Tag Archives: ipad

Last week, I gave a TEDx talk in Guatemala…

… and it was an awesome experience!

The event was TEDxUFM at the Universidad Francisco Marroquin in Guatemala City. The theme was to explore education and the new culture of learning, especially as it involves play, questioning, and imagination. I am over-the-moon thrilled that I had the opportunity to participate in a TEDx event, especially this one, as the topic is close to my heart. The organizers and staff who put on TEDxUFM 2012 did a fantastic job — just look at this year’s lineup of speakers!

It was an honor to be speaking alongside USC’s Douglas Thomas (co-author of A New Culture of Learning) and Khan Academy developer David Hu, as well as the spectacular group of speakers and performers from Guatemala.

My visual notes of @douglast's talk at #TEDxUFM last Saturday

My visual notes of Doug Thomas’ TED talk, TEDxUFM, August 19 2012

More of my visual notes are coming soon to Flickr… I have to finish them! Following my own advice, I got the key points down and left spaces for embellishments to be added later. TED talks go by fast, and almost all the points are key!

My talk, Drawing in Class, explored visual note taking — particularly the role of personal visual note taking for students. The video will be up in four to six weeks, but here is the full slide set (with notes), posted on Slideshare:

Related Materials and Links:

While I was preparing for the talk, I found Nancy Duarte’s 10 Ways to Prepare for a TED-Format Talk to be a wonderful resource. I started with the sticky note tip and wrote each example or point on a note. Then I moved them around until I was happy with them, trimming and re-ordering until I liked the story.

Using sticky notes to plan my presentation

Preparing for my talk using Nancy Duarte’s advice

Her suggestions helped me to focus on the “why,” and the advice about rehearsing with the clock first running up and then running down was invaluable.

I found this page after I had already given the talk, but if a TED-format talk is in your future, you might want to take a look: How to “Do” a TED Talk from Teaching with TED.

The whole experience was incredibly cool, but I think my favorite part was being called a conferencista. How fantastic is that?

UPDATED 24 August — added more related links.
UPDATED 29 February 2020 — added notes to links that are no longer available.

precision lettering in iPad drawing apps

I received a question today that many people have asked me: How do I make my lettering so neat and precise when I’m using drawing apps on the iPad? I’ve been asked if it’s a font, or if I use a special stylus or some other trick. Here’s my (perhaps disappointingly simple) answer.

My iPad notes of MK Haley's keynote at #IFVP2012

A recent piece. I’m still working on my lettering, by the way. Always.

I don’t use a stylus; I just use my finger. I zoom way way in so that I can only see a few words at a time, and then I scoot along as I write. The precise lettering is mostly due to practice — if you look at some of the earliest work I did, you’ll see that I’ve come a long way 🙂

Bryan Alexander's Keynote

The very first iPad graphic recording I ever did – May 8, 2010. For reference, the iPad I was using (wifi + 3G) became available on April 30, 2010 — about a week earlier. I leapt right in.

One trick I can share is to line up the baseline of whatever you’re writing so that it’s a little bit above the app border on the iPad. For instance, if you zoom way in, you can move the page around to put the words about half an inch above the bottom edge of the app, which of course is straight. Then use that as a guide while you write. In Brushes, you’d do this by using the two-finger-spread to zoom in, then use two fingers to move the page around until your text was just above the toolbar (or the bottom of the app if you’ve hidden the toolbar). Write a bit, use two fingers to move the page sideways, and continue.

zooming in with Brushes

Zooming in and lining up the baseline of text in Brushes.

That’s the main reason I don’t use a stylus, by the way — I’m always zooming and moving the screen, and if I had to hold a stylus while I did it, it would take way too long.

Happy zooming!

 

 

Quickly share those delicious iPad notes (how-to)

At the 2012 IFVP Conference last week, I took visual notes on my iPad during several sessions. Right after each session — and I mean right after — I posted the image to Flickr and tweeted the link with the conference tag. It took me about 15 seconds to post each one, and I didn’t even have to switch away from my drawing app. Here’s how I did it.

