The Teacher's Wellbeing Cycle
The school I work at gave everyone the option of a day doing other activities. This was ours! Little did I realise that blowing your nose during a cycle is a bad move for the people behind you (sorry Mike - what can I say? I am an amateur and I have heavy nostrils…).
A few process notes
For those of you who have been here before this should come as no surprise but here are the usual stages outline in the snapshots below.
Gathering raw materials (I also had a few photos but I thought I’d spare my friends the shame)
Some biro/sketchbook notes for initial thinking and shifting basic ideas about
Clip Studio Paint for first tidy pencils
Affinity Designer for vectors (moving back and forth between my iMac and iPad to get the best of the different input methods¹)
initial inking
shade
colours
layout
¹ Apple Pencil is the best way of drawing. The bigger iMac screen with a trackpad/mouse is a lot better for organising and arranging compositional elements - especially when it comes to the millions of layers that vectors produce).
A few screenshots
Non-fussy and frictionless: Loom as a useful teaching tool
I was delighted to be mentioned by Loom on their recent blog post not least because much of what I am about is communicating ideas efficiently using digital tools. Being recognised in this way might mean that finally my media career can take off and I can buy those gold taps that I always longed for.
Anywho… the previous blog post outlined a few initial thoughts on this useful tool which I pretty much still stand by. The big change since then is that I am using it a lot more for short topic intros and work feedback with my groups.
For posterity I thought it was worth sharing the clip that they mentioned - a quick overview of the Buddha’s life complete with a fictional hedgehog apprentice:²
As you can see it isn’t a super-polished presentation¹ - which is the point of these things - this is about fallible teachers communicating directly, quickly and sometimes roughly with their classes. The great benefit with this tool is that I can make a fast shareable upload that retains the human touch. One of the things I am often expressing on this blog is the importance of facilitating thought processes - in other words employing tools that enable idea development rather than slowing it down or getting in the way. For me, Loom has been a frictionless method to get some teaching thoughts down efficiently without being too fussy.
Non-precious is the new precious.
¹ although the material I created did take a while to put together!
² if you are offended then you haven’t taught teenagers
³ I don’t care for gold taps
Supporting Vulnerable People
Dave Burke is a friend from a galaxy far, far away. As a communicator, he speaks with conviction and insight into mental health issues. I was thrilled to see he is reaching out and providing useful tips for supporting vulnerable people in our communities - especially with Covid19 looming so awfully. Hopping into one of his zoom webinars recently, I created some shareable sketchnotes:
If you want to explore these issues further Dave has a helpful website. If my scribing is something you think would benefit someone you know then get in touch or explore other examples here.
Managing an Organisation Through a Crisis
Alex Morrison wrote a superb article about managing an organisation through a crisis (eg C19). He presented this as a free webinar via Wired Sussex yesterday and I made this A3 infographic from my notes.
If that is too tricky to zoom in on I made a slideshow version below.
If you see this and think that my scribing service might be useful then please get in touch to chat about working together.