A Guide to Documenting Learning

by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano

  The goals for using a co-writing Google Doc backchannel strategy include

  Allowing the learners time for reflection

  Giving the learners confidence that they will be personally supported

  Seeing the power of collaborative writing in real time

  Increasing the take-aways for the learners, due to being able to read what others are sharing

  Image/Photograph Documentation

  Documenting life, history, knowledge, and stories via images is the oldest form of documentation. Cave drawings are the earliest form of documented documentation (pun intended). Although an image can speak a thousand words, how insightful would it have been if those cave drawings had annotations? In other words, what are the details that the drawings cannot reveal?

  Current societies are image-rich. There are no lack of visuals playing important roles in telling the story of the times, families, and communities. It is amazing to see the youngest and oldest possessing devices that allow them to instantaneously snap, store, and send thousands of images. No longer are people held back by location, and even wealth, from having a smartphone that allows images to be shared and amplified worldwide within moments of capturing people, places, and perspectives.

  Using images as part of capturing artifacts is a powerful tool when documenting FOR and AS learning. Here are six strategies, which are by no means exhaustive, to aid in using images effectively.

  QR Code 8.2 Scan this QR code to watch a screencast on how to create a Google Doc backchannel exit ticket based on the Visible Thinking Routine: I See, I Think, I Wonder.

  http://langwitches.me/backchannel-exit

  Strategy 1: Annotexting

  Annotexting is annotating an image. An arrow points a viewer’s eye to a specific area of the image; frames highlight and point out specific details; and concise text provides context. Most annotating tools have a blurring feature so that students’ faces can be pixelated for security reasons, when necessary. An image can be uploaded to a slide and annotexted using the shape, arrow, and text box features.

  Annotexting is an essential strategy for documenting learning, especially when unpacking and reflecting in the after-documentation phase. It is a cognitive, and oftentimes metacognitive, process that requires thoughtful consideration for what the artifact is revealing as evidence of learning. Without an explanation of or reflection about what is being observed in an image, the image is merely a display.

  There are a variety of tools that can be used for annotexting. Some are specifically for overlaying purposes, such as Skitch (which is what was used for annotexting Image 8.2), Preview (the native image and PDF viewer for iOS), Annotate, and Notability. Applications, such as PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Presentation, can also be used for annotexting.

  Image 8.2

  Strategy 2: Screenshooting

  A screenshot is an image taken to capture a specific moment on a digital screen, such as a laptop, tablet, or smartphone. The purpose for taking a screenshot for documentation purposes can vary, such as capturing an image that will change in a few moments (e.g., the first draft of a correspondence), over time (e.g., series of daily screenshots of weather forecasts for a city or town), or where only certain parts or sections of the screen are needed (e.g., creating a tutorial and taking a screenshot of a small section of the images on the screen to use in the explanation sequence).

  Screenshooting is the act of taking a screenshot. Planning for this action is often a part of the pre-documentation phase planning, as it is the time for primary or secondary learners to consider what needs to be captured and the specifics concerning what shots will best convey the desired details or message. For example, a series of sectional screenshots would be best for creating a blog post that will include a how-to tutorial for podcast versus a single shot of a close-up of an insect taken on an iPad in preparation for a younger learner to label its body parts as a documentation artifact.

  Oftentimes, there is confusion between screenshooting and screencasting. Screenshooting produces a still image, while screencasting produces a video. There may or may not be audio narration involved when screencasting. Screencasting documentation is addressed later in this chapter.

  Screenshooting features are usually included in annotexting tools, such as Skitch, Preview, and Snagit.

  Strategy 3: Sketchnoting

  Sketchnoting is a form of taking notes wherein the sketchnoter visually represents his or her thoughts and ideas. Lee (2017) comments that, “[Sketchnoting] must be seen as a way to communicate and document one’s thinking as opposed to a way to draw.”

  Through purposeful placement of titles, subtitles, icons, frames, containers, arrows, connectors, and typography, a sketchnoter visually conveys the key points or details of something being read, listened to, viewed, or simply thought about for one moment in time or over period of time.

  Sketchnoting is useful when wanting or needing to get a mental model out of one’s head in order to share with oneself and others. Regardless of the reason for sketchnoting, the sketchnoter provides visual evidence of his or her thinking in terms of the content’s importance, relationships, hierarchy, sequences, timelines, and/or metaphors. This supports documenting FOR and AS learning opportunities because it requires the process of reflection and interpretation of the content the learner is processing, while tapping into one’s cognitive and metacognitive thinking.

  There are eight strategic documenting purposes that sketchnoting can support, which are represented in the sketchnote (see Image 8.3).

