Sandbox #3 Infographics

my-big-summer-list-2022

I tried piktochart and easel.ly first knowing that Canva was the more popular website tool. I never even got beyond picking a template in either sites. Maybe I gave up too easily, but both Piktochart and easel.ly were difficult for me to navigate. Piktochart said my browser window was too small to properly use their site, so I stopped right there. In easel.ly, every time I searched for a graphic, none came up, but I got a message saying I could unlock and upgrade to see 3+ million images…. so onto Canva I went.

Sitting at the dining room table finding my way around Canva, my 15 year old son sat down.

He asked “what are you doing on Canva?”

I turned to him and said “My school assignment,” and I opened my assignment tab for him to read, as he was reading the assignment he proceeds to tell me that he uses Canva in school.

“Oh?” I say, “for what?”

“Inforgraphics, assignments” he says.

“What classes are you using it for?” I ask.

“Biology and English, mainly.” he replies.

Then he watches as I try to navigate my way around the site. As I choose a template and get ready to alter the text, he walks away.

While Canva was easier to work in, I still found that the images I would have chosen were all in the Canva Pro package. I seemed to waste time looking through all the graphics. I was wondering if there was a way to just see the “free” images.

Originally I was going to an infographic on how to start a recycling program in your school. Then I found I was getting stuck on the actual wording of the text and not playing with the design tool. So I switched to a more basic topic and focused on the design more. Hence the Big Summer List 2022. I enjoyed playing with the template, switching colors and creating something new within the confines of the template.

In the library, I could see using an infographic tool to create signage for different genres, rules and creating bookmarks. I am glad to know that some teachers are already using these tools for assignments in their classrooms. When I meet with teachers to encourage them to use the school library, I could encourage them to use these tools for projects they do in school. The biggest constraint I would see in using these for book reports or health class informational posters is that our school doesn’t have color printers. The assignments could definitely be turned in digitally, but if they wanted to display the infographics around the classroom, it wouldn’t be as colorful.