From memorable to unforgettable: how visual note taking makes events more accessible, engaging and evergreen!

How live graphic recording, sketchnoting workshops & visual tools can transform conferences into unforgettable events

Through my years of delivering keynote author talks and working as an ELT teacher trainer, I’ve attended and spoken at hundreds of English language teaching conferences, webconferences, and professional development events.

Most are beautifully organized, offer great networking, and feature brilliant speakers. Attendees leave buzzing with ideas.

But the events that truly stand out are the ones that go the extra mile to make learning accessible, engaging, and evergreen.

As a professional visual content creator, I help organizers bridge that gap.

In this post, I'll explore how live graphic recording, digital visual scribing, and interactive sketchnoting workshops can add a touch of visual sparkle to your next conference, maximize your audience engagement, and give your event a lifetime value that lasts long after the final closing remarks.

Get in touch if you'd like to hire me for your next event.

Why hire a visual recorder for educational & ELT conferences?

According to Ebbinghaus (and more recently Murre & Dros) we forget 70% of what we learn in 24 hours!

Conferences are a bombardment of information and ideas. Attendees often leave with a head swimming with ideas and a list of good intentions - many of which will end up forgetten.

Unless....

You get someone to take awesome, shareable, notes for you!

Here's me, creating some visual notes on giant paper at a NATECLA conference. You can see the rest on the NATECLA website.

Emily Bryson visually recording a conference talk at a NATECLA ESOL event. Her visual notes use simple doodles and text to capture the key takeaways in an engaging manner. The heading is Beyond Language: What success in ESOL looks like, by Melanie Jackson at nocn group qualifications.

Drawing live visual notes like this can make an event more accessible. Delegates can follow along with the speaker and my notes. Some commented that if their attention waivered or they missed the start, they knew that they had my giant crib sheet to fall back on.

These notes became some of the most shared on socials after the event. While a conference talk is over in no time, these visual notes will be around for years. They serve as a reminder of the content, and inspire future delegates to attend.

There is a certain magic about live visual recording. Participants rave about how cool it is to watch me in action. It inspires them to take photos or make their own visual notes.

Here's some photos of the impact of my visuals on delegates:

Intrigued ESOL practitioners take photos of Emily Bryson's large scale visual notes at an English language teaching conference. The visual recoding uses simple doodles and engaging letters to capture the key takeaways of a session entitled: Spoken Grammar in the ESOL Classroom. The speaker is Jon Hird.

A selfie of Emily Bryson captured by Lorna R, an excited delegate at the NATECLA ESOL conference. Behind them is a giant whiteboard covered in paper in which Emily has created visual notes of a session titled: Beyond language: What success in ESOL really looks like by Melania Jackson at nocn group. The notes contain simple doodles and engaging text.

An interested delegate at the NATECLA ESOL conference photographs Emily Bryson's graphic recording of a conference talk. The large scale sketchnote uses simple drawings and impactful lettering to capture an engaging visual summary.

Live Visual Scribing: in person conferences and digital webconferences.

Visual notes on giant sheets of paper add extra sparkle to any event.

But not all events have walls. Some have online conferencing software!

To bring webconferences to life, and create a lasting accessible visual summary, I can create visual notes live, using digital software or paper and a visualiser.

Here's some examples:

Using a visualiser to take visual notes for a class or conference is a great way to make learning stick. This image shows a tiny digital camera pointed at a piece of paper with hand drawn sketchnotes.

An example digital sketcnnote by Emily Bryson ELT. Commissiond by Twinkl ESL for their webconference. This visual recording summarises Bruno Albuquerque's session on 'Nihilist ELT: From Heteronormy to Autonomy'. It shares ways to meet students needs through adaptable, organic teaching methods such as dogme and focusing on emergent language.

A screenshot from the Macmillan fast forward event. There are five English language teaching professionals sharing their teaching ideas and Emily Bryson's screen is shared. She is doodling along to capoture their ideas.

You can see more examples of visual recording I've created digitally here:

www.EmilyBrysonELT.com/sketchnoting/

Inspire & get delegates collaborating with interactive visuals!

Conferences are designed to bring people together to share ideas and learn from each other.

Providing time for networking is a great way to do this.

You can also design collaborative activities throughout the event to capture feedback, reflections, resources or other ideas.