My iPad notes of MK Haley’s keynote at #IFVP2012

What You Need:

  • A Flickr account (I have a Pro account, not sure if you can do this without it, but Flickr’s awesome so you probably can)
  • A Twitter account
  • An iPad that can access the Internet and send email
  • A drawing app on the iPad (Brushes, Sketchbook Pro, whatever)
  • Something that you drew in your drawing app

What To Do:

1. Set up Flickr to do the heavy lifting.

Once you have a Flickr account, you can set it up so that you can email stuff to it and also so that it will tweet for you. To make the magic happen, log in to your Flickr account and go to Account (You menu > Account, or click on your name in the top right). You have two tasks here: To hook up your Twitter account to your Flickr account, and to get the address you will email stuff to.

To connect Twitter and Flickr, click on the Sharing & Extending tab. Click the Twitter icon or link, and then click “Authorize this App.” Follow the on-screen instructions until Flickr tells you it’s all set and you see Twitter in your Sharing list on Flickr with an “Edit” button next to it. (If you are freaked out by this, you can skip this step and do the automatic post-to-Flickr part below, and then just tweet manually.)

To find your special email address for Flickr, click the Emails & Notifications tab in your Flickr account. Scroll down to where it says “Your Flickr2Twitter upload email” and copy that address so you can paste it in a minute. (If you decided not to do the Twitter part, copy the address next to “Your Flickr upload email” instead.)

2. Create a contact with that email address.

Now go to your iPad and open the Contacts app that came with the iPad. Create a new contact (Click the plus sign at the bottom) and call it “Twitter and Flickr” or “Flickr” or something similar. Just make it something you can remember later. Then paste the email address you copied in step 1 into the email field, and save the contact.

My iPad notes of keynote by @LRDC1’s Chris Schunn at #IFVP2012

3. Find or create a drawing to share.

Open your favorite drawing app and either create a new drawing, or find one that you already did that you want to share. I use Brushes and Sketchbook Pro the most, and for both of these, you want to be in the Gallery, not in edit-image mode. When you are looking at the image you want, tap the Share button (in Sketchbook Pro, this looks like a flower with an arrow; in Brushes, it looks like a rectangle with an arrow). You might have to select the image in the gallery in some apps (like SBP) first. If you’re using a different app, look for a similar icon somewhere. Tap this icon.

4. Email the image, including the right text and tags.

When you tap the icon, you should see an option that says “Mail image” or something similar to that. Tap that, and a blank email appears with the image in it. (In some apps, you might have to choose an orientation for the image, so that it’s not upside down.) Here’s how to fill out the email:

To: Start to type the name of the “contact” you made earlier (Twitter, Flickr, etc) until that weird email address pops in.

Subject: This will become the text of your tweet AND the title of the image on Flickr. If you’re at a gathering, this is the place to include the hashtag (like #IFVP2012) so that it will show up in Twitter searches. It’s also nice to go find the Twitter handle of the speaker and include that, too. That way, the speaker sees your notes later, and sometimes retweets you. Just keep the subject short, because the tweet will also include a shortened URL to your Flickr page.

Body: The image is in the body. In addition, any text in the body (including your email signature, so delete that!) will become the photo description in Flickr. I use this space to give more detail about the speaker, the event, or anything special about the notes.

5. Send it!

When you’re satisfied with the text, hit send! Then go peek at Flickr and Twitter to see what happened. You can adjust your next subject and body based on what you see from this first experiment.

Screen Shot of Twitter Posts

That’s it! After you’ve set it up, all you need to do is draw, tap the email button, type in the contact name, add a subject and body, and off it goes! Quick as anything.

 

Visual Note-taking on the iPad

I did it! I spoke at Macworld|iWorld 2012! Here are my slides, available on Slideshare.net. I had a wonderful and enthusiastic audience who gamely dove in and practiced drawing little icons with me — thank you all! I had a blast.