  There are a variety of sketchnoting tools available, including Procreate, Adobe Draw, Brushes, Explain Everything, and Flipink. Image 8.3 was created using Paper by FiftyThree.

  Strategy 4: Comic Strips

  Drawings or images in panels (single frames) placed in sequential tiers (rows), as well as overlaid narrator captions (rectangular boxes) and speech bubbles or dialogue balloons compose a comic strip.

  Image 8.3

  When the panels are read collectively or in a sequential order, a “story” is formed, which is not meant or required to be comical. This term is simply referring to the visual format and layout, rather than the strip’s content and message.

  While comic strips usually have the name of the strip included, for documenting purposes the title reflects the topic or theme the strip is representing. Creating strips is a helpful documenting strategy for primary learners in that they need to first determine what set of photographs and/or screenshots that have collected will be thoughtfully placed in a strip’s panels to convey an experience, such as a science inquiry lab or mathematical task.

  Then the learners need to determine what needs to be added regarding captions, dialogue balloons, and appropriate title to become a learning narrative.

  As a secondary learner, a teacher can use the comic strip strategy as an artifact to convey to his or her students what they are orally expressing during a collaborative project or task. In the during-documentation phase, while students are actively engaged in the learning experience, the teacher needs to multitask to

  Gather visual evidence by taking photos and/or screenshots

  Jot down written anecdotes or capture audio recordings

  Image 8.4

  In the post-documentation phase, the teacher will select the desired images and anecdotes that best convey evidence of learning and create one class strip, or one strip per collaborative team, highlighting the learning focus or goal.

  The cognitive reflections the teacher needs to incorporate when selecting the photo images for the panels, narrator captions, and speech bubbles are a form of unpacking that leads to creating the artifact or artifacts.

  When the teacher shares the strips with his or her students, amplification begins because the sharing extends beyond the teacher’s personal thinking, interpretation, and learning. The comic strip artifact(s) can also be amplified to a larger audience by including in a blog post, posting to Instagram, or adding to a Twitter post.

  Im
age 8.4 strip was made with Comic Life. Other strip-creation tools include Strip Designer, Comic Book!, and Make Believe Comix.

  Strategy 5: Infographics and Visual Quote Cards

  While photographs alone play a significant role in documenting, there are two additional types of visuals that can also prove meaningful: infographics and visual quote cards.

  Just as with sketchnotes, infographics use titles, shapes, figures, icons, containers, frames, arrows, connectors, and typography to make one’s thinking visible. A key difference between sketchnotes and infographics is purpose: Sketchnotes aid the creator in getting his or her ideas out of his or her head and onto paper or screen to convey a mental model, whereas an infographic’s foremost purpose is to express a concept, idea, or topic to an audience.

  Image 8.5

  A component of the documenting learningflow routine is focused on sharing the learning with an audience greater than oneself (degrees of sharing amplification). At times, this will authentically involve conveying a message to a target audience. When doing so, it is important for the learners to consider how the message can best be conveyed visually and concisely. Watson (2015) shared evidence that, “According to scientists, the age of smartphones has left humans with such a short attention span, [which] has fallen from 12 seconds in 2000, or around the time the mobile revolution began, to eight seconds.”

  Image 8.6

  This is one reason why infographics have become such an effective way to communicate. For example, look at Images 8.5 and 8.6. Image 8.5 is an artifact of a learner’s expression of why heutagogy is an important approach to learning written as a textual passage. Image 8.6 is the same learner’s expression conveyed in an infographic wherein the important points to support her reasoning uses a title and short word or phrases paired with images. Which one catches the attention of a reader quickest and holds interest the longest? When scanning the two images, which one stimulates the brain to wonder about what is being conveyed?

  Infographics create visually appealing and easily understandable artifacts that can

  highlight sequential or chronological events;

  summarize key points and concepts of something read, listened to, or viewed;

  explain a relationship between or among large sums of numbers or statistics; or

  represent a social pattern or trend.

  QR Code 8.3 Scan this QR code to view the infographic Janet created to summarize key points after reading an article for a project-based learning coaching institute she was attending.

  http://langwitches.me/what-good-coaches-do

  Creating infographics is an excellent strategy for educators’ professional learning opportunities, especially when they are expected to share or amplify what they have gleaned from text read, video viewed, or audio heard.

  A few infographic creation tools include Piktochart, Canva, Visme, and easel.ly.

  Visual Quote Cards

  On the surface, it may appear to be a simple task to create a visual quote card: choose a background and place a quote and attributor on the foreground. This is not the case when using this form as thoughtful visual documentation.

  Here are two examples that express why visual quote cards are perfect for creating learning-thinking artifacts.

