My Reflections on Doodling

Today in class, instead of using the technology of Facebook, Blogger, Moodle and the like, we took time away from the computer and doodled.  This was a nice change of pace.  It definitely caught me off guard.  I just expected the same old same old.  This was a nice change and an unexpected surprise.  I hope to have these in the future.  Sometimes it is just nice to take a break from whatever you are working on. 

My group’s project in on how we found Nemo.  This is a slightly different story than the original Disney/Pixar version.  In our version, Nemo does get lost, but rather than being fish-napped (not kidnapped because Nemo is a clownfish), he is rescued by a scuba diver.  And with our project we are going to show and illustrate how Nemo became lost and how he was found in the end.   

Today during class, we were confused about what to do with the paper and colored pencils.  Like I mentioned previously, this was extremely out of the norm.  But once we got going, this exercise helped us plan out our storyline.  Now we know what we want our story to get across and what we want everyone to get from our story.  Plus, we had some free time to just doodle and plan out where we wanted our project to go.

The second half of class we did a “card scramble” if I remember correctly.  Again, we were unsure where it was going.  Write a goal for your project and then throw it on the floor?  What?  Well, despite that, it was also a helpful exercise.  Breaking our groups up and having us discuss different group goals and issues, as well as, having us share our project themes, was a good idea.  It gave my group good ideas for the future, as well as, if I had not talked with other groups I don’t think that I would have ever known what the other projects were on.  That happened with the last project.  I didn’t know about the others until we discussed them in the end.  I am glad we got to share our project ideas and goals.

What did I learn from this class?  I learned through this class that simple exercises such as the doodling one that good ideas, brainstorming and product can be produced.  I don’t know when my group would have made these decisions on what our project was going to be about if we had not done this activity.  We just needed to take the time to brainstorm.  This stress free exercise worked.  We could go anywhere with our thoughts and ideas.  That was nice about this exercise—it didn’t limit us by an means.  As for the card scramble, like I mentioned, it was also a helpful exercise because I not only learned something about the other group projects, but it gave my group members and I good ideas for our project.  A very useful and productive class activity in disguise!