It is one of those things you don’t notice until someone else points it out to you – the presence of the infographic in our information rich world. If you want to communicate some essential information to highlight or reinforce an issue that involves statistics then a infographic is currently the medium of choice.
There are a number of sites dedicated to this new phenomena. My current favourite one is http://dailyinfographic.com/ and in particualr the infographic, How will you die?. I suppose this is one piece of information I want to be very simple and concise.
Where is the knowledge issue?
A primary focus will be Language. But I think this topic is rich in its secondary considerations: Why visual rather than dot points? Also the issue of simplicity versus complexity. The issue of selection and determining non-essential information. Is what is excluded just as important as what is excluded? and so on.
I quote Greg Callaghan,” the skill of doing a great infographic is distilling a mess of raw statistics and presenting the information in an entertaining and informative way”.
I would give students an issue that is quite complex, such as riding a bike, and then ask them to represent it as an infographic.
Good luck infographiking!
Tags: Langauge as a Way of Knowing, representation, Teaching Activity
