Thinkery - Open Visual Thinkery

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

Digital Skills Sandwich

Sandwich anyone? I do love a good sandwich. If potatoes are the king of carbs, then surely bread is its queen? As an Irishman, I am of course very biased. Anyway, I digress… The Digital Skills Sandwich is an idea that’s been rumbling around in my head for a while now. It’s seed germinates from the fact…
Swiss Cheese Knowledge Gaps

This nugget of cheesy thinkery came from hearing Sal Khan speak at the BETT show. He talked about kids having “Swiss Cheese gaps” in their knowledge, and needing a growth mindset to close them. To understand education culture, talk to the kids who are subject to it and see what they see. My experience of…
Wanted: Honest Frank Feedback

It’s easy to look at what you’ve created and see it as either good or bad. The more you create, the more you get to know your own eyes and what they’re trying to tell you, and you realise that no creation is either good or bad.
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…