3. Exploiting Infographics follows on from 10 Lessons in Digital
Literacy, which is a collection of lesson plans based around
infographics, and looks in more depth at the genre and how
infographics can be used as both sources of information and as
creative learning tasks for students.
The tasks that accompany the infographics are intended to
encourage students to think more critically about the information
they are exposed to and to question the sources of information
they find whilst browsing the internet.
Exploiting Infographics should help teachers to start creating
their own tasks, activities and lesson plans for students and to
integrate infographics in a way that will enhance students’ critical
thinking, digital literacy, language and communication skills.
Exploiting Infographics was conceived as part of the Digital
Classrooms series which started with the award winning Digital
Video - A Manual for Language Teachers.
The series is intended to help teachers, teacher trainers,
materials writers and course designers integrate digital
technologies into their classroom practice in a pedagogically
sound and impactful way.
FOREWORD
ii
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
4. Nik Peachey is a freelance teacher trainer, writer, conference
speaker and learning technology consultant.
He has been involved in education since 1990 and has lived and
worked all over the world.
He is a two time British Council Innovations Award Winner and the
founder of PeacheyPublications.com.
He has worked with a wide range of educational companies,
publishers and institutions including Macmillan, CUP, OUP, British
Council, International House, Bell Educational Services, University
of Westminster, The Open University, The BBC and Google Labs
and many more.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
iii
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
5. For my wife Maria and my two amazing daughters Molly and
Isabella with eternal thanks for your love, support, understanding,
tolerance and inspiration.
DEDICATION
iv
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
7. This ebook was designed with English language
teachers in mind but should have some value for
any teacher who is interested in developing their
students’ digital literacy and critical thinking
skills.
The book contains a wide range of suggested
activities for both the creation and exploitation of
infographics in the classroom.
It also helps teachers with tips and advice on
how to plan and create infographics and
suggestions for which tools to use to produce
different types of infographic.
EXPLOITING
INFOGRAPHICS
By Nik Peachey
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
8. There are many reasons why we should be using
infographics as part of our teaching and learning practice.
Perhaps one of the most fundamental reasons is - because
they are there. Infographics have become a predominant
part of the way people choose to communicate information
online and as such we need to help our students understand
this genre of communication and work with it effectively.
Infographics are often used to convey quite dense statistical
information. Reading from screen has long been thought to
be less efficient and more tiring than reading from paper, and
reading through text that describes a lot of related statistical
information can be very challenging. Infographics are,
however, a very effective means of conveying this
information in a much more visual way that is less dependent
on explanatory text. This makes infographics very well suited
to screen based mediums of communication.
Being visual rather than textually based makes infographics
easier to understand for younger readers or those with lower
WHY USE
INFOGRAPHICS
7
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
9. level reading skills. This can help to make
more complex subjects much more
accessible to lower level learners.
Many learners are more visually stimulated
and research tells us that the use of color and
imagery can help to make learning more
effective and memorable.
The study of many academic topics involves
the understanding of dense statistical
information. Helping students to use graphic
m a t e r i a l s b o t h t o u n d e r s t a n d a n d
communicate information can reinforce their
academic study skills and enable them to be
more successful students, especially when
they reach tertiary level.
Developing students’ abilities to take
information and make it visual is both a useful
work skill and an engaging way to develop
students’ thinking and visualization skills.
When creating an infographic students have
to be able to comprehend the information as
a whole and understand how the parts relate
to each other in order to decide how to layout
their design. Their understanding of the data
will need to inform the structure of the
graphic. Even their choice of colors and
images to use in the graphic will need to be
supported by a deeper understanding of the
information they want to convey.
8
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
10. Once you have found an infographic that you want to use
you need to start thinking about how you will put the graphic
in front of your students. This depends on your teaching
context, what digital devices your students have and where
they can access the internet. Included here are a number of
options you can choose from to give your students access to
the infographics you use in your lessons.
HOW STUDENTS
ACCESS
INFOGRAPHICS
9
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
11. In the single computer classroom
Data-projector
You can show the infographic in your classroom
using a data projector. This gives you some
control over when and for how long the students
can see the image, but can be annoying for
students as most infographics will be longer than
one screen so you’ll need to decide when to
scroll down. This takes a lot of the independent
control away from the students.
In the connected classroom
URL - Links
You can give students a URL so they can access
the graphic in the browser on their own device.
This sounds easy, but infographic image URLs
are often very long and difficult for students to
type into their browser address bar accurately. If
you choose to do this, it would be wise to use
some form of link shortening service first such as
http://www.tinyurl.com/, https://goo.gl/ , http://
ow.ly/url/shorten-url . Be sure to check whether
link shortening services are allowed within your
school though as some are banned because
they can be used to mask links to inappropriate
content.
Backchannel
By far the best way to get students to access the
infographic is by using some form of
backchannel in your classroom. There are many
free backchannel services such as https://
t o d a y s m e e t . c o m / o r h t t p : / /
www.backchannelchat.com/ and these can
enable you to copy and paste a link into the
backchannel. Then when the link appears your
students only need to click on it to open the
graphic.
In the mobile classroom
QR Codes
If your students have access to the internet with
mobile devices then you can create QR codes to
give them access to the infographics. They can
then scan the code and the infographic will open
on their device. You can create a QR code in
seconds using http://www.the-qrcode-
generator.com/. If your students don’t have QR
scanning apps on their devices you could
recommend they download the appropriate one
from: http://tapmedia.co.uk/. QR code scanners
are useful for a whole range of things so this is
something they will use again. One of the
disadvantages of this method is that the
infographics are usually quite large and can be
difficult to manipulate on a small phone screen.
On tablets however, they usually look fine. It’s
best to try your graphic first and see how well it
works.
In the online classroom
Embed Code or Link
If you are teaching online then it’s easy to make
infographics available as part of your course
materials, just copy and paste a hyperlink into a
page or forum. This allows your students to click
through to the image in their browser. You can
also try to find or create an embed code so that
the actual image appears as part of your course
page. If you choose to embed the infographic do
still add a link to the original as this will help
students to scale and scroll the image. An
embedded image may be too small to read.
Don’t be tempted to download the infographic
and upload it to your site. This works well, but is
a violation of copyright unless you specifically
ask for permission.
10
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
12. In the disconnected classroom
Print
If you are in a physical classroom with no access
to the internet, you can, as a last resort, print
copies of the infographic for your students to
study. If you do this, you will need to print the
images much larger than A4, so use a rasterizing
service such as http://rasterbator.net/ - This will
allow you to print the images over a number of
pages and then just tape them together. To print
larger images in color can also be expensive
though.
Manipulating infographics
Once the image is on your students’ devices
they will need to know how to enlarge the size so
that they can read it more effectively. On mobile
devices this is usually done through two finger
dragging. In the web browser you should see a
magnifying glass that allows you to click and
enlarge the image. If this isn’t satisfactory you
can also use Control and the plus or minus on
PC or Command and the plus or minus on Mac
to enlarge or reduce the image with a little more
granular control.
11
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
13. Infographics are a great source of information, but just
showing students an infographic and telling them to study it
isn’t the most effective way to exploit the medium.
Creating your own infographic tasks and activities can be
very time consuming though, so here I’m presenting a
number of generic ideas that should work with a number of
types of infographic. You can use these ideas with students
to help focus their comprehension of the information and
give them clear goals for engaging with the information in the
graphics.
GENERIC
ACTIVITIES FOR
EXPLOITING
INFOGRAPHICS
12
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
14. Peer created questions
Give your students an infographic and get them
to create a quiz based around it. Once the
students have created their quiz they can use it
to check the comprehension or knowledge of
other students in their class. You can make this
competitive and have teams to quiz each other.
You could also have different infographics for
each group and they can exchange questions
and infographics.
Rationale
• This activity has a duel role in that students
need to read through the infographic and
understand it in order to create the questions,
but they also get practice at formulating
questions. The activity also adds an element of
competition which some students find
motivating and of course it saves you a lot of
time creating questions yourself.
Fact finding
Ask your students to find x-number of what they
believe are the most important or significant
facts in the infographic. Get them to justify their
choice and explain why these points are the
most significant.
Rationale
• This activity encourages students to evaluate
and make value judgements about the
information they are being exposed to. It also
reveals elements of their own value system and
exposes them for discussion which can be
very enlightening.
Checking information sources
Get students to check the sources of any
statistics mentioned in an infographic to make
sure they are correct and that the sources are
valid. You could also get them to find supporting
sources on other sites that either authenticate or
contradict the statistics stated in the infographic.
Rationale
• There’s a common joke that 83% of all statistics
are made up. Often students tend to believe
any information that they find online. This
activity encourages students to check the
validity of information they find and helps them
to develop the necessary research skills to
validate online information.
Comparing to yourself
You can get students to find out where they fit
within any infographics that contains personal
information. You can also use this as a mingle
task by asking students to try to find someone in
the classroom who fits into any of the same
statistics that they do.
Rationale
• This encourages the students to apply the
information to themselves and by personalizing
it can make it seem more real, memorable and
tangible. This can make data a little less
dehumanizing. The mingle activity can also
help to improve classroom dynamics and help
students to get to know each other.
13
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
15. Checking bias and motivation
Ask the students to find out who created the
infographic and why they think it was created.
This involves them researching the source and
thinking about the relationship between the
company that created the graphic and the
information in it.
Rationale
• This encourages students to think more deeply
about information and to question the goals
and motivation behind it. Students often think
of information as neutral, but the way
information is displayed and what information
is chosen can influence readers. Pushing
students to look more deeply at the motivations
behind the information can make them more
critical readers.
Personal response
You can ask students for a range of personal
responses to any infographic. Here are some
possible example questions:
• What did you find interesting?
• What information do you doubt?
• What information would you like to share? Who
with? Why?
Rationale
• This encourages students to think about
applying information and making it purposeful
for their own lives. Encouraging a personal
response from students can also make the
lessons more meaningful for them.
Summary writing
Ask your students to take notes about the most
important information in the infographic and then
use the notes to write a summary. Once they
have finished a first draft they can exchange with
another student and compare to see if they
chose the same main points. You could also ask
them to peer edit the text and then return it
before writing a final draft.
Rationale
• This can help to develop students process
writing skills and academic study skills. It
encourages students to evaluate information
and make and articulate the connections
between different nuggets of information.
Presentation summary
You can ask your students to prepare an oral
presentation based on the information they took
from the infographic. They can also prepare a
presentation deck with images and text to help
support their presentation.
Rationale
• This can help to develop students’ presentation
skills. The ability to present and talk about
information is also a valuable workplace skill.
Create your own research
Get students to create their own research
questionnaire based around the same topic.
They can use this either in class or share it
through social media and collect the information
for their own infographic.
Rationale
• This develops students’ research skills and
encourages them to think about the framing of
questions to extract information. It also
encourages them to think about how they
present data once it has been collected.
14
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
16. Teaching students how to create infographics is a very useful
activity:
• It develops their digital skills and abilities
• Encourages them to think critically about information
• Refines their eye for design
• Enables them to create visualizations of information that
can be understood by others
• Shows their understanding of information
• Acts as a motivating outcome for research or project based
activities
• Provides a useful digital asset to add to their portfolios
which will make revision activities much easier.
In this section of the book you can find suggestions for
activities that involve students in creating infographics.
INFOGRAPHIC
CREATION TASKS
15
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
17. Infographic yourself
Get students to create an infographic about
themselves. They could include a variety of
information including:
• A timeline of their life and the most
significant events
• A family tree showing the people closest to
them
• Basic information such as interests,
studies and work type experiences
Rationale
• This kind of activity can be really useful. It’s a
great way to find out and store a bit more
information about your students in an easily
accessible way. The students can also use the
infographics to introduce themselves to each
other and find out more about each other. This
is particularly useful in an online or blended
class when students don’t have much
opportunity to meet up.
Infographic CV/resume
get students to create an infographic CV. They
can include work experience and education as
well as any professional interests. This is a little
like the previous idea but should focus on
information that a potential employer would be
interested in.
Rationale
• Again this is a great way to find out a bit more
about your students background and
experience, especially if you are teaching a
business class of any kind. Your students might
also find these infographics useful if they are
thinking of applying for a job. Having an
infographic version of your CV/resume can
really help it to stand out.
Convert text to infographic
Give students an article containing factual
information and ask them to create an
infographic representing the main points in the
text. The text could be anything from a
newspaper article to a financial report. This
activity isn’t limited to written text it could also be
used with audio or video content.
Rationale
• This kind of activity is a great way to check
students’ comprehension of the text and to find
out what students see as being the key points
within it. When teachers set comprehension
questions, they have predefined what they feel
are the key points to understanding a text and
the students’ ability to show understanding of
the text is then restricted by the teacher. By
allowing students to create their own
infographic, the student is able to show what
they have understood and see as significant
within the text.
16
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
18. Literature & Narrative
Ask students to create a graphic timeline of a
story they are reading. They can show the
significant events and characters in the story
and how they interact at different points. This
activity can be used with a wide range of
learners and is a great way to show their
understanding of what is happening in the story.
The story could be as simple as Goldilocks and
the Three Bears or as complex as Hamlet. They
could construct each part of the infographic as
they read so that it builds over time or just create
it once they have finished as a kind of review /
comprehension activity.
Rationale
• This is a great way to get students to
deconstruct narrative or literature and the
relationships and motivations of the characters
within it. It can also show you what the students
have understood and how their understanding
of the text develops as they progress through
the book.
Fan infographic
Ask students to research a famous person who
they admire and create an infographic about
them. This could include a timeline about their
rise to fame, significant people they met along
the way, their main achievements and anything
else the student thinks is relevant.
Rationale
• This task is a nice way to involve the students’
real interests in the class. Choosing a topic that
students are enthusiastic about will also be far
more motivating for them.
Class survey
Get students to create class surveys and polls
based around different themes and then create
their own infographic to display the results. You
could also do this as a follow up task after
studying an infographic. Students can formulate
questions to survey the class and find out how
closely they fit to the information in the
infographic.
Rationale
• This activity gives students a tangible outcome
and reason to analyze and present the data
they collect through research questionnaires.
Social media research infographic
This activity is similar to the one above, but
students will need to create a digital survey. They
can then share the survey through a range of
social media sites. They could use their own
social media connections for the survey or you
could share it for them through your own social
media connections. Once they have collected
the data they can share it in an infographic.
Rationale
• Like the class survey, this gives students a
tangible outcome from their research. It also
shows them how useful social media can be as
a resource for research.
17
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
19. Exploring a theme
Give the students a theme and ask them to
research the theme online and create an
infographic based around it to show their
findings.
Rationale
• This is similar to mind mapping but it pushes
students to organize and make connections
between the nuggets of information they
collect. This process of organization and
visualization can help to embed the learning
much more deeply.
Process infographic
Ask the students to research the steps in a
process, for example; how something is made,
and then create an infographic to explain this.
This could be something as easy as a simple
recipe or something more complex like
constructing a building or producing a movie or
video game.
Rationale
• This activity helps students to break down and
order the steps of a process and think about
them in a more analytical way.
Historical time line
Ask students to research a significant historical
event and then create an infographic timeline
showing the events and steps leading up to the it
and the repercussions following the event and
how it impacted on different areas. These
significant events could be anything from the
signing of the Magna Carta, the release of
Nelson Mandela to the invention of the
combustion engine or the first moon landing.
Rationale
• This activity really helps students to make their
understanding of the interconnectedness of
various events and their causes and
consequences much clearer than any linear
text could do. Creating these visualizations
also makes revising much easier and quicker.
Vocabulary map
You can ask students to create theme based
vocabulary maps and they can add icons or
images to the groups of words to make them
more memorable. They can divide the words
according to their word classification such as
nouns, adjectives, verbs, etc. in separate groups
or they could divide them according to their
lexical relationship to the theme. For example if
the theme is football you could have groups of
different jobs and another group of equipment,
etc.