  Conference/Workshop or Classroom High-lights.

  When attending a conference or workshop, there are often hours and hours of receptive information coming into the brain. Attendees can oftentimes be heard saying, “I can’t take any more information in . . . I am on overload!”

  Image 8.7

  For professional learning opportunities, it is important to plan what photographs or images will be used as backgrounds for the visual quote cards that will aid or enhance the capture-worthy quotes shared during the attended sessions or workshops.

  There are three options for conducting background planning: (1) during the pre-documentation phase; (2) at the onset of the during-documentation phase; or (3) a combination of both. Whichever option is selected, here are option considerations for creating the visual quote cards:

  Pick the sessions or workshops you plan on attending and immediately begin taking photographs that pertain to the session or workshop topic or theme in your classroom or school. For example, if you are attending a session on the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) iterative model-making concept, take photos of your students creating models or presenting arguments about their generated models. If you will be attending a Writer’s Workshop training, have someone be your photographer and take photographs of you working with your students during various moments during your class’s Writer’s Workshop time. If you prefer, or would simply like to have more background options—without infringing on copyright you can search for appropriate photographs or images using free or subscription services, such as Flickr, FreeImages.com, 123RFStock Images, or iStock.

  As the conference, workshop, or training date approaches or arrives, organize and have ready your pre-taken and/or pre-selected photographs or images to be imported into your desired typography designer tool, often referred to as a word swag app (e.g., Typorama, WordSwag, Kwote, Quotes Creator); or to a tool that has a slide feature, wherein a slide will become a visual quote card (e.g., PowerPoint, Keynote, Google Slides).

  At the onset of the session, workshop, or training you are now attending, have your desired tool up and running on your mobile device (e.g., smartphone or tablet). To prepare for capturing worthwhile quotes, take photographs of the presenter or presenters getting the session started, as well as the venue. If using Google Slides, for example, upload the various photographs, one image per slide, so you will have a series of backgrounds ready to use. If using Typorama or similar app, chose a just-taken image from your photo gallery to upload to the app and prepare to overlay it with the desired text quote. When a presenter shares a worth-capturing quote, use the text overlay feature in your selected tool and type in the quote. Depending on the tool and text layout capabilities, add the attributor’s name and save image to your device. Continue capturing worthwhile quotes and attributions throughout the conference, workshop, or training.

  Important Note: Be certain you are cognizant of leaving an adequate amount of open space in a background photograph so that the added quote and attribution will not interfere with the image’s focal point or points. For example, look at Images 8.8 and 8.9. Technically, they are the same image of Alan November, but notice the difference in the open (negative) space in Image 8.9. This is what is visually meant by leaving enough open space to overlay with text, as you can see in the visual quote card (see Image 8.10). An open space can be anywhere within the frame: top, bottom, side, or in the middle, as varying the openness provides unique perspectives when creating a relationship between the background image and the overlaid quote.

  Lastly, do not forget to share the visual quote cards you created during the presentation. A small degree of amplification would be printing them out and sharing copies with a few colleagues or sending them digitally via an email. A greater degree of amplification would be sharing your cards using social media, such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, on a website, or in a blog post. The greatest amplification would be to also strategically include a #hashtag or @username, such as #writersworkshop or @doc4learning, to reach a specific social-media audience.

  Remember that visual quote cards are an excellent strategy to use in the classroom as well. It is eye-opening to see the visual quote cards students have generated based on what they perceive to be worthy of noting that a teacher or peer has stated.

  Visual quote cards can be used by learners when reading text or listening to orations (see Image 8.7).

  Image 8.8

  Image 8.9

  Image 8.10

  For example, Mrs. Seinhart’s second graders were about to begin reading a self-selected chapter book from five book options and meeting in literature-circle discussion groups to discuss each chapter. She knew having her students create visual quote cards per chapter for their sele
cted books would be a perfect documenting opportunity.

  She decided on three learning focuses:

  Making text-to-self connections

  Supporting media literacy

  Communicating beyond text using a visual medium

  She posted the focuses and discussed her reasoning for selecting each one with her students. Mrs. Seinhart then told her students they needed to not only visualize connections between what they are reading and themselves, but also, “Be able to get the mental picture of what you are seeing in your mind’s eye out and share that mental image with others in a different way than just writing sentences or paragraphs.”

  Mrs. Seinhart shared that instead of writing sentences or paragraphs, they would be creating visual quote cards to make their thinking visible as they read each chapter. She told them the quote could not tap into just any thought. It needed to, “Make a connection that left an emotional mental impression.” She then showed them the two tools they could choose from to create their visual quote cards: PicCollage or Google Slides.