

I really liked this article on The Paper Version of the Web when I saw it earlier in the week. Twitter, Vimeo, Flickr Places, and more all started out as sketches---simpler communications as people shared and refined ideas before building them. But, we rarely see this part of the development process. On the right there is a sketch for the proposed word processing program for the one laptop per child project. There are many more interesting photos of sketches posted with the article. It is the modern version of a cabinet of curiosity: relics and whimsy all mixed together.
Most of my original notes wind up in the trash because, really, who cares what they were? But perhaps there is something metacognitive I could do with them. Might they convey how to move a process along? Below are my stages as I prepare for my grading workshop a month from now. The first is just scrawls. These were my original notes, scribbled as I thought of things. This page was intended as no more than a place to capture ideas over a few days...a holding tank of sorts. Perhaps as my students worked on an assignment and I had a thought about the presentation, I would jot the information here. (If you're interested in getting a closer look, you can click on any of the images to enlarge them.)



Finally, we have a further refinement of the first parts of the workshop. It contains more details for me regarding discussion questions to use. There are more pegs to hang ideas on. Even the elements on this page are likely to change in the final draft; however, once I get to this point in the process, I'm able to set the ideas aside and focus on other things. I know that if something happened and I didn't get to have one more iteration of revision, I would still be able to take this and make it work just fine.


There you have it. A bit of my own process for you. What are you using to organize your ideas?
4 comments:
LOVE my Circa Notebook. I use it with a Getting Things Done style and index cards. I basically can't think without paper. Great post!
I have used various types of organizational systems---but I keep coming back to paper. I like my Palm PDA for carrying other kinds of information: contacts, digital files, music, etc. It's more of a long-term reference for me, while my Circa notebook really does live in the present. It has all the things I'm doing and thinking about right now (and it's easy to archive pieces later).
Give me a sharp long-point pencil behind my ear and a piece of paper, and I'll move the world. (with apologies to Archimedes)
Mind maps. One of my secret weapons for a 4.0 in grad school.
I read Tony Buzan's book Use Both Sides of Your Brain in 1975 and have been teaching the basic (forget the drawings and color) technique to students ever since.
I've long intended to write about their uses that I've enjoyed, so look for a blog post on the matter soon. :)
I will definitely be looking forward to that!
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