Creating Infographics with Students

September 6, 2011 - Design, Featured Carousel, Infographics, Information, Visualization

I have been mesmerized by Infographics for a while now. Take a look at my previously written posts.

What are infographics? Here are some definitions I ran across as I was learning and wrapping my mid around teaching with infographics:

  • “They are fun visual representation of data“
  • “The art of making information comprehensible“
  • “Infographics are: fun, informative, inspiring, thought-provoking, knowledge-enhancing, stimulating and above all, engaging. If you don’t know what an infographic is, it’s the fusion of graphic design, with data handling. An infographic takes some data and turns it into an attractive poster which uses a variety of data representation techniques to communicate the message that emerges from the data.”

Visua.ly, a soon-to-be-released site to “Create, Share, Explore Great Visualizations” states in their intro video:

Visualization= Story+Data+Design

The video clip also points out the following three elements of an Infographic

  • Design
  • Journalism
  • Analysis

which lead directly into the reasons why we should not only teach students WITH but also to allow the to CREATE their own infographics.

You can download the following flyer “Creating Infographics with your Students” as a pdf file.

Creating Infographics with your Students

Why teach with infographics?

  • help students make sense of vast amount of information
  • organize and group related information together
  • tell a story
  • connect information
  • make raw data more appealing to most learners who are visual
  • understand complex relationships between data over time
  • analyze and interpret information

How to create your own infographics?

  • Know (about) the information you want to represent
  • Find a good and catchy title to hook the interest of potential viewers (What Makes a Great Infographic)
  • Have information data already collected and available
  • An infographic’s job is to make the viewers:
  • You can ask the following questions (examples):
    • How has the information changed over time? (use timeline, line chart)
    • How is the information different based on geographic location (use maps)
    • How do the numbers compare (use bar graph, pie chart, individual blocks/clipart and ten-, hundred-blocks, use same graphic in proportionate size differences)
    • How does information differ or overlap in some areas (use Venn Diagram)
  • Use a visual metaphor or analogy to represent your topic/information.
    • Try to use a theme with supporting images & icons
  • Use same colors to connect information
  • Use proximity of objects to group information together
  • Leave a section/space towards the bottom of page to include your data’s sources

What tools to use to create your infographic:

Creating charts and other components

Pulling all together:

Where do I get the clipart, photos or other images from?

Jeff Utecht, from the International School of Bangkok,  shared a great student infographic example via Twitter. It was created in Word and I believe is a great way for a beginning project and for students to “get their feet wet”.

Created in Word

Resources:

Have you created infographics with students? Please share the link to the image or document. Seeing examples created by students is the best way to show other educators that “this is do-able”.