Infographics: A new kind of language

This post will look at infographics, specifically three different web-based programs that can be used to create infographics.  Infographics are a way to bring words and pictures together to create a very powerful visual, not just for your visual learners but for everyone. Infographics very concisely present a lot of information in a succinct and compact way to help us get more meaning from "just a bunch of numbers."  Infographics are like knowing another language, a visual language, which allows students and adults alike to process vast amounts of data in a pictorial/visual way.

• easel.ly -  Easelly's mission is "to inspire and enable anyone to represent an idea in a visual way."  They have also won awards for being both User-friendly and Intuitive from the American Association of School Libraries (AASL). "The AASL commended Easel.ly for being simple enough that even a child in the 6th grade could successfully navigate the site and design their infographic without adult assistance." It does have quite a few limitations though in the free version. You cannot download a high quality image unless you upgrade. You cannot create PDFs unless you upgrade. The cost of upgrading is minimal ($3/month) but I can see where a teacher would not want to upgrade because we have limited resources.

• Piktochart - is another free infographic creator, however you have to "level up" to get access to the 600+ templates, the ability to create PDFs, etc. you will need the full version, the educator cost is $39.99/year.  I did not find this one as easy to use as Easelly.  I had a hard time finding information about the company itself.  It was easy to set up and use my google account to sign in.  It has an "Inspire Me" button that gives you lots of ideas and templates to use.  It has a great "How To" section in the FAQs area.  A good option.

• Infogr.am - the third infographic creator I signed up for.  It is a very powerful tool, however to access all the options you will need to upgrade to the Pro ($19/month) or Business ($67/month) version. Infogr.am has a vast collection of video tutorials if you need support or get stuck on anything.  As an educator this web-based software was too much tool for me.  I teach elementary school so don't need something with this many bells and whistles.  I do like the ease of use with being able to drag and drop items.  It is a little more like a photoshop with its tools and options.   

I settled on creating an infographic in Easel.ly.  I chose the topic of mobile phone usage and ownership.  I was curious to see the melding of information, like the TED Talk byDavid McCandless presented so I took information from 2 different studies.  We have learned a lot from Marc Prensky about the differences between Digital Natives (the teens of today) vs. Digital Immigrants (people my age) so I wanted to see some of the data on the same sheet.

http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/

http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/01/07/parents-teens-and-digital-monitoring/

I simply picked a template and off I went. It was very easy to insert text, graphics, adjust the font size and color. I used a couple of pieces of clip art from their library and the rest of the images I added. This is definitely something I will use again. I also believe that my 5th grade students could easily use this program to create their own infographic demonstrating understanding. When I have more time, I'd like to create another infographic on the Big 6 Research process. I can see a lot of uses for infographic creators and I'm so glad that they are easier to use than I initially thought.

Sources: 

https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/teaching-with-infographics-places-to-start/?_r=0

https://www.ted.com/talks/david_mccandless_the_beauty_of_data_visualization/transcript

https://www.easel.ly/

https://magic.piktochart.com/dashboard

https://infogram.com/page/infographic

http://www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheet/mobile/

http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/01/07/parents-teens-and-digital-monitoring/

http://www.marcprensky.com/writing/Prensky%20-%20Digital%20Natives,%20Digital%20Immigrants%20-%20Part1.pdf

Blogs and Blog Readers

First, I created a Tumblr account and much to my family's dismay spent hours and hours there.  I have never used Tumblr, nor ventured into Tumblr-land until this assignment. I have to say that my first experience was quite educational. I did a search for "school library" and one of the first images that popped up was a pornographic GIF. I have 4 children, 3 of which are younger than 15, so I slammed the lid shut and had to run the computer into another room. I quickly did a search on how to block content which is quite easy. You just click on the image of a person and choose "Block."   Here's an example of what I mean. I did this on several blogs that had curse words in their name. My children love to look over my shoulder while I'm working plus I'm an elementary school librarian so I want to make sure the content that comes up on my page is as appropriate as possible. I made a post of my own. The "Teacher Librarian post below is my favorite meme so I posted it just to see how it works. I also reblogged a few things about summer reading and libraries in general.

Some school libraries use Tumblr as a source to post photos and information about their libraries while others have more of a personal page where they post things they like and pictures of their cat. 

I was mostly searching for elementary school librarians because I teach elementary and wanted to see what they were doing but there were only a handful of pages that came up. It seemed like there were a lot more middle and high school library pages on Tumblr.  I'm guessing it's because the content can be questionable for the under 11 age group so not many elementary school librarians seem to have taken to Tumblr.  

I choose NewsBlur as my Blog reader. I love this thing. First of all, I love FREE and second I love that it learns what you like.  I started by adding our classmate's blogs and I love how it compiles everyone's blog in an easy to read format.  After I added a few, It started asking me if I'd like to "try" or "add" different blogs.  Here's a link to my NewsBlur.

