Sketchnoting in Chromebook Classroom
If you have Chromebooks (or any device) in the classroom you can now change the way note-taking happens to make it more modern and purposeful. Notes no longer need to be linear and text-heavy – they can now be interactive and visual.
Taking notes from analog to digital provides students an opportunity to take notes in a more meaningful and effective way, through something called sketchnoting.
Sketching and drawing present unbelievable ways for students to interact with information and to critically think about what they are learning. This experience – as cognitive learning theory tells us – provides students a better chance of actually remembering key ideas and information because they experience the “cognitively struggle” they need to deepen understanding.
In addition to this cognitive importance, we know that visuals are way more powerful than text for learning and memory. In fact, research shows that visuals are processed 60,000 times faster than text! And that people remember 10% of what they hear, 20% of what they read, 80% of what they see & do!
Source: Images versus Text – The Data on Visuals Winning.
Why Sketchnoting is Important For Students
Sunni Brown in her Tedx Talk called Doodlers Unite -discusses the importance of changing the idea that doodling is bad and emphasizes in her talk that she is not okay with the fact “That our culture is so intensely focused on verbal information that we’re almost blinded to the value of doodling, and doodling is an incredibly powerful tool, and it is a tool that we need to remember and to re-learn.”
Sunni goes on to say that “ Doodling is really to make spontaneous marks to help yourself think. That is why millions of people doodle [and that} People who doodle when they’re exposed to verbal information retain more of that information than their non-doodling counterparts. We think doodling is something you do when you lose focus, but in reality, it is a preemptive measure to stop you from losing focus. Additionally, it has a profound effect on creative problem-solving and deep information processing.”
Even if you don’t have touchscreens, students can draw and sketch their notes on paper and take pictures of their creations and turn those in using Google Classroom.
In her book How to Sketchnote, A Step-by-Step Manual for Teachers and Students, Sylva Duckworth explains it this way, “Sketchnoting is a form of visual note-taking, where you draw or doodle your thoughts, observations, or notes in combination with words or text. Sketchnoting is not art. It is a very personal way to document your thought process.”
So why should students in Chromebook classrooms be sketchnoting? Because it promotes thinking and learning in ways that are truly valuable to the ultimate goal of understanding.
Check out Sylvia’s SITE and BOOK for great resources on how to get started.
Make sure to have students explain their sketchnotes to make their thinking and learning visible.
Use an app like Flipgrid or Seesaw to have them make their learning visible by explaining their ideas and drawings and why they chose to draw what they did.
Use these APPs on a Chromebook
Autodesk Sketchbook or even Auto Draw or Drawings on Drive.