Image Credit: Infographics. (2013). CC-BY-SA. http://infographicsineducation.wikispaces.com/ I believe that, likes memes and trending YouTube videos, infographics can be a great way of presenting information through a platform that students are familiar with. One only needs to type in the word, "Infographic" into Google to see just how popular they have become (43,100,000 results to be exact). While I must admit that I haven't used infographics yet during my student teaching placements I have been trying to brainstorm some different ways they could be used in the classroom. Differentiating Instruction In the most general sense, infographics can be a great tool to use in order to differentiate instruction in your classroom. By including textual information, diagrams and images they can effectively meet the needs of both linguistic and visual learners. Furthermore, the text that is included is often written at a simpler reading level than standard formal text on the same subject. As such, infographics can be an easy way to present information to students who are experiencing difficulties when it comes to literacy skills. Depending on the graphic, information is sometimes visually displayed in order to show connections between different topics which can assist students in making connections between the concepts. Activating Tool Infographics can be a great activating tool to incorporate when introducing a new unit or a specific lesson. Most good quality infographics do a great job of answering an interesting question or summarizing a specific topic. For example, infographics may be titled Hurricane Irene: Overwhelming or Overblown or Anatomy of a Hurricane. The first immediately attracts interest to the topic and the second provides a good overview of the topic in general. Either type of infographic could be used to activate student's prior knowledge, stimulate interest and/or provide a framework for future learning. Create An Infographic Project There are several online tools out there that allow users to create their own infographics (I discuss a few of these tools below). These could be used by students to create their own infographics as summative projects. Infographics require the creator to summarize information and pick out the most important concepts. As such, they require students to fully comprehend the subject, apply their knowledge, classify it appropriately, create diagrams and evaluate what information is the most important in order to get their point across. Students won't even realize they are hitting all the levels of Bloom's Taxonomy! Instead of writing a traditional paper on the "War of 1812's Effects on Multiculturalism", why not give students the option of creating a infographic on the same topic? Appropriate Sourcing Example A good quality infographic will provide referencing and a list of appropriate sources near the bottom of the image like this one on,"Is Twitter Hurting Your Grades?". Many infographics, however, provide no references or provide general links that do not go to the specific information like this one on, "The Growth of Twitter". Infographics can be a good example to showcase the importance of appropriate sourcing to ensure that copyright is maintained and information can be easily accessed by the audience. ________________________________________________________________ If you would like to learn more about infographics and the role that they can play in education there are several great resources out there that can help you out. Here are some that I've found useful: Infographics in Education Wiki - This wiki involves examples of awesome infographics, citations, infographic generators, tutorials and more! It even includes rubrics and information on how to use infographic projects with your students. - This is one of the best infographic resources that I have found. - This comprehensive Wiki was organized by Mary Frazier, the Integration Technology Specialist for Buhler USD #313. |
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