Infographics and Data Visualization
"Numbers have an important story to tell. They rely on you to give them a clear and convincing voice." - Stephen Few
Get your copy of Hacking Digital Learning, The 30 Goals Challenge, or Learning to Go. Ask me about training your teachers, [email protected]!
The poster project is one of the most popular assignments teachers give students to show their understanding and research. I still remember the amazing posters my international teens created. They invested a lot of time and money into creating nice labels, printing and pasting colored photos, and citing their research. I was sad when they needed to be discarded, because they were too big or somehow got destroyed. This is the problem with having students work with paper and cardboard. The students can't keep their hard work and use it for future references or publish their ideas and research for others to be inspired. For this reason, I encourage you to transform the traditional poster project into a multimedia digital research project. Many free digital tools and apps help students create multimedia posters with incredible graphs, illustrations, charts, images, labels, fonts, templates and linked research. Find some ideas and tips below along with downloadable slides to get you and your students started with learning with infographics and data visualization.
Recommended Web Tools and Apps
More Resources
- Canva is a free web tool and iPad app for creating social media posters, infographics, digital poster projects and more. Get access to templates and some free images and icons. Check out Canva’s resources for creating awesome infographics here.
- Piktochart is a great way to create infographics with clipart, templates, fonts, and more in their library.
- Genial.ly is a free web tool for creating infographics and interactive visuals.
- Venngage is a great way to create infographics with some incredible templates students just click and edit. Access to clipart, etc.
- Visme allows you to create a few free infographics with cool transitions and effects.
- Smore is a free web tool to create digital flyers with videos, icons, and images. Some teachers have used this web tool to create infographics.
- Check out this fantastic Google Draw template for creating infographics by John Calvert.
- Infogr.am is an infographic creator with graphs and templates.
- Visual.ly lets you create an infographic comparing your Twitter account to a celebrity’s or peer’s account.
- Creating infographics with Powerpoint.
More Resources
- Check out these resources to find lesson ideas for teaching with infographics:
- TED-Ed has videos and lesson plans about data visualization here.
- The New York Times has various infographics followed by pre- and post tasks.
- Check out this infographic lesson by Canva.
- Need guides for creating infographics? Try these resources:
- Click here for an infographic with 7 steps for creating infographics.
- Click here for a guide by Canva.
- Click here for a how-to video.
- How to Design Infographics post.
- Want to find infographics to teach Business English, English for Academic Purposes (EAP), Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL), or any other topic?
- Check out this Pinterest board of 1000s of infographics by Randy Krum.
- Search for any topic on Best Infographics.
- For more information on teaching and creating with infographics, check out these resources:
Bookmarks
Find the tools listed above and many more resources in the bookmarks below: