CONVEY INFORMATION IN AN APPEALING MANNER
Many of today’s students have a preference for visual media over text-based ones, so the use of infographics has become popular for conveying information in an appealing way. With numerous free tools available online for creating infographics, you can get your learners to sum up or re-create their understanding of a topic or process using a medium they are bound to enjoy.
A couple of user-friendly examples include Pictochart and Easel.ly. Follow these links to their websites – https://piktochart.com/ or https://www.easel.ly/.
Piktochart, for example, gives lots of advice on how to design good infographics so that the information being conveyed comes across in the most effective way. Layout templates are provided, or students can design their own. There are plenty of tips for ensuring that layout and designs are visually engaging, such as understanding that the use of whitespace is crucial to creating clear and simple content, and ensuring that the contents flow in such a way that the eye is able to scan it quickly.
You can set all kinds of tasks for students to create infographics:
- Using comparisons or contrasts for different topics, e.g. similar or opposite characters in a literature study text
- Representing data or chronological events, e.g. a timeline of events in a novel or play
- Telling a story, e.g. mapping the events in a narrative essay plan
- Step by step instructions on how to do something
- Reports, e.g. representing the key argument of an article in visual format
Presentations that demonstrate any area of learning
And of course you can create your own as part of your teaching content. Rather than dreary old notes, spruce up the key learning points you may want students to take note of by representing them in bold visual form.
A couple of other great tools include the Canva Infographic maker and Venngage. Try them today – you are bound to find that students are immediately responsive and more interested in the information at hand, and please share any success stories with us.