Nancy White's Library tagged productivity →  View Popular

Academic success requires various competencies, among them the ability to know and use a variety of tools and techniques to generate and organize information and ideas. I refer to the tools and techniques on this page as "notemaking" because "taking notes" is passive: just as we must make meaning, so we must make notes---in our head, on the page, and in our notebooks. None of the ideas here are new, though I hope the way I have designed these "school tools" helps you use them more effectively. To see how long people have been using graphic notes and Cornell Notes, check out these excerpts from Leonardo da Vinci's journals. With few exceptions, the tools and techniques listed here are appropriate for all classes; many use them in grades as low as fourth and fifth with success, though I do not have exemplars. The tools here are intentionally free of directions because their intuitive design allows for multiple uses. Over time I will try to add more exemplars for the different techniques so you can see these different uses.



Bookmarks for Critical Reading
These bookmarks are designed to keep the questions you need as close to the page as possible. There are two different bookmarks, one more directed to fiction (though useful for certain types of nonfiction) than the other.
Bookmark: Character Card (pdf)
Bookmark: Reading: Think About It 2.0



Character Directory (pdf).
A very helpful one-page spreadsheet to help students determine the importance, role, and name of each character in a story. Could be easily adapted for social studies readings which require kids to keep track of many different names.
Cluster Notes
Used for just short of one million ideas. Used to generate and organize ideas in early stages of reading or writing or thinking process. For a wonderful program that does this, visit www.inspiration.com.

Example: My brainstorm of Tools for presentation and poem

Click here to download a pdf version of Cluster Notes


Continuum Notes

Chapter 6
COMMUNITY

Because computers are at once intimate and impersonal, tied up with work, education and entertainment, they may be so woven into the fabric of our lives that 'standing back' is completely an illusion.
Susan Leigh Star [131]

The traditional definition of community includes a group of people, common interests and a common locality [142]. By extending the conception of locality to include the place provided by Usenet, alt.good.morning (AGM) reflects all the characteristics of Oldenburg's third place [114]. It is a place of conviviality, a global conversation. It is open at all hours without any membership requirement other than access to a computer, basic computing skills and some knowledge of English. Traweek defines community as a group of people with a shared history, with distinct behaviors and with expectations for a shared future [144]. Falk further refines the definition to include common ideals and commitment of personal resources and energy [41]. AGM is made up of individuals from around the world who develop a shared history, distinct behaviors, expectations for a shared future and common ideals through their interactions on AGM and through the affordances of CMC. After a brief look at what defines community and culture, I describe how AGM fulfills those definitions.