Journal 3: Infographics More than Words can Say

Krauss, J. (2012). Infographics more than words can say.ISTE: Learning and Leading, 39(5), 10-14. Retrieved from http://www.iste.org/learn/publications/learning-and-leading/DigitalEditionMarch-April2012.aspx 

Summary: In the article "Infographics More Than Words Can Say", Jane Krauss discussed good learning experiences that involve using infographics in order to build on the traditional learning and teaching strategies.  The author explains that infographics cause students to ask for an active response such as, "What am I seeing?" or "What does this mean?"(2012:10) Infographics offer both information and pictures which causes students to both analyze and interpret the information. Krauss also lists different standards and teaching methods such as computational thinking in order to show the importance of infographics. Pages 12-13 offer different lesson plans that incorporate infographics as well as projects that students can participate in. Jane Krauss lists a few simple rules on page 13 for making infographics. These include tell a story, be clear, use good data, and pay attention. Infographics can be very useful in a speech therapy setting because charts and information about each child's struggles could be displayed and explained more clearly.

Question 1: What can computational thinking help students practice?

Answer 1: Computational thinking can help students practice with data sets of any size, manipulate that data, and represent it in an infograph (2012:11). Some may wonder what computational thinking is: it is a problem-solving process that includes but is not limited to:

• Formulating problems in a way that enables us to use a computer and other tools to help solve them.
• Logically organizing and analyzing data
• Representing data through abstractions such as models and simulations
• Automating solutions through algorithmic thinking (a series of ordered steps)
• Identifying, analyzing, and implementing possible solutions with the goal of achieving the most efficient and effective combination of steps and resources 
• Generalizing and transferring this problem solving process to a wide variety of problem


Click Here to see this definition from its source as well as more information on computational thinking.


Question 2: What are the simple rules for making an infograph?

Answer 2: Tell a story about the context you are trying to present, be clear in explaining the different elements of your main idea, use good data from reliable sources, and pay attention to other infographs (2012:13). Infographs are a visual representation of data which is why it is important to present it in the best way possible. Infographs would be very useful for teaching students who are visual learners.