PBL Tool: Infographics

Tired of having the students complete the same projects year and after? I know that is something that we all feel from time to time. I'm starting a series of posts that are dedicated to showing new project options for your students to use. My goal is to offer a menu of ideas for students to reference when they are determining the best tool for sharing their knowledge. So let's get started.

Let's talk infographics today. Chances are, you've seen an infographic before and haven't noticed it. In case you haven't, or to refresh your memory, here's the basic idea behind an infographic. Infographics are visual representations of information that could include data, information, knowledge. It's also a great way for students to identify trends and offer their own perspective on quantitative information. 

There are three parts to the infographic: visual, content, and knowledge. Here's a breakdown of each element.

Visual - consists of two types of graphics, theme and reference. The theme is the overall visual representation of the information. Reference graphics consist of icons that steer viewers to important information.

Content - usually consists of statistics and facts about the topic.

Knowledge - Contains insights and analysis of the content. It's the most important part because it shows the thinking of the student. Anyone can find facts. We want students to analyze. 

If you haven't seen an infographic before, then let's take a look at a few. Here are some good examples of infographics:

How Laws are Made
Students and Social Media
Twitter Spectrum for Educators

Now that you've seen some examples of infographics, let's look at a few options for how to create them. I would definitely suggest using a web 2.0 tool to create your infographic. The tools are embedded, easy to use, good looking, and free. And once they are created, it's easy to share because the product is web-based. Embed on your site, share the link, or tweet your creation. What's not to love?

Piktochart - A free, web-based infographic creator. Sign up for your account and start building. Lots of templates to choose from and offers drag and drop functionality.

Visual.ly - Another free, web-based infographic creator. Visual.ly offers a searchable database of infographics that were submitted by its users. 

Microsoft Publisher - Simply enough, make a Publisher document. You'll have to do a lot of work because you'll start from scratch. And it probably won't look as cool. 

I hope that's enough to get you started. I think infographics are a great way to share student knowledge. Try it out and let me know what you think. 

New look for Google Forms

Google has done it again. When I went in to create a new Form for a training session, I saw that changes have been made to the process. Overall, I think they are improvements that will make it easier for folks to use the forms more efficiently. 

The change you notice first is with the Form interface. It's a cleaner look and utilizes the toolbar more than before. To add content to your Form, you now have to choose "insert" from the toolbar. Simple enough. 

A new feature that I really like is the easy access to your Form's confirmation message. I remember stumbling upon it a few times in the old view, but it was out of site, and therefore out of mind. With the new look, the confirmation message is sitting at the bottom of the editing page. 

This new placement makes is up front for the creator. You can now quickly add your closing message. Another feature (it might not be new, but it's new to me) is the ability to send users to view the overall results. If you check the box to publish the link, people who finish the Form can choose to view the current results. A nice addition. 

Although I'm only speculating, it seems the biggest change was meant to end a problem with the old version of Forms. Before, it was easy to share the wrong link with your audience. If you've used Forms before, then chances are you've made the mistake of sharing your results spreadsheets instead of the live Form. Google takes care of this issue with the updates. There is no "save" button anymore. It now says "send form". Here's a look at the options you get.

Now the link to share is front and center. Simply copy and paste into your email, website, tweet, or other means to share. 

The last change I like is the ability to separate your Form from the results. You now have the option to view the responses in a new Spreadsheet or from within the Form. If you choose a new spreadsheet, Google creates another document and labels it so you know which is which. 

Now I have one document that is my actual Form and another that houses my results. Pretty nice indeed. Then you can clearly share the results of the Form with your collaborators.

The one aspect of Google that I really like and admire is their willingness to modify their products. It's funny how one day I'll say, "I really wish Google would..." and find out the next day that they made the changes I wanted. It really adds a lot of credibility to the famed Google 20% time and the impact it has on its product. No wonder so many companies and schools are starting to adopt a similar structure.