 

Notes from the Creative Leadership Academy

Last week, I was privileged to attend part of the Creative Leadership Academy held at The Boulders in Carefree, Arizona. I listened to inspiring talks by “provocateurs” Chris Waugh (IDEO) and Luke Williams (Frog Design fellow and author of Disrupt), and I participated in the workshop Cultivating a Kaleidoscope Mind, presented by Laura Seargeant Richardson and Ben McAllister of Frog Design. I also delivered the closing workshop, Visual Meetings and Teams: The Key to Practical Application of Creative Leadership.

Chris Waugh spoke about experience design after the reception on Tuesday evening (tough slot). He captured our attention by providing foam missiles and inviting a few intrepid volunteers to step up on stage to experience what a design critique often feels like — we stood there while the rest of the room pelted us with the rubber band-propelled missiles. I found it strongly reminiscent of my college courses in studio art. Chris showed examples of strikingly user-friendly or innovative product design and told the story behind each one. Unfortunately I hadn’t brought my iPad to the reception, so I didn’t take notes during his excellent talk.

The workshop from Frog invited us to come up with unusual ideas about how to change the conference itself. Each attendee received a set of cards with their registration materials that prompted them to jot down observations throughout the conference, such as noticing interactions between people or what the environment was like. During the workshop, we were given a framing question that took us out of the conference mindset (“What if the conference were a dinner party? What if it were a circus?”) and asked to review our observations in light of the framing question to see what ideas would emerge. Then we dot-voted on the ideas to select the ones we liked the best, and presented the top two or three with a title, a sketch, and a brief description. I took notes during the first part of the presentation:

visual notes from Frog Design session

The reference to the chicken foot is a reminder to find one thing that is so fascinating that you could draw it over and over, from many different angles, to explore its nature. (Laura had this experience with a chicken foot.) It was illuminating to contrast thoughts about the conference with such a variety of other ideas. My favorite juxtaposition was thinking about attendee participation in terms of the conference as a game. Hmm…

Luke Williams’ talk was about disruptive design, and he spoke about the steps or stages of disruptive design. I did take notes during this session:

By the time my workshop rolled around, everyone in the group was filled to the brim with ideas about creative leadership. I gave an introduction to Visual Meetings using the presentation David Sibbet created with Prezi, and then the plan was to map out our collective learning journey describing how to implement all the wonderful ideas from the past three days. There was a gentle mutiny, though, and instead we practiced drawing seed shapes (star people and other basic icons). I think everyone was pretty tapped out by then, but they all jumped in and practiced the drawings, and the energy level in the room just shot up. We also talked about using the iPad for graphic recording, which wasn’t formally on the agenda, but somehow someone always asks about it anyway. I was assisted during the workshop by my amazing and talented sister, Sonja Stone (the author). It was a great group of folks, and we definitely achieved the session objective of having a good time!

Overall, I appreciated the practical advice given by the other speakers about how to be creative. I know that sounds a little counter-intuitive, but creativity is often sparked by thinking about old ideas in new contexts, and the Academy demonstrated lots of different ways to achieve that.

Post-workshop Debrief

Workshop Title

Last Friday, I led a workshop at The Grove called Digital Tools for Graphic Recording. Anne Merkelson moderated the session, and Tomi Nagai-Rothe and Ed Palmer provided backup and technical support. Over 130 people attended the free online workshop, which was scheduled to go for an hour but ended up running about 90 minutes. I learned a lot — especially about giving an online workshop to that many people — and I also mentioned a bunch of tools and offered to make my Sketchbook Pro brush sets available for download. Read on for all that info.

Lessons Learned

WebEx Lessons. We had some technical issues — at least, I did. I got kicked out of the conference twice when the WebEx client quit on me. (Thanks, everyone, for hanging in there til I got back!) We’re still not sure exactly what happened.

This was a much larger workshop than I’ve run before, and I now have some pre-workshop housekeeping steps that I’ll take care of next time. My thanks go to the attendees who helped me take care of these tasks on the fly this time! Next time, pre-flight will include:

  1. Setting the conference options in advance to mute the beeps when people enter and leave.
  2. Muting everyone at once! I knew there had to be a way to do that, but I sure couldn’t find it until someone showed me where it was.
  3. Logging in as myself and also as admin, then passing presenter control to myself so the admin account isn’t required the whole time. We have a theory that the client crashes were related to the fact that I was logged in as the admin.

There are a few other things I might do differently next time:

  1. We learned afterward that some people tried to access the session from their iPads and were not able to. I don’t have information about the nature of the problems, but next time I’ll recommend that participants use computers.
  2. It appeared that some people who joined the session after I had started sharing my screen couldn’t find the chat window. I did cotton on and help them locate it eventually, but next time I would add instructions for this to the introduction of the session.

We did some things right, which means attendees probably didn’t notice them. I’ll mention those, too:

  1. In addition to the presenter (me), we had one person who was focusing only on collecting and moderating questions, and two people who were focused on helping people who had connection troubles.
  2. The session “started” 15 minutes before the official start time so that people could come in, test their connection, make sure they could see and hear, and so on.
  3. I had the right headset! If you’re on a Mac, you want a USB headset, not the kind with a pink and a green connector.
  4. I remembered to hit “record!”

Presentation Lessons. I heard some feedback that the middle section of the presentation got kind of visually confusing. I had opened all my palettes in Sketchbook Pro (SBP), just as I do when I’m recording, but it would have made more sense to open them one at a time as I was talking about them (brushes only when I was talking about brushes, layers only for the layers piece, and so on).

Another comment was that I did a lot of things in SBP without explaining or narrating what I was doing. This may well have been confusing, especially to people who aren’t familar with the software. In the future I’ll try to be more explicit about saying what my mouse is doing!

Links & Notes

Here’s a list of links to some things I talked about. If I said something you wanted to look up and it’s not listed here, post a question in the comments and I’ll add it.

Workshop Agenda

Some of the key points I made were these:

  1. There are lots of options for digital graphic recording. When choosing which to use, match the tools to your own comfort and skill level and also to the meeting’s venue and outcomes.
  2. Set up your file in advance to facilitate the kind of distribution you will want. Use a low-res (72 dpi or thereabouts) for images that will be emailed and printed small-scale, on letter-sized paper. Use higher resolution (300 dpi) and a larger canvas size for images that will need to be printed larger. Remember that Sketchbook Pro has a limit on how large you can make your file — this is a flexible combination of print dimensions and resolution.
  3. Set up a custom brush set with the brushes you will need most. Create at least two sizes of each brush, one for thick lines like titles, and one for fine lines and details.
  4. Learn to use layers; I use at least three: one for outlines and details, one under that for colors, and one under that for shading and shadows.

Brush Sets

These sets are the ones I use most when I’m using Sketchbook Pro for graphic recording. They work on the computer, but not on the iPad (whole different brush thing there), and only with Sketchbook Pro. I use SBP 5.0, and they might not work with an earlier version. I know they’ll work on a Mac but I’m not sure if they’ll work on a PC too. (Let me know if you find out.)

They’re provided here with no warranty of any kind; if they run amok and wreak havoc on your computer, you will have my deepest sympathy, but that’s about it 🙂

Rachel’s favorite Sketchbook Pro brush set for graphic recording (72 dpi): use these brushes when you’re recording at screen resolution.

Rachel’s favorite Sketchbook Pro brush set for graphic recording (300 dpi): use these brushes when you’re recording at print resolution. They’re bigger so the lines will show up properly.

To install the brush sets:

  1. Download the file(s) and save them on your computer somewhere that you will be able to find them again. They should end in .zip.
  2. Launch Sketchbook Pro.
  3. If your brush palette isn’t open, go to Window > Brush Palette to make it appear.
  4. Click and hold in the little tiny circle of circles in the top right of the brush palette (see below).
  5. Swipe your mouse straight down through the icon with three brushes and an arrow pointing down (tooltip says: Import Brush Set).
  6. Navigate to where you saved the brush sets. Click one of the .zip files and click Open. Ta da!
  7. Repeat steps 4-6 to load the other brush set, if you wanted both.

