Teach your students to read, comprehend , synthesize
and create infographics. See the infographic about infographics below.
I remember when I saw my first infographic, it took my
breath away! I wasn't sure if it was a really cool poster, or an well designed advert;
I nearly put it up on
my wall anyway. I learnt a lot about my
favourite superhero that day and fell in love with a new and booming literacy
form.
The funny thing about synchronicity is that once you are captivated by something wonderful, you see it everywhere.
Every newspaper, magazine,
and website seemed to
be using infographics to sell, inform, and entertain in the most beautiful ways. Being a really visual person I loved that I
could read the main ideas through art, plus the text was usually short and to
the point, my kind of reading!
Right there I knew this was important, I was drawn to
them, they seemed pervasive in both business and media. I knew this was a literary form that my students
had to learn about. Not only did I know they would love it and be
totally engaged in these inspiring and creative multimedia texts, but they
would be learning some deep critical thinking skills along the way, and I could
think of 50 different ways teaching infographics that would align to “THE STANDARDS”.
On that day an idea was born in me, and I knew I’d
needed to do lots of research and planning to make it happen. At the time another great teacher and mentor of mine also became fascinated, and
together we started the brainstorm process of what teaching infographics would
look like in schools. A different approach was needed to the business world
design professionals. After many months
of letting ideas stew, collecting good examples and doing extensive research, I eventually put all my ideas together in a teachers guide and a unit plan of
lessons on how to teach infographics. I
believe this topic is too
important and way too
much fun not to share. I encourage you to give it a go with your class. Be prepared to be
teaching across the curriculum: reading strategies, writing styles,
advertising, visual arts, statistics and much more. Soon after you’ll find your
students making infographics on every subject they can and thinking in ways you
always dreamed of.
Below is my infographic “The Tree of Infographics”, a breakdown of the
elements and components of an infographic.
I hope this will help show you the depth of potential learning you can
get from teaching your students to better understand, analyse and create infographics. They
are a new literacy media that cannot be
ignored.
Why
use infographics with your students?
•Make connections more
obvious.
•Tell a story.
•Explain something.
•Persuade your
audience.
•Help students make
sense of huge amount of information.
•Learn to infer layers
of information.
•It is a popular media
form used in business, news and marketing.
•Use it to develop
critical thinking skills.
•Make data more
interesting to all learners.
•Develop a deeper
understanding of complex relationships and ideas.
•Information is easily
accessible to all readers.
•Common
Core emphasizes:
“Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.”
“Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.”
Have you used infographics to introduce or teach a topic
before?
Or have you taught your students
about infographics and how they can use them?
If so please share your experiences in the comments, or send me an
email, I’d love to hear from you.
If you are intersted in viewing my “Teaching
Infographics” pack, please visit my store at http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Store/Mindcraft-Learning
Infographic Tree Infographic
* Please feel free to copy, share, link to, or embed this infographic.
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