I am seeing more and more “InfoGraphics” springing up everywhere. They are catching my visual eye immediately.

As a native German speaker, I love compound words and it comes naturally to me to want to take them apart in order to create meaning of the word: “Info” and “Graphic”- Information that is written or drawn…

A quick search for the the definition of “InfoGraphic” reveals on Wikipedia:

Information graphics or infographics are graphic visual representations of information, data or knowledge

In PC Magazine it reads:

An umbrella term for illustrations and charts that instruct people, which otherwise would be difficult or impossible with only text. Infographics are used worldwide in every discipline from road maps and street signs to the many technical drawings.

On Dave Gray’s Blog Communication Nation, he explains:

WHAT IS AN INFOGRAPHIC?

1. It’s a visual explanation that helps you more easily understand, find or do something.
2. It’s visual, and when necessary, integrates words and pictures in a fluid, dynamic way.
3. It stands alone and is completely self-explanatory.
4. It reveals information that was formerly hidden or submerged.
5. It makes possible faster, more consistent understanding.
6. It’s universally understandable.

What I am reading out of these definitions are the following words: Information, Knowledge, Visualization, and Communication! Those words are some of the puzzle pieces to 21st Century Skills and Literacies.

Immediately I am wondering:

• How can I create my own infographic?
• How can I use this to teach students?
• How can I teach students to make their OWN infographics?
• How can I use infographics in Professional Development?

I found the following infographic explaining the steps in creating an infographic. What seems to be important to remember is:

The Challenge with creating an infographic is not the Graphic Design, it’s getting the data to the point where it’s streamlined enough to see the visual metaphor.

Speaking about metaphors and visualization takes me back to Daniel Pink’s book “A whole New Mind”. I wrote about Pink’s quote MQ (Metaphor Quotient) is as important as the IQ a while back. Infographics might fit the bill when it comes to incorporating many of the qualities of teaching and learning in our time and age.

What do you think? Have you incorporated infographics in your lessons? Have you created your own infographics for your students or asked them to create their own?

I am off to think about creating my first infographic. Stay tuned for what I will come up with.

Mindflash Blog

Here are a few examples of infographics that caught my eye:

• Facebook: Facts You Probably Didn’t Know
• College degrees- earning power
• Evolution of the Book
• 50 Great examples of infographics
• Infographics Showcase

Interested in creating your own infographic? Here are a few links to help you along:

• Wild Apricot Blog : Make Your Own Infographic
• Designing “The World of Programming” Tutorial

Visual literacy is defined by Wikipedia:

Visual literacy is the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading.

I believe that visual literacy cannot only include the ability of “reading” a picture, but needs to also include the ability of “writing”/creating images, that represent a thought, idea and concept.

Coming from a Web Designer background and having been a PhotoShop-user for the past 15 years, PowerPoint presentations that had slides with clashing colors, animated non related clipart zooming noisily into each slide with transitions that made my head hurt and my designer heart bleed. As always, the villain is not the program (the tool), it is what we do with the tool. Then I started reading  Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery
by Garr Reynolds and it struck a chord with me. My latest presentations are attempts to create slides according to his model.

I also would recommend watching Kim Cofino ‘s stunning “Designing Compelling Presentations” and her other presentations she generously shares on Slideshare.net using the Presentation Zen model.

Currently I am in the process of reading Reynold’s second book Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations

Garr Reynolds points out that

we live in a time in which knowledge of design and visual communication skills are increasingly valued.

I decided a few weeks ago to read a book (Curriculum 21) , then create visuals of quotes, summaries and concepts from it. I wanted to experience if I could remember, categorize and learn visually from the book by creating.

As I am thinking about how I can represent a concept or a quote, I am making connections. As I am looking for images that will show what I am visualizing, these connections are being stretched and are expanding. One search for an image that represents “disseminate” washes up results for “blowing dandelions”. A visualization that I would have not thought of before.

You can check out wonderful examples of other educators creating visuals at the “Great Quotes about Learning” Flickr group. Great inspiration and discussion starters.

I am working on a blog post to show step by step the logistics of how I create images. Stay tuned if you are interested.

Using visuals to create and support stories is a skill we should encourage and nurture in our students . It should be obvious by now that I consider storytelling an integral part of a teacher’s toolbox. You can read about the Need for Storytelling and Why Storytelling Can/Should Be Anywhere/Everywhere and will understand why storytelling can fulfill many roles in the learning process.

Storytelling:

• helps us pass on knowledge
• connects the overwhelming flow of information,  so our brains can digest and remember it better
• uses a format that students of today are familiar and comfortable with

Now add visuals to the mix…

According to Wikipedia, Visual literacy is

the ability to interpret, negotiate, and make meaning from information presented in the form of an image. Visual literacy is based on the idea that pictures can be “read” and that meaning can be communicated through a process of reading.

It is hard sometimes to make/find images available to your students (especially for the younger ones) that they can use in their digital storytelling projects or for creative writing. I am always hesitant to let them loose on Google or Flickr to find their own images, because of copyright issues, but also inappropriate content.

I wanted to share a Flickr set of the Travel Bear from Argentina, China, Egypt, Costa Rica, Peru and Italy. There are all in one place and licensed under Creative Commons to share and use with your students.

In the past, students have made up stories with images from the bear for younger students by using PhotoStory

Students could choose different images from the set to create whole new stories made up by them. Sixth graders created short movies for their first grade buddies.
Andrea Hernandez from edtechworkshop encouraged her first graders to choose an image from the Travel Bear’s Italy Blog, download the image into Pixie (or you could use KidPix or TuxPaint ) and the six year olds wrote a postcard style letter to Jose, the bear.

Here is a slideshow of images available from the travel bear around the world. I would love to hear what kind of creative writing projects you have come up with by encouraging your students to use creative commons images from the web? Please share…

I enjoy creative images, creating visuals from ideas and connecting quotes to a visual representation.

When I found Famous Quotes: Educational Quotes for the 21st Century- Quotes to “Re-Imagine” Schools for the 21st Century, it literally begged me to “Re-Image” these quotes.

You can find them on a Quotes Set on my Flickr account. They are all licensed under Creative Commons, so feel free to use them for your blogs or presentations. Just remember to give credit where credit is due.

I find images:

• by browsing Flickr under Creative Commons (give credit and re-mix under CC license)
• by searching Wikipedia for Public Domain images (use anyway you wish)
• by browsing Stock Xchng for images that are free to use without giving credit, images that you need to give credit to owner and/or have to notify owner if you are using it for public work

I also am part of a  Flickr Group called Great Quotes about Learning and Change. You can find some other grest visuals from contributors such as  Dean Shareski, Kathy Schrock, Scott McLeod and Darren Draper.

Quotes – a set on Flickr via kwout

I checked out PhotoPeach.

Our idea is to help users tell better stories online using photos. Our inspiration for this service came from enjoying sharing photos with friends in real life.

You can create a rich slideshow in seconds to engage your friends or family in a natural way. This is done by allowing two-way commenting right at each photo in the show and automatically pausing so you have time to express yourself before continuing.

We also support zooming comments, sound-effect smilies, and music so you can elaborate on your story further.

You have heard again and again: “A picture is worth a thousand words” but what if you could add a thousand words to your photos, and some music? We think the whole slideshow is greater than the sum of the photos, words, and music.

The concept is similar to Animoto. You upload images from your computer, Facebook, Picasa or Flickr, then pick a song and PhotoPeach will automatically create a video that you can e-mail or embed easily. The catch is that the slideshow has to be public in order to embed it on a classroom blog for example. Before I can use a service like PhotoPeach with my students, I need to investigate a little further.

From their About Section,  I found out that :

Visitors without an account can write their name and comment on your slideshow without signing up.

This concerns me, since I will have no control over who can and will add what . The chances that something inappropriate will end up on something that is intended for academic use are too great. Is there a comment moderation feature before ANYONE can leave a comment on students’ slideshows? I am looking for a feature similar to VoiceThread .

Another issue that we, who deal with younger students, have is the e-mail issue. Does PhotoPeach allow multiple sign-ins under the same username?

I tried it out with my photos of the 366images from January 2009. There are two choice to embed the slideshow, as a Story or as a Spiral show.

Technorati Tags: Digital Storytelling

I have briefly highlighted a few screen capturing tools and keyboard shortcuts on Langwitches before. Here is a quick run down, links to original posts or links to the software website:

1. Windows Keyboard Shortcut
   1. Capturing the entire desktop: Use the Print Screen button on your keyboard to place the image on your clipboard, then past (CTRL+V) the image
   2. Capturing the active window: ALT + Print Screen button
2. Mac Keyboard Shortcuts
   1. Command+Shift+3 shortcut for taking a screen capture of your entire screen. Places a copy of the image on your desktop.
   2. Command+Shift+4: gives you a crosshair cursor. Drag the cursor out over the area you want to capture. Places a copy of that image on your desktop.
   3. Control+Command+Shift+3 (or +4): instead of creating a file on your desktop, copies the captured area into your Clipboard. Paste (CTRL+V) the image where you want to.
3. Kwout- Screen Capturing and Quoting tool (web based)
   
4. Skitch (for MACs only)
5. Jing Project (MAC and PC)
   I have been using Jing for a while and love that it is simply there. After installation jing will be the "sunshine" on top of your screen window.
   