I had a little trouble getting started but they had some nice tutorials that helped when I got stuck. I really like the Intelligence Tracker. You can choose what you like or dislike about a particular blog and it will show you more like that you like or less that you don't like.

All in all, I love this reader.  I liked how it grayed out the posts you had already accessed so you could tell right where you left off.  You can make folders to group blogs that relate to each other. One limitation is that you can only follow 64 sites in the free version. After that you have to pay but it seems pretty reasonable at only $24/year.

The first blog I chose to follow was Watch. Connect. Read. by Mr. Schu Reads.  I also follow him on Twitter but I find Twitter hard to "follow" sometimes because it cuts off longer stories or posts.  For me, most of his posts are relevant and he posts often.  There were several blogs that I looked at that the author hadn't posted in months or even years.  I love the book trailers that he has posted.  I think that this will help me when adding books to my libraries or I can even use as examples as to what my student can do when making their own book trailers. 

Another blog I chose to follow was the library voice by Shannon M. Miller.  Again, I like this blog because it is up to date and she posts often.  It's on current issues like technology, new book reviews and book trailers.  I also like that she is a Future Ready Librarian spokesperson.   I consider myself a Teacher Librarian and I like that's how she refers to herself in her bio, along with a lot other titles but she seems very tech savvy and forward thinking.  I love that!

The next blog that I chose was Librarians Matter by Kathryn Greenhill from Australia.  I decided to follow this one because I'd like to see what they are doing all over the world. She teaches librarians at a university over there.  She has a passion for technology.  She posts about different apps that could be used with students.  I learned a lot of new things just in the 5 or 6 posts that I read.  So excited to share some of those things with my students next year.  Some of the language in her posts can get a little explicit so not for the younger set.

I have followed The Adventures of Library Girl for a few years on Facebook and Twitter but my new Blog Reader has made it that much easier to read her blog.  YAY!  She is one of my favorites. She doesn't post as often as some of the other bloggers. She probably posts a blog once or twice a month but her posts are almost always meaningful and timely to me. She posts more often on her Facebook and Twitter pages. She also posts about apps to use in education, which is something that I LOVE!  Sometimes it's hard to weed through the masses of apps available out there so it's nice to have recommendations of tried and true apps, plus new things to share with my students.

And last but not least, Great Kid Books by Mary Ann Scheuer from Berkeley, CA.  She is an elementary librarian that I can really connect with. She also writes reviews for Kirkus. This site is pretty much a book review site but it is for books that are appropriate for my students. I like the way she reviews them, quick identification about what the book is about or how it can be used in your classroom.  She recommends ebooks, read-alouds, novels, etc.  It will be a great resource for me next year in turning my students on to new books.

Libraries on Facebook and Twitter

Lots of school libraries are using Facebook and Twitter to highlight what they are doing in their libraries mostly with their students but they also post information about summer reading programs, book picks, due dates, etc.  I have a Facebook page for my library where I highlight what I am doing in the library. Frostwood Elementary Library

It is a great way to easily communicate with parents and your community.  After watching Dr. Gross' video I would like to figure out a way to incorporate a way to communicate tech tips and information to my faculty and staff, as well.  Anyone have a great tool they are using to communicate this information with your faculty and staff?

Before I started this position, I was the Teacher Technologist at Askew Elementary in Houston ISD for 12 years.  I had parents asking me for tech and safety tips for their children all the time so I started another Facebook page to deliver content to my friends, neighbors and parents of my students. TeachTechTx

I post more from the perspective as to what I would do as a parent in a particular situation, not trying to tell anyone how to do their job, teach or parent their child.  I have 4 children so I have been put in a lot of uncomfortable situations with them as digital natives and myself as a digital immigrant.  It's a learning process, for sure.  I don't post on it as often as I used to now that I am back to work full time but whenever I see something that strikes me as important, I post.

After reviewing ed tech leaders on Twitter, I found one post that was particularly meaningful.  I don't even know enough yet to tell you how I got to this post.  Why Teachers Should Tweet by Mark Anderson @ICTEvangelist  It talks about "why you should tweet as a teacher."  Basically to connect with others in our field who are usually passionate about educating children.  You can get immediate and meaningful feedback.   The article refers to twitter as "the best staffroom in the world."  I will definitely need to hang out more on Twitter to see this.  It has been a little distracting.  I ended up going down a few rabbit holes and had to go back to the beginning and restart my searches.

I enjoyed learning more about Twitter through this process and now I follow all of these Ed Tech leaders.  I especially like @kathyschrock and @GwynethJones  I thought their information was very easy to follow and succinct.  I might especially like Kathy's page because I'm an Apple/Mac lover myself.  I also realized I have a lot to learn about Twitter.