Creating Infographic Visuals with Easel.ly

A previous post about using Gapminder World to visualise data, highlighted lots of ways to consume and analyse patterns in data. The most powerful way for students to understand a concept is to use data to create a visual representation. This technique encourages deep thinking and forces students to draw out the main points and then convey them to an audience.

This post therefore looks at creating an infographic with Easel.ly. This is the easiest and yet most functional tool I have come across so far. Easel.ly allows you to drop and drag from collections of symbols, change colours, annotate and duplicate. If students log into the website they can save edits and then download a jpeg of their work.

WHAT ARE INFOGRAPHICS?

CREATING AN INFOGRAPHIC

Before you begin a project with your students it is important to step back and look a few infographic examples. Websites such as Visual.ly and the work of David McCandless and his website Information is Beautiful provide some great examples. Ask you students to rate them using the following criteria, which I have borrowed from the following website - Rubric for Effective Infographic (UMW FSEM)

Usefulness: A useful infographic should have a clear purpose present, the data should come from a reliable source, the display of data should be proportional to the values (i.e., it should avoid data distortion), and the graphic should relate to the audience (i.e, it should meet the needs of the intended audience). 

Legibility: A legible graphic should have a general aspect in the areas such as labels, axes, font, and contrast. Font would vary in size depending on the importance of the content and be an appropriate type. Axes and labels generally go together so use them when needed; include a scale when appropriate. Contrast should help with the clarity. So these bring a basis for what makes a legible graph. 

Design: An effective infographic must use most of the available space, utilize color where needed, and present the information in the graph in a useful (containing a purpose), legible (conveys the data clearly) and aesthetically pleasing and interesting way. The choice of graphic needs to be appropriate for the data. 

Aesthetics: In order to make an infographic aesthetically appealing you need to first make sure all of the data is organized. That is, avoid clutter or information overload. The organization of the infographic should have clear purpose to the viewer, avoiding confusion. Once the infographic is organized, it directly correlates with the overall attractiveness. If it’s easy to understand, it is easy on the eyes; in other words the infographic is attractive. Once the organization and attractiveness are achieved, the interestingness comes naturally. Add colors or small images to ultimately make an infographic aesthetically pleasing.

Source: Rubric for Effective Infographic (UMW FSEM)

USING EASEL.LY FOR CREATING INFOGRAPHICS

Easel.ly comes with a series of themes, which are either useful starting points for students or they will constrain the students thinking. My feeling is that a clean slate is the best starting point for a creative project. 

1. Ensure students login with school email address so that their work can be saved
2. Click on a the first chart to begin and then drag and delete the object
3. Explore the objects button and explore the different category
4. Change the colour on an object
5. Add text boxes, graph outlines, or even maps from objects.
6. Click on the save button
7. Then click home button once finished. 
8. Click on the share button to download or to send someone a link to your infographic.
9. You could create a Picasa Web Gallery and ask the students to upload thier image, and then use the commenting functions and the above rubric for guiding feedback.

Simple example which I created from this Economist Article on Japan

Visualising Data with Gapminder World

Data is an important quantitative tool in many subjects including Geography and Economics and it helps our students understand trends, patterns and the contrasts that exist in the world. Student's ability to visualise and therefore interpret data is becoming an important skill at the intersection of the arts, maths and humanities disciplines.

This blog post, looks at ways to help students interpret data through effective use of the Gapminder Tool. A subsequent post in this series "Creating Infographic Visuals with Easel.ly" explains how to create infographic visuals with Easel.ly which help them showcase their understanding.

Techniques for using Gapminder in the classroom

Gapminder World is the utopia of online statistical tools, that enables students to construct and interpret scatter diagrams with a range of human development statistics. The amazing aspect is that they can drag the data back in time, showing a 4th dimension to the pattern. Our students also have GapMinder Desktop installed on their MacBooks, enabling offline access.

Top Tips for using GapMinder

• Remember to change the indicator on each axis
• See this link for the full list of indicators, or to download the raw data.
• If you like a graph, save the URL into a Google Doc for future reference
• Click on two or three different countries to simplify the view.
• Drag the timeline back, and see the trails of data. 
• Ask students questions about the direction of change, what is the correlation, cause and effect.
• Hover the cursor over each circle to see the data and to see the axis statistical values.
• Need a lesson on correlation and causality? See the brilliant Khan Academy.

