An interesting way to approach Visualisations

I just had a read an article on Edudemic on an interesting approach to deciding and decyfering visualisations.

Well worth a read.

http://www.edudemic.com/best-type-of-visualization/

Useful Websites for Data Driven Infographics.

Some teachers after today's workshop wanted to find data sets. Here are a couple that I have found that have some variety of topics. If you have found sites that have data sets to support data driven infographics, please leave the URL in the comment section.

Dr. John Rasp's Statistics Website
www2.stetson.edu/~jrasp/data.htm
Collection of data sets that are in Excel .xls format. The data can be US focused, but can be useful.

100+ Interesting Data Sets for Statistics - rs.io

rs.io/2014/05/29/list-of-data-sets.html
Another collection of data, covering google data to the price to hire your favourite band.

Footywire.com
footywire.com
For a AFL flavour of data, a great place that has information about scores, game attendances plus a lot more.

What are the Alternatives to Easel.ly?

An infographic about Cat-ography, it is amazing where an interest can lead a student in their investigation.

There are several alternatives to Easel.ly, with their own positive and negative challenges.

pictochart - Free (with limited templates and graphics, Ed Pro $39.99/year)
http://piktochart.com/
Pictochart provides a free platform with an easy to use interface iand includes limited templates and graphics. A highlight of pictochart is that you can submit data and create charts to place into infographics. There is a Pro feature which provides additional graphics, templates, high resolution export and privacy controls. Pictochart also offers Education subscriptions at a low per user rate ($2).

infogr.am - Free (with limited templates and graphics, Premium $9/month)
http://infogr.am/
Infogr.am is another free platform that offers a limited number of templates for users. There is also the ability to create video infographics as an alternative to static presentations. Again, the ability of creating charts is a highlight as you can import spreadsheets or use an inbuilt spreadsheet to include data in the infographic. Infogr.am offers a premium plan of $9/month with additional features and functionality.

Adobe InDesign CC - $14.99/month (As part of the Academic CC suite)
http://www.adobe.com/au/products/indesign.html
For advanced graphic designers, offering complete control in the way graphics can be made and presented. Offering functionality with other Adobe software, InDesign offers a great overall package which could be introduced to students after they become comfortable with graphic design principles..

How Easy is Easel.ly?

Easel.ly is a website that allows users create interesting graphics using thousands of graphic templates with minimal frustration and maximum results. After making an account and choose to start a new project, Easel.ly provides a simple to navigate interface that allows users to scan through graphic (Objects and Shapes) categories, upload images and create text boxes. 

A screenshot of Easel.ly

After viewing the graphics, users can drag and drop the graphics, create text boxes, which can be changed in colour and shape for the emerging infographic. Easel.ly has also included 'Vhemes', which area good collection of visual themes that can help a beginner achieve great visual results quick, with moveable graphics and text boxes.  For those a little more confidence, students can start with a blank canvas and add and manipulate all the objects/shapes/text that they want.

For this student, the experience in using Easel.ly was so positive that they continued to use the website for other subject assignments.

The inclusion of guidelines that pop up when arranging objects, and where the objects are in line can help the students achieve professional results in their infographic.

Students were able to upload their own backgrounds when making their infographics.

One limitation that I noticed was the lack of text wrap in text boxes, which meant that text copied from a document would stretch off the screen. To overcome this, the need to break the text into a fixed length to get the desired size for the text box. 

Students could present their information with aesthetics that reflect the topic. Consideration to colour plays an important role when developing infographics.

Another challenge faced was if the browser's security settings were set too strict, students were unable to achieve full functionality. To overcome this, we had to adjust the security settings to medium setting. We also faced some compatibility issues connected to some browsers, in particular Internet Explorer, but this could have been related to the security settings issue. Google Chrome was the most stable browser for the students to use during this unit.

Timelines can present information with an easy to read and understand structure.

Introducing Infographics to the Classroom

At the commencement of the unit into using infographics to present information, the focus was for students to gain an understanding what an infographic was, how they were used and what makes a great infographic. Students were not asked to find an infographic related to the elective, instead, they looked at finding infographics that connected to their personal interests (celebrities, sport, movies, geographical). Discussions focused on to content and the visual aesthetics of the infographic. 

