Effective Infographics step by step

What are Infographics? 

Infographics are a visual representation that includes maps, charts, graphs and diagrams that allow simple, complex concepts to be communicated.

Why use infographics?

• Analysis presentation: helps to better understand the information presented thanks to visual support, schematization, and organization skills.
• Content resource: a good way to explain content and information of the subject or lesson. 
• Motivation: Learning becomes more enjoyable and easier 
• Social media and learning: infographics create greater participation (interaction) in social networks, increasing the visibility of the message in the online environment.
• We humanize material: content that is more affable and familiar as it is easily understood.
• We help us remember: we have a tendency to recall more what we see than what we hear.

An example of the use of infographics:

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Retrieved from https://elearninginfographics.com/design-visual-aids-for-teaching-purposes/

Infographic design

Be careful with all these factors while designing your infographics:

1. Be creative: copying graphic ideas from other infographics should be avoided.
2. Text & Pictures: Graphically, an infographic should be rich avoiding building it with a lot of text.
3. Color: Effective contrast colors should be used to encourage reading. An outstanding color selection method is color.adobe.com
4. Fonts: An infographic should have a creative use of fonts and letter sizes. The Dafont.com site contains a wide variety of sources that can be used as a reference.
5. Icons: An infographic will include basic symbols (icons) in order to communicate properly. The Iconarchive.com site has very good material.

Tools for making infographics

The main free tools for creating infographic elements:

- PiktoChart is a web tool that allows you to create beautiful infographics from a few models and artifacts that are added with a quick drag and drop. It allows you to customize colors and fonts in just a click, being very easy to use. The free option is a bit limited but it allows you to make easy infographics.

How To Create a Piktochart Infographic Easily

- Canva is a software tool that allows people who are not designers to design and create images for the Web. It has free templates to develop infographics easily.

How To Create Infographics (The Ultra-Simple & Easy Way)

Finding Donors...

PreK Augmented Reality

My students need to live new ways of learning with innovation and technology. My students need a Learning alivetm Plus Suite (PC/MAC).

Today I've started a new fundraising with Donorschoose.org: Please, donors, you can double your donations up to $50 by adding the promo code LIFTOFF at checkout for the next 7 days. (up to April 5th, 2017 we can reach the project with the half of the total price)

https://www.donorschoose.org/project/prek-augmented-reality/2475502/

My Students

Technology and digital learning are key elements for 21st Century students. It is also very important for them to learn how to use the technology with responsibility and with a real purpose.

These devices will make a difference in helping my students learn because it will provide them with easier access to learn as home extension activities.

They can practice reading, writing and counting at home with their parents. Parent involvement in their children's early exposure to learning is an integral component of success in future grades. Your generous donation to our project will improve our Pre-K program. This will impact not only our students but their families as well because parents have another opportunity to bond with their children through a shared love of learning and other educative activities. Our students enjoy attending our school and we strive to help them feel empowered at an early age. Educative technology and a shared love of learning open many doors to discovery and success!

My Project

Augmented Reality is a new technology tool that enriches reality with other experiences. In addition, the use of A.R. can help our students develop their motivation for learning since it encourages their exploring skills. Using technology in classroom also helps them develop their 21st Century skills and they learn how to use technology in a responsible way.

This is one of the best tech-tools that a 21st century classroom and students can have.

Augmented Reality is innovation in classroom since it implies movement when learning. This technology pushes them to learn and discover new things in the classroom, so they can feel motivated and families can be happy.

This video will show you one example of what A.R. can do:

This is one article where you can read about Augmented Reality in Education- 

7 Creative Ways to Improve Student Engagement: Augrealitypedia

More information about Augmented Reality and Education (wikipedia)

App iWow,[114] a mobile device-based augmented reality enhanced world globe. 

In educational settings, AR has been used to complement a standard curriculum. Text, graphics, video and audio were superimposed into a student’s real time environment. Textbooks, flashcards and other educational reading material contained embedded “markers” or triggers that, when scanned by an AR device, produced supplementary information to the student rendered in a multimedia format.[115][116][117]

As AR evolved students could participate interactively. Computer generated simulations of historical events, exploring and learning details of each significant area of the event site could come alive.[118] On higher education, there are some applications that can be used. Construct3D, a Studierstube system, allowed students to learn mechanical engineering concepts, math or geometry.[119] Chemistry AR apps allowed students to visualize and interact with the spatial structure of a molecule using a marker object held in a hand.[120] Anatomy students could visualize different systems of the human body in three dimensions.[121]

Augmented reality technology enhanced remote collaboration, allowing students and instructors in different locales to interact by sharing a common virtual learning environment populated by virtual objects and learning materials.[122]

Primary school children learn easily from interactive experiences. For instance, astronomical constellations and the movements of objects in the solar system were orient in 3D and overlaid in the direction the device was held and expanded with supplemental video information. Paper-based science book illustrations could seem to come alive as video without requiring the child to navigate to web-based materials.