Going deeper with GapMinder - Skitch

• Try using programs such as Skitch with students to help them annotate the GapMinder diagram to highlight correlations and the main points. This technique forces students to think more deeply about the data, trends and patterns.
• Students can save these into their notes or assignment. 

Screen Recording and GapMinder - Quicktime

• To really push students, you need to make them think more deeply about the connections an trends in the data. Ideally you want to glimpse into their thinking processes (metacognition).
• You can do this by asking them to use the Screen Recording functions within Quicktime, and to answer a question such as "describe two countries, one that follows the correlation and another that does not and the relationship between the data"
• The student will record a short clip of them speaking, whilst also clicking and dragging the GapMinder gadget. Whilst you might not access this video explicitly the level of thinking required really pushes students who are comfortable writing something but find it harder to verbalise thier thinking. 

Simple Slideshows in Preview

Sure you can spend hours constructing a visual masterpiece in Keynote, Prezi, SlideRocket, or even, if you insist, PowerPoint... 

If you do want a slide show with images and video, import it all into iPhoto and run the slideshow from there. 

But what if you just want to create a slide show, no transitions, no titles, no fuss, no faff? 

What if this slideshow can contain all sorts of visual media, images of course, but also PDFs, text documents but ... not video. Well not yet. 



So, you have a folder stuffed full of the slide show content, (including content in sub folders) how does this magic work?

Easy, open Preview if it isn't open already - Grab the folder and drop it on the Preview icon in the dock.

Or, if you're drag and drop dysfunctional, go to Open, and browse to the folder you want to use, just click on the folder (not its contents) and click open.

Now all you do is choose View > Slide Show from the main menu.

If you have got something you want to include in the slideshow that Preview does not like, eg, an Excel spreadsheet - just 'print' it and save it as a PDF. Sorted.

To loop a slideshow, and include video. 

Dump all the media (video/image/pdf) in one folder (no sub folders)

Select it all, and press the spacebar to launch Quickview

Then go to full screen and press play.

Finally, make sure any media you want to use for a presentation is on your local hard drive (on your computer), not on a shared drive, unless you like the spinning beach ball of death that is.

Keynote simplicity

If you really want to use Keynote, this can be quite painless as well—not as quick as the methods outlined above, but maybe only few minutes longer...

Just select all the media (including PDFs, but it will only display the first page) and drag and drop it into the navigation panel on the site. Keynote will place each separate item on it's own slide, it will resize large images to fit, but smaller images will be left at original size.

Maths, Stocks & Spreadsheets in Grade 5

Michael Wheeler's Maths class have been getting a crash course in Economics courtesy of $1000, well one thousand 'Wheeler dollars'.

Earlier in the year Michael handed out iPod touches, and showed his class how to use the Stocks App to search for any company that makes a product they could think of, from Billabong to Nintendo, from Yamaha to Converse...

Throughout the year the student tracked their purchases using a Google spreadsheet, selling and buying as necessary to see who could make the most money by the end of the year. Here are a couple of examples. Click to enlarge ... 

Almost all students were able to boast in making some profit by the end of the year, one or two even making as much as $300!

Popplet in Grade 4

The 'All Systems Go!' unit in Grade 4 as an ideal place to explore the use of a mind mapping tool in an on-going (or what we like to call an 'ongoingative') way. That is, to use it as a tool for formative assessment, which naturally evolves into a powerful summative demonstration of a student's understanding by the end of the unit.

Our central idea is that systems work together to support life functions in human beings.

In Week 1, before any teaching has begin, focussing on the Key Concepts: connection and function, the students brainstorm everything they already know, (or think they know) about the systems of the body.





Brainstorming focused on the lines of Inquiry:

• What body systems do you know? How do you think they function.

• How different systems of the body are connected?

• What choices can we make to maintain healthy body systems?




As the unit progressed, week by week, students return to the popplet to add to, adjust and remove information in line with the feedback they receive from their peers, their teacher, and their improving understanding of the central idea.



Finally by the final week of the unit, the popplet has evolved from a formative tool, to a powerful representation of their learning in the unit, it has in effect, become a summative assesssment. This is an 'ongoingative'.

Popplet is particularly powerful for this as it has a timeline tool, that allows students to rewind back through time to appreciate the way their understanding as developed over the course of the unit.