   The crosshair cursor will create a cross on your screen that you can drag over the area you want to capture. You can save the captured image as a .png file on your hard drive or upload to screencast.com , flickr or upload via FTP directly to a location. You can also receive an embed code for that image. I use the image tool almost every day for trouble shooting visuals, creating step-by-step instructions for faculty and even to re-size images quickly while I have them on the screen, instead of opening up Photoshop to do it. I admit, that I have not used their video capturing tool on a consistent basis.
   Usually I add text and/or arrows to the screenshot to point out a button or an option.
   
6. Snag it (Same company who developed Jing)
7. I was able to get a free licensed copy (version 7) of this program as well as Camtasia a couple of months back. I had not played with it, until Sue Waters used some pretty nice screen shots in her post "Can you smell the benefits of CoComment? " I asked what tool she was using and that brought me back to checking out Snag It.
   I like there more professional options to jazz up your arrows, add stickers and above all the ability to edit the screen shots right there, without having to save and then import into Photoshop to resize. That is a real issue for me, since my WordPress layout theme, does not like me to insert images greater than 500 px.
   

   Snag It allows you to save your shots in MANY different formats, while Jing will export as a .png file. It also allows you to choose between different options of capturing. While Jing will capture a rectangular area, in Snag It you can choose between the Screen, a window, an active window, a freehand region, a fixed region, an object and multiple areas. The best feature though is the scrolling area. With the other screen capture tools I have, I cannot include any part of the screen that is hidden below. Very cool tool.

One feature that I am still looking for is the one that allows me to capture dropdown menus. Usually they disappear when I move my mouse away from it to define the area of the shot. Anyone now of a way to do this with any of the tools mentioned here? A tip would be greatly appreciated.

You can find another review list for screen capturing tools on Digital Inspiration . They include a few tools, that I have not used.

Technorati Tags: Screen_capturing

the autumn witch
Originally uploaded by Lars van de Goor

I am ready to leave for a short visit to my mother in Buenos Aires. Spring is in the air in Florida (Northern Hemisphere) and I am flying towards similar weather conditions in Argentina (Southern Hemisphere) where fall is about to start.
I found this amazing image on Flickr, taken by Lars can de Goor, which immediately caught my eye.

The witch is on the move, flying into autumn!

Do you have any creative witch photos? Please share a link!

My father gave me my first version of Adobe PhotoShop in 1993 and I was hooked with image editing.

The online web-based image editing sites and tools have been exploding in the last few months. It seems that every few days, I can add another cool tool to my growing number of options when I want to spruce up my images online, on any computer platform and with the freedom of working on and switching between my desktop, laptop, work, and friends computer with the only problem being how to remember my login information.

Here is my list (no particular order) of favorite Image Editing Tools online (of course they are all free)

1. Flickr (Picasa)
   Greatest value is its integration with Flickr. One click on the edit button and you are able to use basic editing functions like rotate, crop, resize, sharpen, etc.
2. Cellsea
   
3. Pixenate
   
4. Phixr
   Give your images and instant photo look, add speech bubbles, mix photos with other photos, add borders, etc.
   
5. Graphita
   
   
6. Picnik
   Integrated with Flickr. Tons of Effects, Fonts, Shapes, Frames, Touch-up Tools
   
7. Dumpr
   Love the “Your photos in Art Museum” feature
   
8. FotoFlexr
   integration with Flickr. Cool effects
   
9. LunaPic
   I wrote a review of LunaPic a while ago. Really love the choice of effects.
10. BeFunky
    Read my review of befunky.com. Very cute cartoonizer feature.
    
11. Image Chef
    Animated images, photo frames… TONS of other image generators
    
12. Flauntr
    Integrates with Flickr. Overlays, Magazine Covers, Frames, Distortions, Light Effects, Texture, Canvases, Grunge, Compositions, invitations
    
    
13. Aviary
    Aviary is NOT an image generator, but a true image editor comparable to Photoshop. If you are into layers, gradients, clone stamps, hex colors, blending modes, etc this seems a cool and free alternative to PS.
    I just received a beta invitation and am still playing with it. A more detailed review still to come.
    

Keep up with my Image Editor Del.icio.us bookmarks