What are infographics and Why should a teacher care ?
Infographics are a fabulous fusion of information and graphics. They are typically pleasing to the eye, as opposed to a graph that is a more sterile representation of data. Infographics can be found in many places. A prime example and a personal favorite is published as USA Today Snapshots. While the interpretation of infographics is a bit more intuitive than a graph, students often need a bit of assistance in how to read these visuals.
How to Get Started
- Teacher furnished infographics can help students get used to these unique visuals. See the Easel.ly blog for some ideas for your classroom.
- Introduce some of the USA Today Snapshots or other samples to your classroom activities. Try using them as exit tickets, in a Socrative quiz, or add them to a quest or scavenger hunt to encourage curiosity.
- Have students create their own infographics to help others understand their data, writing or to make a quick and effective impact on their readers. Try some of the following free tools for simple infographic creation:
- Piktochart http://piktochart.com/
- Easel.ly http://www.easel.ly/
- Canva https://www.canva.com/
- Timelines
- Timetoast https://www.timetoast.com/
Key Aspects for an Effective Infographic
- Purpose – there must be a point to all of the work you are going to be doing; if it is not clear to you then it will not be clear to others so will not have the impact you hope for
- Research, research, research – the data is the basis for the entire infographic so make sure it is reliable and cited
- Pre-plan – once you have the data you will need to determine the best way to promote it to make the greatest impact
Continue to explore more tips in the well-made infographic below from Socially Sorted.
Courtesy of: SociallySorted.com.au
In search of more? Tap into some of our specialized Eduspire courses: Guiding Students in Gathering and Visualizing Data and Helping Students Create Powerful Presentations
