Infographics are educational tools that allow for the presentation of a lot of information in a simple and visual way. They are great tools for differentiating in the classroom, and students need practice interpreting and analyzing information presented through infographics, not only to help them be successful on state mandated standardized tests, but also to be successful in this highly visual world. They are also, simply, much more fun to look at and study for information that the block of text that we have resorted to historically!
I played with three websites for creating infographics, and while all three were pretty user friendly, they were each a little different in terms of options and features that they offered. Easel.ly allows a user 60 free images per month to choose from with 10 font options for free. A person can upgrade to a Pro Account for $3.00 a month which upgrades the offerings to 680,000 free images and 50 fonts, plus more options for personalization. The templates are easy to change and adjust to meet the user’s needs. One feature that Easel.ly did not offer that the other two websites had was the map creator. The website did allow you to save your infographic as a PDF in the free version, and it was simple to get a shareable link for the image to be accessed through the web. The editor was very simple to use. It was simple to edit text by double clicking on text that was already on the template, or add and change the font, size and color of new text. Moving items around was as simple as clicking and dragging. Images were easy to upload, and there was also a good collection of images and clipart available through the site. I like this option to share with students who need to create an infographic due to the large number of templates available for free.
Piktochart was unique in that it offered editors for creating not only infographics, but also slide presentations, posters, and reports. With a free account, the user had 10 templates to choose from, or the option to create from scratch. Two upgrades are available. A Lite account is $15 per month and gets the user 600 templates and access to all icons. A Pro version costs $29 per month and also allows for 600 templates, all icons, and several other design options. There are also special price packages available for education and non-profit companies. Piktochart has a large library of icons, photos and frames available. It also boasts options for creating very detailed charts and maps. A user can also link videos to their infographic. With this programs, a user can only save work as a PDF with a paid account. The editor could be navigated fairly easily, but it wasn’t quite as simple as that of Easel.ly.
Infogr.am seemed to be targeting users who are interested in using lots of graphs and charts. A free account allows users access to 11 themes with an option to have infogr.am designers do custom themes. “Themes” seemed to simply be new color palettes rather than detailed layouts that include pictures and graphics. The option of a Pro account is available for $19 per month which give the user access to more themes, larger library space, more icons and download options. There is also special pricing available for businesses and enterprises with even more options. The editor gave many options for creating graphs and charts, but there wasn’t a library of clipart and photos. A user would have to rely on their own uploads for these options.
Overall, I liked Easel.ly and Piktochart the best out of the three. I chose to create my infographic about Digital Citizenship because I will be doing a unit with students in my district focusing on this, and thought it might be useful. If I needed to create an infographic that called for graphs and charts, I would probably create it using Piktochart because the options for these items are more detailed. I am excited to share these tools with the teachers in my district for incorporation into their classrooms, and hopefully get some of our students creating their own infographics!
Resources:
@coolcatteacher, V. D. (2014, October 24). What Your Students Really Need to Know About
Digital Citizenship. Retrieved October 13, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-citizenship-need-to-know-vicki-davis
Neil Tippett, PhD|Fran Thompson, PhD|Peter K Smith, PhD. (2014, April 23). Research on
Cyberbullying: Key findings and practical suggestions. Retrieved October 13, 2016, from http://www.education.com/reference/article/cyberbullying-research/
I found the same to be true about Piktochart. It's an amazing program. Great job on your infographic. Very informative!
ReplyDeleteLove your infographic!
ReplyDeleteYes, your infographic is very informative. We sometimes forget to do the simplest things to protect ourselves when we are online.
ReplyDelete