Showing posts with label infographics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label infographics. Show all posts

Monday, August 01, 2016

Using Pokemon Go in the classroom


How can you utilize the game "Pokemon Go" in your classroom in a meaningful way? Student excitement about this game can be easily harnessed to support all kinds of fun and pedagogically-sound lessons and activities!

Before we start, and if you have not yet played the game, there are some vocabulary words you might need.

VOCABULARY

Pokemon Go: an augmented reality, GPS-based, mobile device game which uses real-world locations to gather virtual items

Pokemon: the characters in the game you seek to capture and use for other purposes

Pokeball: the item you need to capture Pokemon

Pokestop: Place you locate in the game and visit to gather Pokeballs

Pokedex: An incomplete encyclopedia given to you in the game that is populated with details of the Pokémon as you capture them

Gym: a specific place in the game where you can have your Pokemon battle for control

Journal: a time-based list of your activity in the game

Pokemon trivia: Pokemon is short for "Pocket Monsters"

APA style guide for "Pokemon Go" information.

I doubt if there are many Pokestops or Pokemon in or around your school. And I'm not suggesting playing the game in your classroom. However, after playing it myself for the past few days, I've had some thoughts on how to use the game to expand the learning and target some of the literacies we want students to attain.

Some of the following activities require students to take some extra time and gather information as they're actually playing the game. Others they can complete after they're done for the day.

VIRTUAL REALITY IMAGES

Many of the Pokestops in the game showcase a local business, attraction or historical site. Since students  already have their phone in their hands, have them use the Google Street View app to take a 360° spherical panoramic image of the Pokestop. Having these images to share with others will both promote community pride as well as allow immersion in the Pokestop via a Google Cardboard Viewer or via the Ricoh Theta S app. By taking the time to create and share the 360° images, students will become familiar with some of the cool sites in their community.

Here is a sample of a 360° image taken at a site of a Pokestop. Click and drag your mouse around the image to view it. (Direct link)






As you or students create 360° images, please consider Creative Commons-licensing them for use by others, joining my Flickr group called 360° Images for Schools and uploading them!

DIGITAL STORYTELLING


One of the neat features of the "Pokemon Go" game is, when students find a Pokemon in the wild, they can turn on an augmented reality version of their mobile device screen which puts the virtual Pokemon into the live scene where their camera is facing.

Students can then take a screenshot of the image. By saving the screenshots to their camera roll, students will have access to them later to use in other classroom projects, such as creating a digital story about their adventures.

Don't forget- students will need access to tools for planning, preparing, and producing their digital story. Ideas and successful practices for creating digital stories can be found on my digital storytelling site.


Easy digital storytelling creation tools

DATA LITERACY

The Journal component of the game automatically records the time and date of the events as they occur -- whether it be collecting Pokeballs or capturing a Pokemon. Students can use the data to figure out the average number of events per day or to graph their allocation of items from a Pokestop. 

Using data they have collected and analyzing it will help students start to become familiar with the data literacy skills of data processing, data manipulation, data presentation, and data analysis. A great rubric for data literacy analysis by Andrew Churches can be found here.


Another treasure trove of data can be found in the Pokedex. Each Pokemon that is captured includes an information card, including height and weight (in metric). This data can be analyzed and manipulated for any number of measurement activities. (i.e. How many of which Pokemon would you need to stretch all the way across the US? What would be the total weight of all of them?) In addition, students could use Airtable (iOS app) to create their own relational database of their "Pokemon Go" data and become familiar with some of the features of a database (i.e. tagging, searching, sorting, etc.)


MAPPING

Encourage students to either gather the GPS points of their finds as they play the game or have them collect that info when they are done for the day. One site that makes this easy is http://www.gps-coordinates.net/ Students can search for a location on Google Maps from this site and then copy the GPS coordinates that show up.

Once students have this GPS data, have them locate the GPS point in Google Earth, add the screenshots for the Poketops or areas they visited in the game, and have them create a "Google Pokemon Go Trip". Students quickly become aware they are actually using real-life places in the game and can share their journeys with others. To learn how to start this process, instructions for the Google Lit Trips project will help you out!