Engage
Students responded to questioning relating to the inforgraphic that they chose to analyse and interpret.

• Which infographic was the best?
• What made them interesting, content/design or a bit of both?
• What role did the use of colour, font, graphics and images have on the infographic?
• Were your feelings towards the information affected by the design of the inforgraphic?

Students identified the qualities to them that made a great infographic with the common themes included: infographics should be visually appealing and well presented; the graphics used look interesting; the information included interesting statistics and information/facts.

What have I done in the past?

Whenever class work is being set in class, it has to have an intent. Consideration needs to be given as to what knowledge is expected to be introduced and developed. In my case, as part of my Year 9 Photography elective students were to investigate the historical aspect of various photography movements or genre. Students were expected to research into their topic, identify key artist and pioneers and present their findings to a small group using presentation applications such as PowerPoint or Prezi such as the one below.

As I wanted students to incorporate more of a graphic design element to their presentation, I needed to find a way for students to still present their research as well as allow them to include considerations into the way their investigations was presented. 

In a previous unit, we had focused on the skills in image manipulation using Adobe Photoshop CS5. The unit included basic image editing and the use of layering and masking of layers. The skills developed gave the opportunity to apply their techniques to another area of art and design.

An example of a Photoshop exercise producing multiple portraits. Students photographed their subject from a fixed position, layered and masked their images to present a image of their subject posed in multiple situations.

I wanted to students to create a greater connection to the skills and understandings of the concepts covered and identify different ways to use the new knowledge. I also wanted to see how students could present their knowledge and research in a creative and appealing way. I saw that it was time to move away from the grips of PowerPoint that has had a hold of student presentations and increase their understanding of what good design is. I expected that students would begin to gain a better understanding of the skills required to produce informative graphic visualisations.

Using Mind Maps for Planning

Using bubbl.us for mind mapping concepts
https://bubbl.us/ - Online (Free with payment plans starting from US$6.99/Month) 

As part of the planning process, students were expected to create a mind map of the potential areas that they could investigate. Some of the key reasons for using bubbl.us included the easy to use interface, ability to save as a jpeg/png, no need to sign up to use, and the students being able to print and add to their mind map after finishing. As the students were expected to produce the mind map in one session, there was not a need for the students to sign up and take full advantage of bubbl.us for exporting or sharing. Students were able to not only add text, but also attach website links and files to bubbles.

Examples of bubbl.us :

These students Infographic was to focus on Cat-ography, the Photography of Cats. Even after presenting extensive potential of ideas to include in their Infographic, they added and extended their ideas.

Students identified areas where they were going to focus in their Infographic. Students used varous colours to identify main topics and areas to investigate.

There are a variety of alternatives to bubbl.us which are available offline and online:

Inspiration - Offline (Paid)
http://www.inspiration.com/Inspiration
Inspiration provides users to show visual mapping, outlining, writing and making presentations, it has a easy-to-use interface and ability to save projects to continue at a later date. Inspiration is part of the Edustar image for Victorian Government Schools.

Freemind - Offline (Free)
http://freemind.sourceforge.net/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Freemind is Java-based mind mapping software which allows users to map ideas and planning concepts. It allows users to "fold/unfold" branches as well as create "follow links" to websites and files. Freemind is part of the Edustar image for Victorian Government Schools.

Mindmeister - Online (from US$2.99/month)
http://www.mindmeister.com/
Mindmeister is a web-based environment where users can collaborate mind maps with other users in real time. Users can create presentations and mind maps through a simple interface and export results in a variety of formats depending on the plan chosen. Mindmeister is also available on iOS and Android platforms.

Coggle - Online (Free)
http://coggle.it/
Coggle is another web based mind map site that provide users the opportunity to work individually as well as collaboratively. Once users have signed in using their Google account, users are presented with a easy to use environment, with the ability to drag and drop images straight to the document as well as being able to track changes made to the document and undo back to a certain date or event. Coggle is currently in beta form.

Text2Mindmap - Online (Free)
https://www.text2mindmap.com/
Text2Mindmap is a simple mind map generator where users type their information into a text box and the website creates a mind map instantly. Users are able to download their mind maps as pdf/jpeg formats or save their work after creating an account.