Infographic Creation Made Easy with Piktochart

The use of infographics as a teaching and learning tool is gaining more traction in academic circles in recent times. In a nutshell, infographs are visually appealing representations of information. For a sample, view the infograph about child mortality on the left. What makes the use of infographs so attractive to educators is that users are able to create informative, easy to understand visuals from comprehensive qualitative and/or quantitative data. Data can be depicted in a variety of ways including text, flowcharts, diagrams, graphs and so much more.  

Piktochart is an easy to use online infographic creation tool. Using its 'drag and drop' format, users can access a wide variety of thematic graphics - including text options, mood icons and graph types - from the Piktochart template. There are also many sharing options with Piktochart. These include: storing them as an image (jpeg or png), using social media sites or utilizing the search engine crawling feature.






Teach-nology:
(the pedagogical rationale for the use of technology in the classroom)  

Skill	Teach-nology
Systems Thinking	To analyze how parts of a whole interact with each other to produce an overall effective presentation.
Make Judgments & Decisions	To effectively analyze, evaluate and reflect on evidence, arguments, claims and beliefs to create an informative and factual infographic.
Communication	To use a wide range of idea creation techniques (e.g. brainstorming). To clearly communicate ideas using visual and textual mediums.

How to Get Started:

The Piktochart website has a comprehensive tutorial page that will get even the most novice user started in minutes! Click here to view the Piktochart tutorial page.

Sample Activities:

1. To help solve a mathematical problem, step by step instructions can be outlined in an infograph.

2. Grammatical principles such as word usage or sentence structure can be summarized using an infograph.

3. The statistical data about the wealth and distribution of a country can be visually interpreted using an infograph.

4. Factual information about the effects of prolonged drug use can be described in an infograph.

5. A historical timeline can be created outlining the key events of the Holocaust or of World War I or II. 



Piktochart is a fantastic resource to help students summarizes vast amounts of information in a visually engaging way.  Click here to get started!


This post originally appeared on The De-tech-tive 4 Teachers.

#gettinggoing with Google Forms

Google Forms is a useful tool to help you plan events, send a survey, give students a quiz, or collect other information in an easy, streamlined way.

The best part about Google Forms is that it automatically tabulates and summarizes the answers received from all your participants.  Try the sample Google Form below or view it in a separate window by clicking here. NOTE: All 9 available question types are shown.

How to Get Started:

Please view the tutorial below as it will provide new users with an excellent introduction to Google Forms. This document can also be viewed in a separate window by clicking here.




Sample Activities:

Click here to start sharing your ideas with other educators.  Please feel free to access this resource in the future as more ideas are added on a regular basis.

Teach-nology:

(the pedagogical rationale for the use of technology in the classroom)

Skill	Teach-nology
Organization	Use a variety of organizational techniques such as categorizing, classifying, ordering, etc. to effectively maximize group productivity. Analyze and evaluate organizational techniques for the purpose of improving a group's output.
Communication	Quickly and effectively convey information and ideas to multiple group members for the purpose of increasing group productivity. Use digital web tools to communicate for a wide range of purposes e.g. to inform, organize, motivate, etc.
Collaboration	Demonstrate an ability to effectively work in a diverse and dynamic environment with groups of various sizes. Assume responsibility for shared work along with recognizing the contributions of everyone in the group.

Google Forms is an excellent organizational tool to help you quickly and easily collect and organize large amounts of data. Click here to get started!


NOTE: Flubaroo is an excellent companion tool to use with Google Forms as it grades the objective portions of the quizzes/tests your students write. For more information, please visit the following blog post for more information - "Flubaroo: A Google Drive Online Marking System".

This post originally appeared on The De-tech-tive 4 Teachers.

Organize Group Tasks Easily with Trello

Planning, organizing and collaborating on large projects or events can be a challenge for many. The most taxing aspect of any large project is to communicate in an efficient manner that does not interfere with productivity but at the same time keep group members abreast of the latest progress updates. Students, in particular, who struggle completing project work due to the breadth and depth of the overall task need a means with which to move forward to a successful completion. Trello offers just such a means! Trello is an online task management web tool that allows individuals or groups to collaborate in real-time on an user-friendly 'pin board' environment with the use of collection lists and task cards. Boards can be privately or publicly accessed with users also being able to be members of multiple boards simultaneously. View the image below to get a better sense of the layout and functionality of Trello.

Sample Trello Board

Teach-nology:

(the pedagogical rationale for the use of technology in the classroom)

Skill	Teach-nology
Organization	Use a variety of organizational techniques such as categorizing, classifying, ordering, etc. to effectively maximize group productivity. Analyze and evaluate organizational techniques for the purpose of improving a group's output.
Communication	Quickly and effectively convey information and ideas to multiple group members for the purpose of increasing group productivity. Use digital web tools to communicate for a wide range of purposes e.g. to inform, organize, motivate, etc.
Collaboration	Demonstrate an ability to effectively work in a diverse and dynamic environment with groups of various sizes. Assume responsibility for shared work along with recognizing the contributions of everyone in the group.

Sample Activities:

1. Group class projects with single or multiple members can include the teacher as a member of the group. This will allow the teacher to be fully involved in the planning and organizing of the project as well as provide helpful suggestions as to how to improve group processes or the overall quality of the project.

2. Extra-curricular school clubs or teams can use Trello to plan, organize and manage activities. Depending on the nature of the group, coaches, teacher sponsors, administrators, community members, parents and students can assign tasks, offer feedback or provide progress updates.

How to Get Started:

Please view the video tutorial below as it will provide new users with an excellent introduction to Trello.

Trello is an extremely useful organizational tool students can trust to manage and coordinate large projects. Click here to get started!

This post originally appeared on The De-tech-tive 4 Teachers.