Here's a visual capture sheet that I designed for NATECLA. Participants shared reasons that they loved ESOL. There were multiple copies of this throughout the conference room, to give plenty of space to share the love.

A visual capture sheet created by Emily Bryson ELT for NATECLA ESOL conference. It invites participants to write a 'Love note to ESOL' on a post it note. Some participants have added sticky notes. One says 'No two days are the same in ESOL'.

You can also set them a collaborative challenge. For example, how to solve a problem or teach a difficult concept.

In this example, had to share ways to doodle 'role play':

Image of a flipchart created by Emily Bryson ELT. It has four simple hand drawn icons at the top: two blocks of flats, an English book, two people talking. There is a space for participants to share their doodles on how to draw 'role play'. The title of the activity is 'iconathon' where people share there doodle ideas.

Gather feedback in creative ways with custom graphic tools & activities

Getting feedback from an event doesn't need to be a chore.

The last thing participants want to do is complete an online survey.

Instead, use my Feedback Fairy visual tool, or commission me to create a bespoke visual capture sheet.

This way delegates can share their ideas in a fun, multisensory way: and adapt the idea for their own classroom!

Image of Emily Bryson ELT's 'Feedback fairy' in action. The flipchart paper has a fairy holding a wand, and a bin . Some other doodles are obscured by a large quanitity of post its; where delegates have shared their feeedback.

Front Cover of Emily Bryson ELT's 'Feedback Fairy: the fun and interactive way to give and receive feedback'. It shows a simple hand drawing of a fairy and leaves space for people to add their wishes, takeaway, things they loved, etc.

Inspire participants to share their learning with visual notes!

Learning how to take visual notes has transformed the way I learn, teach and deliver training and workshops.

Visual thinking techniques makes learning more accessible, memorable and fun.

I'm on a mission to share the power of visual thinking and note-taking with educators and English language teaching professionals around the world.

So when I create visual notes at events, I don't just want to be there doing it for the delegates.

I want delegates to get involved too. I want them to leave inspired to give it a go for their own personal development or in class. I want to have a little glow about having taken their first steps.

Emma Fitzpatrick, an ESOL Lecturer at Hopwood Hall attended one of my sketchnoting workshops.

Here she is looking superproud of her absolutely fantastic visual notes:

Emma Fitzpatrick, an ESOL Lecturer at Hopwood Hall holding her sketchnotes, inspired by Emily Bryson ELT's workshop and visual recordings at NATECLA.

Encourage delegates to sketchnote and share their learning.

Supporting delegates to take their own sketchnotes is a great way to bring conferences to life.

It gives educators an opportunity to try powerful learning techniques. They can use this to boost their own professional development and in class with learners.

It also allows delegates to share their work online; which is raises the profile of the conference and brings eternal life to the event.

A screenshot from Linkedin. Olena Kolesnyk (ESOL Tutor, CPD Trainer, IQA) thanks Emily Bryson ELT for inspiring her to sketchnote at NATECLA ESOL conference. Her post and some examples of her sketchnotes are are shown, as well as Emily's large scale visual recordings on big paper.

A screenshot of a post by Ally Shepherd PhD on linkedin. Ally is an Educator, researcher, writer with a PhD, PGCE and CELTA. She shares her sketchnotes, inspired by the workshop Emily Bryson ELT delivered at NATECLA.

Sketchnoting workshops to get all delegates sketchnoting.

As much as I love creating giant live visual notes or digital summaries of events, I would be ecstatic is everyone at the event created their own too.

I'm a seasoned teacher educator specialising in English language teaching with a visual twist. As well as workshops on accessible learning, graphic garmmar and storytelling, I also provide sketchnoting workshops and webinars. These sessions support delegates to take their own visual notes throughout the event, so they can share their learning and gain an extra skill.

Any organisation that books gets my free 'Sketchnoting cheat sheet'. A snazzy shiny A4 guide wth step-by-step guides on how to create the most common icons.

Here is me proudly sharing one side of it:

Here's some things people say about my work:

I'm always blown away by the excited feedback I receive from my workshops. People say that I've re-ignited their creative spark, given them new perspectives on teaching and made their classrooms more accessible and fun.

Here's some screenshots from Linkedin. Click them to see the full post: