I really like infographics. I keep hearing of people that don’t and yet they keep on appearing. In my morning reading on Zite, one of the categories that I visit daily is indeed “Infographics”.
I’m amazed at how interesting the creators of them are.
It’s an attractive way to display statistics and potentially big data. I know that, when teaching Computer Science, problems that were given to students were most motivating when the desired output was graphics oriented.
Today, I ran across two infographics that got me thinking of a use in a Careers classroom – a subject area that’s always a challenge to find engaging and motivating activities.
The first infographic was “Salaries on the Scene at Fashion Week” where the author takes a look at the various salaries in the fashion industry. Click the link to see the full infographic.
Almost immediately after I enjoyed this infographic, I ran into “What Really Motivates Employees“
Taken together, they made for some interesting reading and deeper thought.
Then it occurred to me. Why wouldn’t activities like this be a genuine research and productive activity in the Careers Classroom?
At the introductory level, you could look at the infographics online and talk about the content. There’s certainly a great deal of merit to that but I wouldn’t stop there.
One of the things that a good infographic does is cite its resources at the bottom. Why wouldn’t you take the resource links (find Canadian equivalent ones if possible) and send the students to the links to look at the raw data and have them create their own infographics to summarize and display the results through their lens. It would be interesting to compare the statistic interpretation through their eyes as opposed to a commercially developed one.
Of course, you’re going to need tools. You may find right from the get go that students have the skills to dig into Photoshop Elements (licensed by the Ontario Ministry of Education) right away.
For the others, there are wonderful resources on the web.
And away you go! As indicated above, I love to collect infographics and infographic resources. They’re all tucked away in my Diigo account. Help yourself.
As I’m sure you’ll agree, this just screams to be an activity for groups where skills are shared and brainstorming rules. Pick a career and you’re off to the races.
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- The State of Infographics (sowhatsocial.com)