What are these Infographics?

So I've been seeing these things everywhere online and I just realized they have a name and more purpose than I realized. I thought I'd share just a little bit of information about them. They're called infographics.

Like this one:


Courtesy of: Schools.com

What is an infographic? Infographics are found all over the web now. They are posters of information given in graphic form. Think Glogster or Prezi in one page/poster form. You can find or make infographics about almost anything. The neat this is that the fonts, font sizes, colors, and graphics can be manipulated to stand out on the page. This makes it visually interesting to the reader and lets the most important information stand out. It's great to include graphs or flowcharts too.

I think these could be very neat tools for sharing information about a unit such as biographies, animals, landforms, how to solve a math problem, graphs and data... The list could go on. And I assure your visual learners will be drawn to them.

I've just been introduced to this, so I am learning too. But you should check out these articles about infographics and these sites of graphics for you to use.

Places to get more information:

Great Article: http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/teaching-with-infographics-places-to-start/

http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/teaching-with-infographics-science-and-health/



Infographics for you to use:

How to Become A....: http://www.schools.com/visuals

Use or Create: http://www-958.ibm.com/software/data/cognos/manyeyes/

Create 5 Free Infographics (very easily!): http://creately.com/

and check them out on Pinterest! (search for infographics)

Symbaloo

I have recently been introduced to a website called Symbaloo. Symbaloo is a bookmarking website that saves your bookmarks in a unique way. It's also not really JUST a bookmarking site, but a place that you can bookmark files, videos, pictures, and more. These can all be saved on something Symbaloo calls a "webmix" and then accessed all from the same page. I'll show you how some of this works.

After going to http://www.symbaloo.com/ and creating an account, you will see that Symbaloo has given you some automatic webmixes for you to start off with. You can edit them or delete them as you like. 

In the middle of each webmix is a Google search box. This box is also where some of your other icons are viewed.

This is a sample webmix about Dolphins:

When I click on a video, the video views in the middle of the screen right away.

The same is true for pictures:

Both of these came from icons in the webmix. So if you were doing a unit on dolphins, you could store all your resources here and have easy access to them. 

You can also share your webmixes with other teachers and parents, or add students and give students access to the webmixes. 

If you want to find webmixes that are already made, such as the dolphin webmix above, you can search for webmixes on Symbaloo and add them to your tabs. 

Here's how:
Go to the Symbaloo Gallery and enter your search in the box. 

Find one you like and click on it to preview.

The preview will give you a little more information about the webmix and it's author.

Once you add the webmix you like, you will be able to find it again in your tabs.

If you want to create your own webmix, you can go to Add a Webmix to get started.

You will name your webmix:

Then add the address of the website. When you type in the URL and then click in the box to create a tile, Symbaloo will automatically find the name for the tile based on the website you entered. You can then edit the name if you wish.

Then you'll design your tile by choosing a background, icon, and how the name is displayed.

When you are done, click Add Tile To Webmix and drag the tile to the desired location.
It's ready to use!

Repeat these steps each time you have a website, image, or video to add to your webmix.

SMART: Magic Pen

SMART Notebook 10 has a feature called Magic Pen. I recently discovered some new ways to use it.

You can find Magic Pen next to your other pen icons:

The first time I clicked on the icon all I discovered was a pen tool that works like disappearing ink. You write, and within a few seconds it begins to fade away and disappear. That could be kind of cool if you are wanting to highlight something only for a moment.

You see here how what I wrote first is starting the fade away:

There are two ways to use Magic Pen that I didn't know before.

To create a spotlight:

1. Click on Magic Pen and draw a circle.

Once your circle is drawn and you life the pen off the board, a spotlight will appear.

You can resize the circle and move the spotlight around to reveal smaller portions of your picture or text at a time.

To create a magnifier:

1. Click on Magic Pen and draw a rectangle.

2. Once your rectangle is drawn and you lift the pen off the board, a magnifier will appear.

You can move the magnifier around on the screen and resize it to magnify different parts of your picture or text.

These are just two new things I learned that I thought I'd share. It definitely adds another element to your lessons and would be easy for a student to do as well.