If you get the little spinny ball and the brush set doesn’t load the first time, don’t panic. Repeat steps 4-6 and it should work the second time.

circle-menu

The menu you need is here.

Unanswered Questions

There were a few questions from the workshop that we didn’t have time to address:

Q: Can you hook up an iPad to a projector through a VGA connector? Does it work if you are on WebEx? 

A: This question has a two-part answer. Yes, you can hook the iPad to a projector; however, you can’t control WebEx from it to the same extent as you can on a computer. The iPad doesn’t work like a VGA tablet. The tablet is an input device, like your mouse or keyboard; it talks to your computer, which can be connected to WebEx. The iPad is another computer, not an input device, so you can’t use it to control your computer* to run WebEx. There is an iPad app for WebEx, but it doesn’t give you all the functions you need to record a webmeeting.

* The caveat here is that technically you can use certain apps to control your computer from your iPad. They’re not yet robust or fast enough to allow the iPad to replace a tablet for real-time graphic recording in a web meeting, though.

Q: It seems there are a couple ways to look at it. (1) Facilitate a virtual digital meeting and record as you go, or (2) use a moderator, facilitator and recorder. When is that better than (3) using a video conference with the camera on the paper you are using on the wall — then you document for archiving after the meeting? 

A: In my personal opinion, (2) is better than (1) most of the time. A small meeting can be recorded and facilitated by one person, especially if everyone in the meeting knows one another and the content is not too emotional or controversial. Some graphic recorders, too, are skilled enough to handle more challenging meetings this way (I’m not one of them). Larger meetings, or meetings where the facilitator will frequently be called upon to manage the group’s energy, will benefit from having a separate graphic recorder and facilitator. Another attendee also suggested a third person, a moderator who handles the web conference itself. An excellent idea.

When choosing between (1) or (2) and (3) — recording in a web meeting versus using a webcam and paper — the factors in play are the comfort level of the facilitator/recorder and attendees with one method or the other, the equipment you have available, and what you want to do with the recording after the meeting. Personal preference is another factor. Neither method is inherently better than the other.

Q: How do you print all the different layers? Will a complete picture show up on one page of paper? 

A: All the layers that are visible will be included in the print. You can also flatten the file into one layer when you’re done, if you’re sure that you don’t need the layers any longer. I always keep one layered version and use “Save As” to make a flattened one, if I need to.

Q: What’s the maximum number of layers you use?

A: I’m a layer hog! When I forget to keep track, I can end up with a lot. I know I’ve had stacks up in the twenties before. Typically, I try to keep it to three or four, and on the iPad you can’t have more than six in SBP.

Thanks to all those who attended, and especially to those who helped me out with WebEx and made suggestions for future improvements.

Updated May 24, 2013, to fix missing images after the blog moved.

Online Workshop on Digital Tools for Graphic Recording (from The Grove)

Media_httpnewsgroveco_cafeq

I’m at it again! Tune in for a free, one-hour workshop on digital tools for graphic recording, offered by The Grove Consultants on December 9, 2011, from 12:00-1:00 pm Pacific Time. See original news post on The Grove’s site for more details or to register.

Playing with Doceri

You know how I’m often the one with the nifty new gadget, app, or techie thing? Well, a lot of those come to me from other people. One of the folks that I rely on to have the geekiest new stuff is John Ittelson, and he recently put me on to an iPad app that gets us one step closer to being able to draw in web meetings using our iPads. (Not quite there… but closer.)

The app is called Doceri, and has a partner desktop application (Doceri Desktop) that runs on the computer. Doceri on the iPad talks to Doceri on the computer, and turns the iPad into a remote control for the computer (like Air Display, which I need to revisit again too). You can also switch on annotation mode and draw over any screen — a web page, your email, what have you. Then you can play back your annotations in order.

