, where can you get your hands on these resources? Browse to sylviaduckworth.com and check out the #sketchnotefever tab where she shares her doodles both in video and Google Slides form. The Resources tab has ALL of her presentations linked! Plus, the links to purchase her books is there too! Are you intrigued? I would love to hear how you plan to use sketchnoting with your students! Comment below!

Keeping it Techy,
​Heather