Prezi in Grade 4 Science

Prezi is cloud-based presentation software for exploring and sharing ideas on a virtual canvas. It is a powerful plaform for bridging linear and non-linear information, and as a tool for both free-form brainstorming and structured presentation. As such is is a powerful tool for allowing our students to formatively develop their understanding of the Science Process.



Traditionally students would have tracked and recorded their investigations using paper, which while being a very powerful medium, is not dynamic and it does not provide animation, real-time feedback that facilitates a capacity for continuous expansion. If a student 'messes up' on paper, they either have to try and 'fix' it without ruining it, or ... start again... with ICTs this process is not only painless, but actually helpful, as it facilitates the feedback process of using assessment for learning.

In the Grade 4 'In the Mix' unit students gradually developed their own Prezi over the course of the unit.

So, after the initial weeks of guided enquiry, we wanted to find a way for the students to be able to effectively present their understanding of the Science Process as a result of their class investigations.

For this unit I also wanted the teachers to free from the 'tech' and focus on the Science, so I utilised a model of teaching the students to teach each other.

We used what we call the 'Techsperts' model, I ran one sessions per week at lunch time, and invited 3 to 4 students from each class to attend. These students in tun become the 'experts' in their respective classes, effectively coming the 'teachers' for the specific tool. 

Its all in the mix on Prezi

Integration of ICTs into this process allowed for more dynamic teaching, and more importantly, they allow students to show what they know in non-traditional and non-linear ways that more closely approximate the actual steps that are critical to a Scientific investigation, and the reasons why they have to happen in a rigorous sequence.

Prezi was an ideal choice to allow the students to formatively record and ultimately present their understanding of the scientific process, and easily incorporate images to document their inquiries, something which would be far more difficult on paper.

It's all in the mix! on Prezi

In addition, the fact the Prezi is 'cloud based' allows the students more:

flexibility - not tied to one platform/machine
real time collaboration
ease of sharing (eg, emailing a keynote/PowerPoint is fraught with complications)


Finally often the fully featured programs like Keynote are usually overly complex for what we need as educators, the problem with these programs is they are so feature full that kids get lost - distracted/confused by the 90% of what it can do but they don't need. Prezi (and other cloud based presentation tools) focus on doing the 10% of what we actually need/use.

An especially powerful aspect of the work in this unit was teaching the students to take advantage of a feature known as 'Embedding'. This is a technique whereby a student can copy some HTML code and 'embed' it into a post on their class site.




This facilitates a powerful process of peer sharing, as it is now a relatively simple matter to view, reflect and formatively assess all the class Prezis in one place.

ScreenChomp in Grade 3 Mathematics

ScreenChomp is a basically digital whiteboard that users can write and draw on with the touch of a finger, just like you would with an ordinary whiteboard, so "Why use it?" I hear you say. 

Well this whiteboard allows you to also record audio, while you draw, and you can draw using different pen colours, thickness etc. You can also easily add an image via the iPad camera, or an image on the device in the camera roll. Try doing that with a whiteboard.

All this awesome activity on ScreenChomp can be easily recorded, and the videos produced in ScreenChomp can be downloaded as MP4 files, making them easy to share (and then if you want, edit on your Mac). sharing with any audience is just a as simple as sending an email, which automatically included an link for the recipient to view, or even download the video if they choose, perfect for sharing with parents.

Even better - ScreenChomp is free! This means you can encourage your students to nag their parents to download a copy onto an iPad at home, so they can come to school already to create and collaborate and let the actual tech become transparent. It is the ultimate in 'ease of use' - very few commands (not even undo - just wipe and try again) and no account creation required (unlike the Show Me app).

A digital whiteboard has a whole host of educational uses, it really is what I call 'tech with mileage' - ie, just like pencil and paper there are so many uses for this kind of app, in almost any curriculum area you can think of.

Grade 3, have been putting it to good use, to allow students to describe their understanding of the various strategies they have been learning in Maths, in this way even though a teacher may find if difficult to 'conference' with each student, students can describe their understanding via ScrenChomp and the teacher can review this at a convenient time, helping them to point point which students require further assistance or extension in following lessons. Assessment for Learning, in action. Here are some examples from some of the students in 3JRy.

This video can be utlised in a whole host of ways, eg, to share with other students, to share with parents, or even to compile into a resource to help teach or review strategies with other students.

The examples included in this post where created by students in Julie Ryan's class, feel free to view, who knows, you might even learn a new strategy?