Thinkery - Open Visual Thinkery

Here is the archive of open visual thinkery in chronological order.

Personal Learning Network (PLN)

Twitter. Its like this thing, yeah, that you tweet stuff, yeah, but like you’re only allowed like 140 characters yeah – so like its really interesting and stuff… This is how someone introduced me to twitter. Now that I’ve been experimenting inside it for a while, I can point to a number of things (knowledge, ideas,…
Catalyst of change

I had a very enjoyable conversation with Giles Anderton before Christmas, and this thought appeared. I see myself as a catalyst for change. But if I’m being honest, I realise that in the past I’ve been as resistant to change as the next guy – and not even for reasons I can clearly articulate. I once heard…
The Binary Decision

I’m now in the habit of carrying around a sketchbook and scribbling down a thought as it jumps around in my brain. I’ve recently noticed that being creative requires a lot of noticing (notice what i did there?…) In this instance I was noticing how decisions are rarely binary, even thought its in our nature to…
Creativity in Schools

I watched this video clip of Dylan Wiliam talking about how important creativity in schools is. I worry – and I know a lot of others do to – about the lack of importance placed on this in schools, and in particular, secondary schools. In the UK, we’re going backwards. A lot of the responsibility…
The Four Elements of Studentship

I met John Webber from Sussex Downs College recently, and discovered a number of common interests, including Open Badges. He sent through this thinking on his understanding of studentship, which I’ve taken the liberty of attempting to bring life a little….
Ideation and thinkery…

Oh, the need for a creative process in order to ideate and innovate! In my experience, people have different strengths when it comes to thinking, and without a recognition of this (and a process), one person’s sideways idea is discounted as silly, or even worse, seen as a threat. Tom Barrett’s blog entitled “The ebb and flow between…
River of Education

I was reading this bit of fluid thinking by Aaron Davis and this thought popped in to my head, so I had to draw it. The idea of different tributaries combining to form a wide river at the source, and the wide displacement of the river’s delta as it meets the sea surely fits the education system metaphor.…
Open Badges paint a better picture…

Dr. Doug Belshaw and I got together to think visually about Open Badges resulting in the blog post “3 reasons open source needs Open Badges” which featured this piece of thinkery. Macro credentials are like broad brushstrokes on the canvas, whereas micro credentials could fill in the detail. Oh, and I wish I had wallpaper like this…
Dyslexia…

I really enjoyed making this visual thought, commissioned by MindshiftKQED to go with “Dyslexia and the Wider World of Creativity and Talent” by Holly Korbey. However, the bit that really buttered my parsnips (a Christmas metaphor, if you will…) was creating the Picasso image. I found that by trying to imitate his style I started to see a bit…
What next for Open Badges?

Blockchain, the underlying technology used by Bitcoin, is cool. At least, I think it is, if I could only get my head around it. A group of thinkers (including Serge Ravet) from the Open Badges Community got together to start thinking about how the Open Badge standard could be used inside the Blockchain. What would…
Hey! How’d you do that?

I’ve been asked many times about how I go about creating visual thinkery – so here’s a first stab at illustrating the tools I use. Even though drawing with a stylus on my iPad was my path into drawing, I prefer to use pen and paper as the fastest way to capture and develop an idea.
Brain bender

I’m fascinated by how the brain takes meaning from its visual sensory input. By adding highlights and shadows, suddenly drawings come alive, as the brain interprets depth and adds meaning. My 10 year-old was doing pretty well at getting this 2D->3D brain trick to work (oddly enough, someone at church had used it to talk about…