We've mentioned
infographics before
and we share them with you quite frequently, but we haven't yet
devoted a separate post to the process by which one can make an
infographic. As the revelry of fall fades away, Thanksgiving seems
ever-distant, and the reading keeps coming, why not mix things up
with an infographic?
Infographics are
visual representations of data built around a theme. In telling their
story, infographics usually have a mix of several small pictographs,
a fair amount of data presented in chart/graph form, and a few short
paragraphs and key sentences.
Consider my
favorite (meta-) example:
Edudemic has a
nice summary of the background and educational theory of infographics
in their Ultimate Guide to
Infographics. They've also gathered an informative assortment of education
infographics. While the story each infographic tells
is interesting, the ways in which the creators have used color, data,
images, fonts, and manipulated the size of different design elements
provide great examples for those of us thinking about making our own
infographics.
You can use the
resources below to create one (or multiple) infographics to start
discussion with your students. What a great way to illustrate
different perspectives, time frames, or sub-topics in a quick and
engaging format.
Alternately, it
seems to me that creating infographics could be an intriguing
exercise for students. Derek Bruff,
Director of the Vanderbilt University Center for Teaching, has a nice
two-part blog post in which he lays out the logic behind an
infographic assignment he gave his statistics students in the spring,
the ways in which he prepared his students to look critically at
visual presentations of data / information, how he created and
refined the grading rubric, what tools his students used, and the
terrific infographics they produced (post one and post two).
Without further
ado, the infographic tools:
Infogr.am
lets you easily create your own infographics. Using their simple
interface and templates, you can upload your own data (in Excel or
csv format), add video if you'd like, and then share your product on
Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, the web, or grab the embed
code provided underneath your finished infographic and put your
design anywhere you'd like. If, for example, you'd like to place your
infographic in your Pearson LearningStudio course shell, you can do
so by pasting the embed code into the HTML view in the
visual editor, as our documentation illustrates.
Visual.ly is another infographic
generator. Although it may not be as
user-friendly as other options, visual.ly is
specifically designed to help create comparison-based infographics.
You can use their provided templates and then enter a pair of Twitter
or Facebook accounts, hashtags, or webpages about which you'd like
visual.ly to produce attractive statistics. I think the comparison
feature is a nice angle, and certainly a real aid in framing a
data-driven visual story.
For a bit of
navel-gazing, or perhaps as part of a larger project about society or
self, Intel's What About Me?
infographic engine offers to create an infographic
based on your Twitter, YouTube, or Facebook profiles (or a
combination of all three).
Last, if you're
using infographics in your course or considering doing so, we'd love
to hear from you!
kate marshall | November
6, 2012 at 10:30 am | Tags: data, design, highered, images, infographic, presentation, rubrics, socialmedia, students, teaching, technology, visual impairment | Categories: regular | URL: http://wp.me/p1XeZv-cXepf5
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