 

Doceri1

 

This is a screen capture of my iPad, showing an annotation that I drew over digitalfacilitation.net. (Killer, I know!)

Doceri’s website has several videos showing some of what the app can do. It’s designed for use by teachers, so a lot of the examples are educational (cool). I’m still in the early stages of playing with it and I haven’t discovered all it can do, yet.

Naturally, one of the first things I tried to do was use it in a way it’s not intended to be used. (I’m either one of the best beta testers in the world, or one of the worst.) I noticed that Doceri had two icons for different monitors, because my laptop was hooked up to an external monitor at the time, so I tapped the icon for the other monitor. Then I opened Sketchbook Pro over there (this is the desktop version, not the iPad version) and tried drawing.

 

Doceri2

 

Let’s be clear: I was drawing with my finger, on my iPad, and it was controlling Sketchbook Pro on my Mac laptop. Imagine if I were also in a web conference, sharing my screen. Then I would be drawing in the web conference, using my iPad.

Totally cool.

Of course, it’s not all smooth sailing. If you zoom in to do detail work, you lose track of the palettes, because you’re zooming the whole screen and they get cut off. Also, Doceri’s not made for this kind of work; it has a magnifier so that you can click accurately on small screen bits, and the magnifier partially obscures what you’re drawing as you draw it. I know Doceri makes a special stylus that connects to the iPad, but I don’t have one so I can’t say whether it makes it easier to draw detail work or not.

The next thing I want to try is using the annotation feature to see if it’s easier to do graphic-recording type work with that, rather than through a drawing application. There are different brushes and different colors, and you can zoom (though I don’t know if there are layers), so a lot of my basic must-have features are there.

More research is needed. But I feel that progress has been made toward my quest to graphically record a web meeting using an iPad. Hurrah!

Going to Macworld | iWorld 2012!

Not only am I going, I’m going to be speaking! I’m thrilled to be presenting a Tech Talk about visual recording on the iPad. How awesome is that? Here’s the session description:

Visual Note-Taking on the iPad

The iPad is the perfect tool for digital visual note-taking. Rachel pioneered this practice at Northern Voice, a Canadian blogging conference, just after the first iPad was released, and her visual notes were an instant hit among conference attendees. Bring your iPad loaded with your favorite drawing tool (Rachel prefers Autodesk Sketchbook Pro) to learn how to create beautiful records of meetings, conference sessions, conversations, and ideas that strike while you’re on the train. No prior drawing experience is required — anybody can learn to take visual notes!

Who Should Attend?

Anyone who wants to learn to use an iPad to take visual notes. All you need is an iPad, a drawing app, and a finger.

Attendees Will Learn:

Basic graphic recording techniques on the iPad, including lettering and drawing simple shapes; how to use brush tools, colors, and layers effectively to make note-taking quicker and easier; how to listen for key ideas and record them using text and imagery. If there is time, Rachel will also explain how to record the strokes and create a video of the drawing (a digital Chalk Talk).

So… coming to Macworld | iWorld 2012?

PS – Bigtime thanks to Lynn Kearny for the little prod that made me fill out the submission form!

Tools for Virtual Meetings

I get asked a lot about the tools I use to graphically record virtual meetings. ‘Virtual meetings’ in this case means web conferencing sessions, where people are connected from all over the place using computers and some kind of software like WebEx, Connect, GoToMeeting, LiveMeeting, Elluminate, and so forth. The web conferencing software has to either support screen sharing or have a really, really good whiteboard feature. A previous post talks a little bit about my setup, but here’s a little more about why I choose the tools that I do. As always, YMMV.

The Short Answer

Mostly, I use the Wacom Cintiq tablet with WebEx meetings. The Cintiq is an LCD tablet that works like a second monitor you can write on with a special pen or stylus. I use Sketchbook Pro as the software, because it’s very responsive and it has all the basic features I need for digital graphic recording. I attach the Cintiq to my laptop, set up the monitors so they are not mirrored, log in to WebEx, and share the Cintiq screen.