Rationale
• This task is great for reviewing or pre-teaching
vocabulary. Organizing vocabulary and adding
color and images in this way should make it
easier to remember. You can also get students
to add these vocabulary maps to their e-
portfolio if they have one.
18
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
20. Grammar infographic
You could ask students to research a
grammatical structure and create an infographic
based around it. This could include a breakdown
of the form, a timeline to demonstrate the
concept, an illustrated sentence and information
about register, pronunciation and context.
Rationale
• This is a great way to get students to do their
own language research and become more
independent in the way they learn and record
information.
19
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
21. Being able to create an infographic is a very useful skill and
there are lots of tools that you and your students can use that
will help you do this quickly and give very professional
looking results.
Creating an infographic does take some thought and
planning though and getting the planning right can save you
a lot of time when it comes to creating your infographic
design.
Included here are some guidelines and stages to help you
and your students create infographics.
CREATING AN
INFOGRAPHIC
20
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
22. 1. Research
Collect together the information you want to
include in your infographic. This could be a
mixture of statistical information, dates, facts,
names etc. I often find that using a sticky-note or
post-it-note for each fact or nugget of information
can be helpful.
2. Organization
Try to organize the information by grouping it
under suitable headings. This is where having
your information on post-its can really help as it
makes it much easier to move them around from
group to group and rearrange them.
3. Structure
Once your information is grouped you can start
to think about the overall structure of your
infographic and how you want to lay it out. There
are a number of common structures and being
aware of these might make it easier for you to
find an appropriate fit for your own graphic.
Timelines
• These are great for any information that is
chronologically linked. Remember that they will
usually work better vertically rather than
horizontally though as scrolling up and down
on the screen is more natural. Timeline type
infographics are also great for describing
processes and these can be easily illustrated
with icons or images.
See: The People Behind The Way We Live Today
Factoids
• These are the type of infographics that have a
number of pretty random facts all around the
same topic. For example, twenty amazing
things about … These kinds of infographics are
easily organised using a grid system so that
you have a fixed number of facts per line.
See: 7 Amazing Facts About Your Eyes
X vs Y
• There are lots of infographics which are used
to compare things. These kinds of infographics
are usually split vertically into two columns with
similar facts about each thing on each side.
See: Artists vs Scientists
Webs
• These types of infographic usually have a
central theme with associated facts radiating
out, much like a mind-map. They can also have
the information organised into themes by
quadrant from the central theme.
See: Walt Disney
Blocks
• This is probably the most common form of
infographic. The information is organised into
groups and then built into vertical or horizontal
blocks. Usually the first block will have some
introductory type information and the last block
is more like a summary. The sources of the
information are usually listed at the end. The
blocks in the middle usually have the deeper
information arranged around subtopics.
See: Social Media Sites
21
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
23. 4. Form
Once you have decided on a structure for your
infographic, try to sketch it out on a piece of
paper. This doesn’t have to be neat or have text,
just get some idea of the arrangement and how
and where the pieces of information fit into the
overall design. This could save you a lot of time if
you find that the structure just doesn’t work.
5. Tools
Once you have your sketch as a guide you can
decide on an infographic tool or tools that you
think are appropriate for creating your graphics
and text. If possible try to use a tool that has an
appropriate template for your design. It’s usually
quicker to try to customize a template than start
from scratch.
6. Design
Now the fun starts and you can create your
graphic. You can either decide on a color
scheme for your graphic in advance or add all
the text and graphics first and then see what
colors work afterwards.
7. Sharing
Once you have finished, save your infographic
as an image (png or jpg usually works best) and
then you can either share it on your own website
or upload it to a hosting service like DropBox or
Google Drive. In some cases the tool that you
use to create the graphic also provides hosting
for the graphic, but it is still wise to download a
backup copy.
Summary of stages
You can use this summary of the stages with
your students to help guide them through the
steps of creating their own infographic.
1. Collect together the information you want to
include in your info graphic.
2. Try to organize the information by grouping it
under suitable headings.