While some educational apps are available for AR in 2016, it is not broadly used. Apps that leverage augmented reality to aid learning, included SkyView for studying astronomy,[123] and AR Circuits for building simple electric circuits.[124]

Thank you all!

This post is dedicated to everyone who has supported me to become the person and the professional of education that I am. THANK YOU ALL!

First of all to my colleagues at Ninfa Laurenzo ECC to choose me as the Teacher of the Year 2016/2017, last year I was the Beginning Teacher of the Year 2015/2016. My email to them:

Thank you very much my NLECC family!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really appreciate your support!!!!

This is the second year you trust on me!!!! I don't know how to show you all my feelings of gratitude for that.

It's an honor and a real satisfaction to be recognized by my dear colleagues, who teach me every day to be a better person and professional.

Thanks to the whole school staff, and thanks to Ms Rogina and Ms Tovar for letting me do new things... without your trust nothing of it could be possible.

Thank you a MILLION!!!

I consider that everyone in the campus deserves to be named as a Teacher of the Year, because they contribute to the whole community and I am learning a lot from them, every day! The real recognition is the one of the students and our community. Together we can get better and greater results!

Besides, all my contributions to HISD community have been valued by other professionals: teachers, principals, administrators,... Above all with all the invitations to participate on different chats, and the HISD Multilingual Department with the interview as the "Top Story of the Week": From Sevilla to Houston, fulfilling a dream.

Comic Project - Home extension activity with Digital Storytelling resources.

Recounting stories has been a part of our culture and history since the beginning of time. As far back as we can remember, stories were told from generations before us. Since we live in an ever changing world in which technology takes precedence, we should also evolve with the changing times. Thanks to the internet and the advancement of technology, we as educators have the knowledge needed for our students at the tips of our fingers. In doing so, we must prepare our students as best as we can to not only use the resources available to them by touch but also digitally.

At Ninfa Laurenzo Early Childhood Center, there stands a room tucked in the far corner of the hallway, room 8 to be exact where students are becoming tech savvy in their own right. Thanks to the donations of one of my parents, Silvia Mintz Attorney at Law, through the website donorschoose.org, my students are now able to use the tablets donated to enhance their learning.  While the students use the tablets and other technology resources, we must inform parents that technology can also be used at home to help students grow in their learning. 
Digital devices are engaging and motivating tools that help parents and students with home extension activities, especially for our current project on Comics.

Portrait Avatar Maker is a service which provides character icons completely free of charge! It is a great way to develop their avatar as they see themselves and an easy tool that can give you many options to create your avatar easily. Every button is an option to add to your avatar, and then you can change colors as needed. Even the background can be changed to one you most like according to your job, hobbies, and or interests. It is a great activity for children to review body parts, colors, and shapes.

Mr Usero's avatar

If you need help to create your own portrait or avatar, please click on this link.

- ToonDoo.

It is easy because it shows you lots of options to add like different characters, places, objects,... In addition, you can write dialogues in different styles and the typical letters of comics. It´s very intuitive and you can put all the images as you like. It is a very useful tool.

ToonBook is an amazing tool to create your own comic. This web can help you teach your students contents and vocabulary within an interesting and engaging story. This one "Beary goes to school" tells us the story of how Beary goes to school and the things he likes. We learn how to say "I LIKE"

Here, a little story by Mr. Usero.

- Super Duper StoryMaker

With Super Duper StoryMaker, you can create all the picture and photo stories you want and tell them over and over — plus, you can make your own photo albums, special occasion cards, comic books, etc. Educators and parents will love StoryMaker because it helps children practice learning skills, such as reading, sequencing, vocabulary and more...

- Story Maker By BlueFinger

Another amazing app to create your avatar and tell your story.

- Adobe Spark. 
Create impactful social graphics, web stories and animated videos with Spark’s free graphic design app.

These are some resources that parents can use with their kids at home to practice all we do at school, or for others who what to work on comics at early stages of education.

Now, it's your turn to show your work and how your children get amused when learning at home with digital storytelling tools and comics.

Written by Francisco Usero Gonzalez.

Edited by Angelica Saenz.

Welcome to Mr. Usero's class