The Longer Answer: Hardware

Wacom Cintiq Tablet (or similar)

Pros: Very easy to write on; best option for web conferencing.

Cons: Expensive; not very portable; can be tricky to hook up and calibrate.

Cintiq

The 21UX. Oooh. Aaaah. Photo by David Roessli. Creative Commons.

The Cintiq comes in two sizes (12WX and 21UX). Currently, I use the 12WX, but I’m trying to get hold of a 21UX. With the 12WX, once all my palettes, brushes, colors, and so on are open, a lot of the canvas is covered. What I do to get around this is set up the Cintiq as a second monitor (instead of mirroring my displays) and I put all the palettes on my regular computer monitor, and just put the canvas on the Cintiq. Then I share the Cintiq (you can choose which monitor you’ll share). I have more canvas space to write on, and the palettes aren’t in the way and distracting the watchers.

The downside is that I have to put down the stylus, pick up the mouse, and mouse over to the other monitor when I want to change brushes or colors. This takes a little practice, but it’s not too bad once you get used to it. The 21UX has enough screen real estate that I could put the palettes right on that screen and not have a problem. Unfortunately, the 21UX is very hard to obtain because it’s always out of stock.

Wacom Bamboo Tablet (or similar)

Pros: Not very expensive; portable; very easy to connect to the computer.

Cons: Difficult to do detail work; you write in one place and watch it happen somewhere else.

Wacom Bamboo One

The Wacom Bamboo. Sleek, isn’t it? Photo by JeanbaptisteM. Creative Commons.

The Cintiq is my first preference. It’s expensive, though. There’s a cheaper alternative, which is a tablet that doesn’t have an LCD display, like the Wacom Bamboo (you can get the smallest one for $99). This tablet is much more portable and much more affordable, and also easier to hook up (just one cable as opposed to several).

The downside is that it’s much more difficult to do graphic recording using this kind of tablet. The surface is very slippery, making the pen hard to control — though you can work around this by placing a sheet of paper over the tablet — but the really difficult part is that you’re drawing in one place (the tablet) while you look in another (the computer screen). Even after a lot of practice, I still find it frustrating to try to record with it in real time. I think it’s because I like to do a lot of detail work, and it’s really not good for that.

Apple iPad (or similar)

Pros: Really really portable; easy to record on; lots of low-cost options for drawing tools.

Cons: Can’t really be used in web conference settings. Yet.

Me, graphic recording on the iPad. Photo by Alan Levine. Creative Commons.

The other question I get quite often is whether the iPad can be used for graphic recording in web conferences. The answer is mostly no, with a tiny little bit of yes. Obviously, you can do graphic recording on the iPad, and I do a lot of it and I love it. However, you can’t really use it for web-based virtual meetings, because there is no way (no reliable way, that is) to broadcast what you’re doing on the iPad to the people in the meeting. The web conferencing iPad apps that exist don’t let you draw on the whiteboard or share your screen (none that I know of allow this, anyway), and you can’t use the iPad to control your computer like you can with the Cintiq.

Well, this is not strictly 100% true, and that’s where the tiny bit of yes comes in. There are a couple of apps for the iPad that sort of let you either broadcast what you’re drawing (Air Sketch) or use the iPad like a tablet/monitor (Air Display), but they are not fast enough or reliable enough to support real-time meetings yet.

I’m still using my first-generation iPad, by the way. Works great.

Software

I use Autodesk Sketchbook Pro for digital graphic recording on the computer. It’s got the basic set of tools I need (layers, customizable brushes, color palettes), it’s relatively inexpensive, and it’s responsive enough to make real-time graphic recording possible.

On the iPad, I still use either Sketchbook Pro or Brushes, although there are a number of other apps that work equally well. The trick is to pick one that feels right and practice with it until the tools are second nature.