3. Once your information is grouped, think about
the overall structure of your infographic and how
you want to lay it out.
4. Once you have decided on a structure for your
infographic, try to sketch it out on a piece of
paper.
5. Once you have your sketch as a guide you
can decide on an infographic tool or tools that
you think are appropriate for creating your
graphics and text.
6. Now the fun starts and you can create your
graphic.
7. Once you have finished, save your infographic
as an image (png or jpg usually works best) and
then you can either share it on your own website
or upload it to a hosting service like DropBox or
Google Drive.
22
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
24. There are a huge number of tools available for creating
infographics . These range from free to premium with a large
number of freemium tools (commercial tools that you can use
for free with some limitations) in between.
Any internet search on ‘tools for creating infographics’ will
produce a considerable and potentially confusing list of
recommendations, so here I’ve suggested a range of
examples that are popularly used in education.
TOOLS FOR
CREATING
INFOGRAPHICS
23
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
25. Draw.io - https://www.draw.io/
This is a free tool and one of my favorites. It provides an open canvas that you can drag shapes and
images onto and create your own designs. You can add text to any of the shapes and use the search
engine to find icons and graphics to make the designs look more professional. You can also search
for photographic images from the Creative Commons section of Google Images and drag these into
your design.
The finished or partially finished designs you create can be stored in Google Drive, DropBox or on
your hard drive as xml and then shared an edited by other Draw.io users. You can also download the
finished designs as pdf or png images.
24
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
26. Visme - http://www.visme.co/
This is a freemium tool that allows you to create infographics or presentations based on templates. It
has a huge range of features and allows you to add animations and videos to your designs so you
achieve a really professional result. There is a learning curve to getting really good results from the
tool and some of the best features are linked to the subscription version, but if you want to take
making infographics to the next level, this tool is well worth exploring.
Creately - http://creately.com/
This is a more sophisticated version of draw.io with a nicer looking interface. The free plan allows you
to create designs but these must be shared publicly. You can also create one project, which enables
you to store digital assets in your account to use on other infographics. If you use a paid subscription
you can also add collaborators so that you can work on the designs and graphics together.
25
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
27. VisualizeMe - http://vizualize.me/
This is a free tool that creates an infographic design that can be used as a CV. The design is
generated from a LinkedIn profile so to use this your students will need to be adults with LinkedIn
accounts. Once the infographic has been created, they can edit the design and content in a number
of ways. This can be a useful tool to use with adult business students to help them network and get to
know each other, especially if they are studying online.
Easel.ly - http://www.easel.ly/
This is another freemium tool for creating template based infographics. It has a very wide range of
templates that you can edit and add images and icons to. There are a good range of high quality
download options as well as the ability to share through links or embed codes. The premium features
are additional templates and images, but you don’t have to purchase these to get good results.
26
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
28. Canva - https://www.canva.com/create/infographics/
This is a really useful template based tool for creating infographics. They have a great range of
templates and some of the examples are great ideas for classroom research projects. Students just
edit the templates and add their own information. Original designs can also be created by editing a
grid and adding images and icons. Canva isn’t completely free, the revenue is generated through
sales of premium images and icons, but it’s easy enough to create a great infographic without using
any of the commercial imagery.
Wordle - http://www.wordle.net/
This is a really simple to use free tool for creating word clouds. It is a useful tool to use if you are
collecting text based data, as you can copy and paste in the text and Wordle will analyze word
frequency and show you the more frequently used words in larger sizes. The tool is limited to creating
27
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016
29. word clouds and can’t create more complex designs but the word clouds can be added to
presentations or other infographics to enhance them.
KnightLab Timeline - http://timeline.knightlab.com/
This tool is great for creating timeline type infographics that are linear and based around historical or
narrative events or processes. It’s very easy to add internet based images or media to the designs.
The timelines are created by adding links, text and data to a spreadsheet. the spreadsheet is then
uploaded to the site which generates the design. This tool is free but you will need a Google account
to use it. It’s much easier to use than it sounds and it does produce very professional results and is
used by many major news outlets.
28
aure.garcia09@gmail.com 27 Nov 2016