Infographics: An Easy Way to Increase Visuals in the Classroom

At the Wisconsin Association of Teachers of Foreign Languages conference this past weekend, one of the sessions was about the use of infographics in the classroom.  Infographics visually organize information about a topic. Doing a simple internet search for infographics about an idea (world religions, periodic table, derivatives) provides you with a variety of charts and pictures that can help students look at information in a new way. If none of the results give you what you were looking for, you can also create your own on a number of different sites. Infogr.am and Piktochart are two popular ones. Piktochart also has an option that you can use to break down the infographic in visual chunks as an alternative presentational tool for a PowerPoint. You could also have your students use an infographic as an alternative to making the classic poster.  As with all material you bring into the classroom, review infographics for accuracy and prepare yourself to help the students think critically about the information you give them.