Sketchnotes for Educators

Hang around this blog long enough and you’ll see a reference or two to Sylvia Duckworth’s Sketchnoting efforts.

She was even kind enough to have been the focus of an interview here as well.

I really like her work and have followed her efforts since the beginning of her publishing them online.  I even created a Flipboard collection devoted to her works although it’s now sadly dated.  She’s either deleted the originals or moved them.  Where there once was some great imagery, there’s now just broken images.  But that’s OK.  It’s another example of life online.

There’s always her Flickr collection.

You see her work popping up in the middle of other’s blog posts every now again.  She has a pretty liberal license for her works.  If you find that it suits the topic of a post, she welcomes you to go ahead and use it.  Of course, you give her credit, right?

A couple of days ago, I got her new book “Sketchnotes for Educators“.

When I’d heard that she was going to publish her collection, I had my doubts.  What possible additional value could there be for a printed version of what we could see online?

I supposed that, if all that you wanted was her pictures, that would be enough.

However, the value added comes in the page next to the Sketchnote.  Here, Sylvia explains what was going through her mind as she drew the Sketchnote.  Or, if her Sketchnote is an interpretation of someone else’s work, often you’ll find the thoughts of the original author.  (See Page 174 <grin>)

The book is divided into sections:

• Real LIfe
• Real Education
• For Our Students
• For Teachers
• Google!

Each Sketchnote includes a bit.ly link to a high quality original.

I knew that she had done many creations; it is impressive to see 100 of them in a book.

I could easily see this book fitting into any professional library and individual Sketchnotes used for discussion starters on any of the many topics that she addresses.

Sadly, “Between the Ferns” didn’t make the book so I’ll include it here!