Infographic

With an infographic, you can take information and transform it in a way that would be most appealing to the user by using words and visuals together. Using this platform of disseminating information seems easier and more fun to create than just using words alone because an infographic catches the intended viewers' attention and draws their eye to all the information.

I had created infographics before using Canva but for this assignment, I tried out three new websites. 

• Easel.ly was easy to set up an account with. There were blank templates to choose from but not many options for themes. When I tried creating a new infographic,  I quickly realized there were not many options to choose from unless you upgrade to Go Pro. You can add shapes, media, lines, text, graphs/charts, and there is a grid to help keep everything but it was very hard to search for items. The infographic can be downloaded to a PDF and shared, but there was nothing easy about it unless you had the money to upgrade.
• Piktochart is also pretty easy to set up. I immediately recognized the set up as it is very similar to Canva.  You can pick from many already done infographics and interchange information within that or create a complete new infographic. When you're done the presentation method can be shared or embedded. This site would be my pick for future use above the others. Because of its familiarity and also starts with a video tutorial for newbies to the site so you get tips on how to navigate their options and offerings. 
• Infogram has offerings like the other two sites but felt like the options were bare-bones in comparison. There are free templates, but there are very few to choose from and they only seem to include flow charts, step-by-step charts, or timeline templates. I had a rough time figuring things out without any other infographic templates to choose from. I also found that any infographic that is created with the basic account would be public on the web with no privacy controls.  This application isn’t as visually appealing as the others and I liked it the very least.

After going through each of the infographic websites, Piktochart was the easiest for me.  I liked the familiarity of Canva in what was offered and the layout was the same for creating my infographic. I wanted to like Easel.ly because I loved the already done templates but trying to get graphics and additional pieces to add from a search was really hard.  In the end, I will be going back to using Canva. I do like that creating infographics could be added as a final product creation in assignments for students and will look to include infographics in a future PD with my staff.

• Canva is a site for creating anything visual, cards, posters, newsletters, and Infographics. You have the basic free option or you can pay to get the Pro version just like the others. This site has templates to choose from and edit, or you can start with nothing. There are way more images and shapes offered for free and you can upload your own if you would like. When you are done you can embed or share the link to the Infographic. Canva also has the option to share a copy of your creation so your colleagues can add to what you have done or work with you. I have fallen for this feature because it is so easy to work with my district librarians on posters together or newsletters with edits showing on everyone’s end all you have to do is create a team and folder with whatever everyone wants to work on. 

Here is an infographic that I created using Piktograph.  The information presented in my infographic comes from a report from the Pew Research Center about the digital homework gap.  

Loading...