Growing up with a mother who was a music teacher, music has always been part of my life. In school, I was part of orchestras, bands, choirs, and small ensembles, playing several different instruments. School provided me with such wonderful opportunities to learn and play! As an adult, opportunities are not as readily available, but I have sought out places to share music with others. One of my favorite times of the week is my Monday evening handbell rehearsal, so I chose the benefits of music as my topic. 

I made my infographic with Canva, which is what I found to be the most intuitive and easy to manipulate. With Reynolds’ “voice” in my head, saying that “Simplicity is a fundamental tenet in all aspects of design and communication,” (p.149) I did my best to keep my design clean and straightforward. As I teach second grade now, I think of second graders as my target audience, therefore, I chose my words carefully to be readable. I used only the words that I needed to convey my message, simplified where I could, and left empty space. This, of course, was easier to do since I used a template provided by Canva! 

As music uses several different parts of your brain working together to create an experience, my color scheme aimed to mix a calm peace with enthusiasm and warmth. I attempted to do this by using blue for a successful, peaceful calm and complementary orange to show energy and compassion. (Reynolds, 2014, p. 79) 

I liked that Canva had a lot of images to choose from, and I was looking for photos. When I worked with Piktochart, they had a considerable collection of drawn images, but I had trouble finding photos. They wouldn’t load on my computer. Easel.ly had photos, but only 4 without upgrading, and they also had a good collection of drawn images. Thinking of my target audience as second graders, I like to use real photos for non-fiction, so I chose to just steer clear of upgrading and used Canva. 

Older students would benefit from making infographics to show what they have learned in a unit of study and would probably enjoy playing with any of the tools that we explored during this Sandbox. A younger group of students could work with an adult to do the “driving” as they give input and write the text for their infographic. Again, they could break a unit of study into 5 main points, label them, explain them, and choose a graphic to illustrate the concept. Adults and professional designers can struggle to keep graphics simple and clean, and I think it would be a challenge for students to do the same, especially younger students. 

Overall, it was fun to play with the infographic tools, and I found myself thinking about different topics and ideas throughout the week. I imagine that there will be plenty of opportunities to use this newfound knowledge to share information with colleagues and students in the future.

References

Rampton, J. (2017, August 21)  The Benefits of Playing Music Help Your Brain More Than Any Other Activity. Inc. https://www.inc.com/john-rampton/the-benefits-of-playing-music-help-your-brain-more.html
Reynolds, G. (2014). Presentation zen design (2nd ed.). New Riders/Pearson.