INFOGRAPHICS

Use the data compiled from the "Pokemon Go" Journal and any additional information students collect (for instance, the number of steps they take in any one day) to have students create an infographic using one of the online tools or mobile apps. I have lists of these apps and tools both on my Guide to Everything Infographics page as well as in a previous Discovery Education Kathy's Katch blog post.

Infographics should have an eye-catching image at the top with the most important data and then include secondary and tertiary data for those want to know more. Shaelynn Farnsworth provides some solid tips about teaching the basics of infographics to students here.

I used Canva to create a health-related infographic based on the number of steps I have taken while playing the game.

SKETCHNOTES

Have students write a short piece about their personal reflection of the game. How long did it take them to learn how to play "Pokemon Go"? Have they joined any groups of people searching for rewards? What do they like best about playing? Least?

Have students exchange their writings or share a Google doc with another student. Each student should create a sketchnote from the writings of the other. Provide students with the basics of sketchnoting before you begin this project (i.e. text connectors, containers, shading, color, format) and then have them share the completed sketchnote with the author of the original piece. This can help students both practice visual notetaking, as well as learn how to pull out the most important points from a piece of writing. 

I have much more information about sketchnoting on my Guide to Everything Sketchnoting in the Classroom page.


POKÉ PODCASTS

Once students have reflected on their sketchnotes and reworked their essay on the topic, have each student create a short podcast about their experience with "Pokemon Go". Embed these podcasts in your class website and parents can enjoy the excitement that will definitely come through as each student reflects on their time with the game!
Podcasting tools
Do you use Pokemon Go in the classroom? Share tips with us on Twitter! #kathyschrock
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Thursday, May 22, 2014

Visme: Online creation tool

I have been working with Visme.co, an online free suite of tools to help you "visualize your ideas". Once you create an account, you have the option to create a presentation, a banner ad, an infographic, start with a blank canvas, and (soon) create a product demo. 
Dashboard of Visme
With the Visme Free account, you can create up to three projects, which are branded with the Visme logo, and have a full set of features to use in your design; there are images, icons, and banners included, you can upload your own images, animate the elements in your project, and publish the finished project online or download it as a JPEG. There are two upgrade options that allow more projects, more storage space, more elements to use in the projects and other useful options. You can find out more about Visme Standard and Visme Complete here. Some new features that are coming soon are a Microsoft PowerPoint import into the presentation project as well as a number of new templates.

 I chose to create an infographic, since I have been learning and teaching about them for the past few years. I have used some of the other online infographic-making sites, but I like Visme since there are other types of visual products to create in addition to the infographic. The interfaces are all similar, so it makes it easy to move from type to type for any project I want to create.
I admit that I am an infographic purist. With all of my reading on the topic, I have come to follow the ideas put forth by Eric K. Meyer in his 1977 book Designing Infographics. Meyer states a good infographic should have a beginning, a middle, and an end. He likens the visual elements in an infographic to those in a new story’s headlines and lead.

In addition, he goes on to state that most readers skim both text and images rather than reading them, so a well-crafted visual image at the top of the infographic may just be the hook the viewer needs to stop and take the time to read and look at the information in the infographic. He talks about the way people read an infographic as an inverted pyramid style with the main point at the top and secondary point and supporting details down the page. Meyer also suggests any text in the title of the graphic should communicate facts rather than just label the information. Following is a sample that follows his guidelines.

Sample of inverted pyramid style of infographic


I view lots of infographics and many are just "infographic-like posters" with no weight to the visual information to help the reader understand what the creator thinks is the most important. However, with Visme, I could easily edit the themes to reflect the ideas from Eric Meyer that I wanted to utilize.

The first thing you see in the infographics area of Visme are the themes to pick from to create your infographic. They are colorful and include traditional infographic elements like icons, graphs, and other visual elements that are easy to add, edit, color, resize, and rotate.

Theme choices for an infographic

I chose a template I knew I could easily work with to showcase the data I was presenting which was the overview data from the Pew Internet Research report (March 2013) on what devices students used to access the Internet.






