INFOGRAPHICS

 

           Easel.ly, Piktochart, and Infogr.am are three great sites for creating infographics.  Like most of the other material in this class, creating an infographic was new knowledge for me.  As I delved into this assignment and analyzed these sites, I learned the amazing power of infographics. 

            The first site I encountered was Easel.ly.  This site states that their mission is “To inspire and enable anyone to represent an idea in a visual way”.  Easel.ly mentions that rather than creating a lengthy Word document or PowerPoint, presenting an infographic can engage readers and make learning fun.  It is tool that helps create and express your ideas with a higher likelihood of having people read the material.  The free account for Easel.ly has 60 free images and 10 fonts.  The pro account--which can be upgraded for $3.00 /month--comes with 680,000 images, over 50 fonts, several templates, the ability to upload your own fonts and a security measure that assures that all information is kept private.  Customer service is available by phone or email.    

            The next site I visited was Piktochart.  The site give you the option of choosing infographics, presentation or printable.  Piktochart encourages you to “Easily create long-form graphics perfect for the web”.  Like Easel.ly, you can start a project on a blank template or use one of their own.  You are given 2 choices: free templates and pro templates.  You can level up to obtain these pro templates for $39.99 /year.  It gives you access to 600 templates.  You can upload 400MB of your own photos.  The ability to download projects as PDFs is also included.   

            The final infographic site I experimented with was Infogr.am.  Infographic or report, chart or graph or map are the three choices to begin your project.  Once you choose infographics, you are given a choice of free themes and pro themes.   To upgrade to the pro theme you can choose from three choices. $19 /month will get you 100 infographics or charts, sharing information confidentially, maps and font options.  The next option is $67 /month which increases your library size immensely.  Your final option has no price.  You are asked to contact them for further information.  The Teams option allows you to make charts and infographics with others.  You can share a library and collaborate as a team. The Learn option includes video tutorials—a very helpful aid.

            After reviewing all three websites, I chose Easel.ly to present my data of the report from Pew Internet Research Project.  Following is my infographic:

       Creating an infographic was a great learning experience.  Seeing a report presented in a visually appealing form was immensely satisfying.  I can definitely see the appeal infographics can have on our students.