Graphic Recording & Facilitation
Hand-drawn words & images to capture your ideas in real time, free up mental space, support creativity, and help people feel heard.
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![A hand-drawn graphic recording image of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign session. The image shows colorful flowers and watercolor-like illustrations, matching the “Alice in Wonderland” inspired Feywild adventure.]()
Collaborative Play: Dungeons and Dragons Wonderland Campaign
This graphic recording features notes from a Dungeons and Dragons campaign session loosely inspired by Alice in Wonderland. The world and narrative were created and facilitated by Game Master Jasper Day (BumbleTheFox). The game featured characters by players Lauren, Cody, Matt, Josh, Paul, and Laura.
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![This hand-drawn graphic recording shows key ideas from CoSN’s webinar “Generative AI: The New School Supply?” Major topics depicted include Teacher & Admin Workshops; Playing with AI Tools; Trending AI; Productivity Tools: Assessments; and Equity]()
Exploring Generative AI in K-12 Education
Graphic recording of CoSN’s Webinar, “Generative AI: The New School Supply?” This webinar featured mini-presentations from seven educators and edtech experts. One of my personal take-aways was the idea of using play to make AI tools less scary.
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![A hand-drawn graphic recording image of Sal Khan’s TED Talk entitled “How AI Could Save (Not Destroy) Education.” Major topics depicted include how AI can transform education as both a personal tutor and a teaching assistant.]()
TED Talk: How AI Could Save (Not Destroy) Education
A graphic recording of Sal Khan’s TED Talk entitled “How AI Could Save (Not Destroy) Education.“ Major topics depicted include how AI can transform education as both a personal tutor and a teaching assistant.
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![A screenshot of a virtual whiteboard used to facilitate a 50-person meeting and leverage the power of visual thinking. On the virtual board are several large boxes organizing post-its and images. The text is small and very hard or impossible to read.]()
Exploring Opportunities & Priorities at a Joint Committee Meeting
Two education innovation committees – CoSN’s Driving K-12 Innovation Advisory Board and EdTech Innovation Committee – came together for a special joint meeting to explore possibilities and priorities for the coming year. I had the joy of facilitating their work using a collaborative virtual white board, leveraging the power of visual thinking and simultaneous work.
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![A hand-drawn graphic recording image of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign session. The image shows colorful fall leaves, matching the fall setting of the “Alice in Wonderland” inspired Feywild adventure.]()
Collaborative Play: Dungeons and Dragons Wonderland Campaign
This graphic recording features notes from a Dungeons and Dragons campaign session loosely inspired by Alice in Wonderland. The world and narrative were created and facilitated by Game Master Jasper Day (BumbleTheFox). The game featured characters by players Lauren, Cody, Matt, Josh, Paul, and Laura.
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![A hand-drawn graphic facilitation image. Two key ideas featured are: virtual learning enables connections that would otherwise be difficult or impossible and does meaningful connection mean different things to different populations?]()
Making Connection Meaningful in the Virtual Classroom
Engagement co-chairs Carmen Beck and I facilitated a Networking Design Sprint Part at OLC Accelerate 2023 (virtual). This graphic facilitation image is from the first of two sessions, focused on problems & opportunities for making connections meaningful in virtual learning spaces.
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![A hand-drawn graphic recording image of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign session. The image shows a watercolor postcard and notes in three parts: 1) Free the Enslaved, 2) To the Shop, 3) back to our inn.]()
Dungeons and Dragons “Darling, this war is Divine” (Divine War Campaign)
This graphic recording features notes from a Dungeons and Dragons campaign session set during the Divine War in a world created by Game Master Jasper Day (BumbleTheFox). The game was run by Jasper and featured characters by players players Lauren, Vishnu, Paul, and Laura.
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![This graphic facilitation image features attendee ideas from CoSN’s 2023 Driving K-12 Innovation webinar. It shows responses to the prompt “Concrete steps to leverage Tech Enablers, overcome Hurdles, or take advantage of Accelerators?”]()
Leveraging Tools to Overcome Hurdles to Innovation in K-12
This graphic facilitation image features key ideas shared by each breakout group at the 2023 Driving K-12 Innovation Summit. My colleague Stephanie King and I designed this lively session in partnership with CoSN to amplify the voices of international educators, explore the top Hurdles, Accelerators, and Tech Enablers for K-12 innovation in 2023, and create space for attendees to connect and discuss.
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![Written and sketched notes of the Ologies episode on Dendrology (trees) with Alie Ward and Casey Clapp. The image includes a simplified illustration of fungus supplying water to a tree (water pulled up as tree leaves lose water).]()
Ologies with Alie Ward: Dendrology
This graphic recording explores an illustrative approach to communicating information visually and the delightful option of adding animation to a graphic recording (not shown above). It features information from my favorite podcast, Ologies with Alie Ward, and the episode “Dendrology” with Casey Clapp.
What is Graphic facilitation?
Graphic facilitation is using visual thinking to support a group’s (or individual) process: helping people see their ideas and make meaning. This often involves drawing on a digital canvas during a virtual meeting, writing on huge paper for an in-person gathering, or designing other ways for attendees to interact with their ideas.
Graphic recording is similar, but with a primary focus on capturing the group’s process more than direct facilitation of the gathering.
Both graphic facilitation and recording:
help people feel heard. They can see their ideas, and so can everyone else.
support mental load and creativity. It frees up mental space when you don’t have to hold everything inside your head.
let you tap into the brain’s ability to absorb and process visual information, quickly.
helps a group focus (and be literally on the same page)
What is Visual Thinking?
Visual thinking is making ideas tangible and spacial to help you make sense of them. Putting ideas on paper gets them out of your head and helps you see relationships and possibilities between ideas.
You’re probably already using visual thinking! Writing to-do lists, brainstorming on a white board, organizing thoughts on post-its, bullet journaling – all of this counts as visual thinking.