Template default
I first came up with a catch phrase for in the top banner and a text title that was meaningful, but also left the viewer wanting more information. I played around with animating some of the elements, but decided, since I wanted to share this infographic in print form, I would not use this option. Animations would probably be better suited for banner ads, presentations, and product demos. 
 

 Beginning the infographic
I took a look at the the Web icons that were included in Visme, and then decided to resize one of them to make it the focal point of the infographic. This area included the primary information from the Pew Report.

Focal point of infographic
I liked the graphics that were at the top of the original template and wanted to use them. One great feature was I could CNTRL-CLICK on each part of the graphics and highlight the entire section and then use the arrow keys to move it down the template to the area where I wanted to use the graphic elements.

 It is also very easy to add drop-shadows, layer your objects, and take advantage of many other editing features in Visme.

Secondary details of infographic

The Visme projects include a chart maker that allows you to import data, pick a visualization, and add it to your infographic. I did not use the graph engine for this project since I already had the compiled data, but here is what it looks like.


I decided to use one of the other infograph widgets to call out the percentages on each line of the secondary data on the infographic.

And, at the bottom of the infographic I was able to insert my own image to personalize the project, include a text overview of the project, as well as the URL to the full Pew Internet Research report.



Here is the completed infographic project. You can view it online at the Visme site at http://my.visme.co/projects/5eb122

Give Visme a try, whether for an infographic, a presentation, or a custom project and share the URLs of your projects with me!






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Wednesday, January 01, 2014

Addressing the CCSS with the Use of Infographics

First published in the AWSA Update Bulletin, October 16, 2013. 
Some information has been updated below.
Overview

Infographics are everywhere! We see them on the Web and in our professional journals.    Students see them on Facebook and on advertiser’s pages. How can the use of infographics be used to address the Common Core State Standards?
An infographic is a visual representation of information. It differs from a poster in that it usually includes graphs and charts of information. Not all infographics include data, though. There are quite a few types of infographics, as listed below.
  • Statistical infographic: includes a summation or overview of data
  • Timeline infographic: shows the progression of information over time
  • Process infographics: demonstrate a process, whether linear or branching
  • Informational infographic: similar to a poster, but with some data included
  • Research-based infographic: compares unlike items with a known data set
  • Interactive infographic: a Web-based infographic that allows the user to have control  and modify the infographic
There are two basic ways infographics can be used to support teaching and learning. The first is showcasing already-created infographics to support a specific content area. For example, a health class might use an infographic entitled “A Tale of Two Meals” or an English class might use one called “A Literary Map of Manhattan” which includes clickable links to the places in Manhattan where famous literary characters resided.
The second way infographics can be incorporated into teaching and learning is by having students create an infographic as a formative or summative assessment. By creating an infographic, students are conducting research and gathering assets to use for their infographics (information literacy) working with color, fonts, and layout to impact their audience (visual literacy), presenting their infographic to persuade, convince, or inform (media literacy), and using technology tools and data visualizations to create the infographic (digital literacy). In addition, of course, they are demonstrating mastery of content knowledge with the content-specific information they include in the infographic.
Infographics Rubric
The rubric below can be used for both of these purposes. When analyzing infographics, students should pay attention to the topic of the image, the type of infographic and whether it is appropriate to the information display, whether the pictorial elements of the infographic and the data visualizations are understandable, if the color, font, and layout add to the presentation of the infographic, and that bibliographic citations are included to allow access to the original source of the information. When creating their own infographic, students need to consider all of these same items while, at the same time, considering the purpose and audience for their infographic.
http://www.schrockguide.net/uploads/3/9/2/2/392267/schrock_infographic_rubric.pdf

Common Core State Standards and Infographics
The Common Core State Standards do not specifically mention “infographics”, but there are many standards, both content-based and literacy-based, that can be addressed with both the analysis or creation of infographics by students. Here are a few from both the CCSS ELA Standards and the Standards for Mathematical Practice.
ELA Common Core Standards
CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.7 Integrate and evaluate content presented in diverse media and formats, including visually and quantitatively, as well as in words.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.W.8 Gather relevant information from multiple print and digital sources, assess the credibility and accuracy of each source, and integrate the information while avoiding plagiarism.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.SL.5 Make strategic use of digital media and visual displays of data to express information and enhance understanding of presentations.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.6-8.7 Integrate visual information (e.g., in charts, graphs, photographs, videos, or maps) with other information in print and digital texts.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RH.9-10.7 Integrate quantitative or technical analysis (e.g., charts, research data) with qualitative analysis in print or digital text.

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.6-8.7 Integrate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text with a version of that information expressed visually (e.g., in a flowchart, diagram, model, graph, or table).

CCSS.ELA-Literacy.RST.9-10.7 Translate quantitative or technical information expressed in words in a text into visual form (e.g., a table or chart) and translate information expressed visually or mathematically (e.g., in an equation) into words.

Standards for Mathematical Practice K-12
  • Represent a mathematical situation with symbols
  • Use objects, drawings, & diagrams to create an argument
  • Map relationships using tools such as diagrams, two-way tables, graphs, flowcharts
  • Find digital content and use it to solve problems and use technological software and tools to do so
  • Graph data and search for regularity and trends 
Creation of Infographics
Infographics can be created with any software program that allows layer-based image editing, which simply means images and text can be placed on top of other images. There are commercial packages, such as Adobe Photoshop Elements as well as online and downloadable tools that allow this layer-based editing. Some of these include:
•       Google Drawings (https://support.google.com/drive/answer/177123?hl=en)
•       Pixlr (http://pixlr.com)
•       Inkscape (http://inkscape.org/)
•       Sumo Paint (http://sumo.fm/#create)
•       Sketchpad (http://mudcu.be/sketchpad/)

In addition, presentation programs such as Microsoft's PowerPoint, Apple’s Keynote program, and Google Slides allow layers of images and text on a slide, so these tools can also be used for student creation of an infographic. 

There is also an iPad and Android tablet app that helps students create infographics on their mobile devices called iVisual Info Touch Light (iOS) and iVisual Touch Free (Android). The full-version of the app allows students to bring in their own images and other features. (Added 1/27/15: And there is a great iOS app that includes many publishing formats, and includes infographic creation, called Canva.

There are interactive, online tools available that are meant specifically for the creation of infographics. Each tool includes templates to edit and the ability to add data or graphs to the template. Students need to have email accounts to sign-up to use these tools. Some of the online tools include:
Introducing Infographics to Students
When introducing infographics to students, teachers should first showcase what data visualizations look like. A great site for students to become familiar with the  different types of data visualizations is the Periodic Table of Data Visualizations (http://www.visual-literacy.org/periodic_table/periodic_table.html). When students have collected their data, they can then use Chart Chooser (http://labs.juiceanalytics.com/chartchooser/index.html) to determine how best to present their data.
Students should study the infographic rubric and then, in small groups, evaluate infographics on the Web or in print. By looking at infographics with a critical eye, they will gain some insights on to how best to create their own infographic.
Summary
The use of infographics in support of teaching and learning is a natural fit. Students practice with many types of 21st century literacies. The completed infographic projects meet many of the Common Core State Standards. And students learn the important skills of meeting the needs and interest level of their intended audience by choosing the right type of data visualization. You can find more information and links to resources here: http://linkyy.com/infographics

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Thursday, November 01, 2012

Infographics for advocacy and promotion

One way to promote your district, school, or program or to advocate for increased funding or attention, is to create an infographic.
An infographic is a way to capture your audience as you visually tell a story or clarify information. An infographic is defined as a visual representation of information.
Movement.org created a page to explain items to think about when creating an infographic intended to advocate.  I think the most important aspect is deciding who is the audience for your infographic. They suggest putting yourself in the shoes of your audience and considering the following questions.
  • What are they looking for?
  • What is their point of view?
  • What do they already know about the issue?
You are creating an advocacy infographic to persuade your audience to take an action, whether that action takes place at a school committee meeting or at the ballot box. You want to send a clear message to them.
DESIGNING AN INFOGRAPHIC
A good infographic includes a “catchy” image at the top which highlights the main point, followed by some secondary details, and tertiary details. Since viewers skim infographics the same way they skim text, you need to capture them right away. 

