Infographics: A New Way to See Information

Uses in the Classroom: Infographics have plenty of potential uses in the classroom. I personally learned how to crochet using infographics (after trying to learn by reading about it). Because they are so versatile, teachers can use them to present almost any kind of information, especially data, processes and other similar things. In a high school English classroom, for example, I could use an infographic to show relationships between characters in a novel, or I could use one to show how to cite a sources using MLA format. Students can also create infographics to demonstrate their understanding of these kinds of tasks as well.

For this particular project I chose to create an infographic to show my WAY Researchers how to log in to the program, First Class, change his/her password, and set up his/her mailbox. This will be more helpful to my Researchers than simply telling them how to do this, or writing out directions. Visually representing information using pictures and organized information is much more beneficial to learners. 

Issues to Consider: I came in to this project expecting it to be very simple. I've created infographics before using various programs (I just didn't know what they were called before this project!). In fact, I was using several infographics I created in Google Docs for the Induction process at my Learning Lab. I figured, I'll take one of them that needed to be tweeked (because it wasn't quite as effective as I would like it to be) and recreate it using one of the approved programs. 

I picked easel.ly and all seemed well at first until I tried to save. I was directed to create an account, which was expected, but after creating an account, I had lost all of the work I had done on my infographic previously! After venting a little frustration, I started over and created what I thought was an amazing infographic, I saved it, and when I went to view it, I had lost the top, bottom, left and right of my infographic. Apparently, the only part of the screen you can use to create your infographic is a semi-transparent square in the center of the "easel". This would have been nice to know the first time. I then had to start again from scratch. Because easel.ly is a beta site, it doesn't have a lot of the support information that more established sites have. My blonde moment with this project was almost catastrophic, but luckily for me, the third time is the charm!

Copyright: This is an original infographic by Angie Burns. All screenshots contained in this infographic were taken by the author for the purpose of guiding new WAY Mount Pleasant Researchers through the Induction process.