CREATING AN INFOGRAPHIC
To create an infographic, you need access to an application that allows you to layer images on top of images. Adobe’s Photoshop Elements is one such program, and there are online and downloadable tools you can create an infographic with, too. You can even use a PowerPoint or a Keynote slide, saved out as a JPEG, to create an infographic.

There are now online tools that have been developed to help you create an infographic. Some of these tools allow you to start from scratch, but they all include a plethora of already-created templates to edit, the ability to add data, and create a good-looking infographic. Some of these sites include –

ADVOCACY INFOGRAPHICS EXAMPLES
There are many advocacy infographics available on the Web to review for ideas when creating your own. There is a free PDF booklet created by John Emerson entitled “Visualizing Information for Advocacy: An Introduction to Information Design”. It is well done and includes useful information about considering the audience you are trying to convince as well as tips and tricks for creating infographics.
I have an entire page dedicated to infographics on my site Kathy Schrock's Guide to Everything.
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Wednesday, February 01, 2012

PhatPad review

I received a review copy of PhatPad for iPad a while back, and have spent some time showcasing it at conferences and in small group sessions. 


The PhatWare Web site states: "PhatPad turns your iPad into an advanced brainstorming tool. Draw, write, and type your ideas then instantly share them via email, WiFi sync, Dropbox, or presentation mode. PhatPad’s digital ink technology and handwriting recognition engine allows you to scribble handwritten notes and drawings and convert them into digital text, or perfect geometrical shapes." You can also export the document out to a printer, to Google Docs and to Evernote!


PhatPad 2.0 came out earlier this week ($4.99 in the iTunes App Store), and it is optimized for iOS 5 as well as including handwriting recognition for English, German, French, Dutch, Italian, Portuguese, and Spanish. (There is also an Android version of PhatPad, but it only recognizes English at this time.)


Rather than give you an overview of what it can do, please view the video below to find out its main capabilities, which, by the way, are awesome! Following the video I will share some discoveries and thoughts I have for the use of PhatPad for the iPad in the classroom.








DEFINITIONS

So, now that you know the basics of what PhatPad can do, let me share some of my discoveries! First, once you convert a word to text, you can tap and hold the word and show the definition of the word. This is one way for students to verify that the handwriting-to-text conversion produced the correct word!











INCLUDED CLIPART

In addition, as you saw in the video, you can insert your own image from your Photo Library or take a new picture with the iPad's camera, but PhatPad comes with a TON of clipart, too! There are 28 categories including computers, communications, construction, database, education, emotions, food, fun and toys, medical, music and instruments, networking, transportation, and more! The clipart can save a lot of time with student projects, since they do not have to go out on the Web for images, check the Creative Commons licensing, get it into the Photo Library on the iPad, and then add it to the document. They can simply look through the included clipart and pick something appropriate!


INFOGRAPHIC CREATION

As I was playing around with the clipart, I realized that PhatPad can be used as a layer-based image creation, tool, too! That means the clipart, text, and images can be "piled" on top of one another. I started making a rudimentary infographic, and realized that PhatPad could be used for this purpose, even if just to create the first draft of an infographic a student is creating as an assessment. (More details about using the infographic as an assessment may be found here.)



OTHER FEATURES

There are additional features that would be useful in a classroom setting, too. First, there is the ability to create multiple pages and use a presentation mode to move through the pages. In addition, a student can create voice notes to go along with the pages and even create an automatically-running presentation with the voices notes by setting up the slide timings. You can read about all of the features in the PhatPad for iPad 1.5 User Guide


LAST THOUGHTS

After spending time reading the manual and experimenting with PhatPad for iPad, I am amazed at the number of features it contains! Creative teachers and students could come up with many ways to use this software to support teaching and learning. Are you already an educator or student using PhatPad? If so, please leave a comment and share the ways you use it personally and professionally.

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