Infographics are an amazing and visual way to present
information or data quickly and clearly.
They use graphics to engage the audience and grab their attention, while
boosting their comprehension. Not
everyone has the time to read an entire article, so having information
showcased using infographics, is visually more appealing and easier to read.
There are different sites to create infographics, three of the most popular
ones are: easelly, piktochart, and inforgram.
Easelly is a great infographic maker that is
free. This site has several templates to
choose from and are they are all organized by categories. The templates are customizable and require
minimal skill. The free account has some
limitations, but with a small monthly fee of $4, added features such as images,
fonts, charts, and templates can be upgraded.
Piktochart is another site where we can create
infographics for free. It does have less
templates than easelly, yet it has plenty of free images that can be added and
move around to customize your template.
Its easy to change its color schemes and add photographs, shapes, and
even icons. This site reminded me of Canva, which I have used many
times to create flyers and posters for school.
Piktochart, however, offers its images for free in compared to
Canva. I found that there is no need to
upgrade the account, because its free features were more than enough to make a
great looking infographic. The
infographic was very easy to make and requires minimal expertise.
Infogram is an infographic tool that is also free and
can be upgraded. I found the cost to be
a bit more that I would be comfortable with, since the Pro version is for $19
per month. The options offered with the free plan were limited and very
basic. The templates offered with the
free account were not as appealing as the other sites that also offer free
templates to create infographics.
To create my infographic, I chose Piktochart, because
of its numerous free images and user-friendliness.
Exploring Facebook with
a mission on mind was exciting! Mission:
Find “School Library” pages and find out how they are using Facebook to promote
their libraries. What I noticed when
doing the search, is that I had to browse and sift through many pages that actually
were school library pages. Many of the
results brought up many other “library” related pages. Nonetheless, I was able to find many school
library pages and was surprised with what I saw. I noticed many pages highlighted news and
events for the campus as a whole, rather than the library itself. I also
noticed the library pages had fewer likes or comments, than the school pages. Facebook seems to have less presence and
activity with regards to advocacy or professional development. However, it is a great tool for libraries to
promote literacy and events with parents and the local community. A school library page I looked at and
admired was that of Pasadena High School Library, PHSLibraryTX. It clearly is taking advantage of this social
media platform to advocate and promote their library. It posts regularly their library news and
highlights, as well as showcases those students who have excelled in reading.
Searching on Twitter
was a totally different experience. By
far, I noticed Twitter is such a powerful tool for professional development and
support. Many parents or students might
not be as familiar or active on Twitter, but the number of fellow educators and
school community members make this social media platform perfect to advocate for
the library. I follow several school
librarians and authors, but recently I started following some educational
technology leaders.
Gwyenth Jones @ GywnethJones,
The Daring Librarian, shares trendy technology tools and innovative resources
for libraries. I really enjoyed her Tweet on her Makerspace Starter Kit Decoded
Preso. She shares the file of abundant
resources to start a Makerspace.
Kathy Schrock
@kathyschrock shares an abundance of tech tools and provides ways to
incorporated in the classroom and in the libraries. She has numerous of websites and writes for
many others as well, and from time to time she shares links her posts via
Twitter. One that caught my attention
was a Tweet she shared when she wrote about Professional Development in a blog
for Discovery Education.
Linda W. Braun
@lbraun2000 as a former President for YALSA, she continues to advocate for YA
literature and is often sharing ways to promote literature and technology.She shared a very powerful Tweet from Edutopia,
yet she added her own comment supporting the need of reflections for library
activities.
It’s not just classrooms where reflection is important - adding it to library activities for and with teens is a good habit to get into “Reflection is a powerful practice and mindset to foster in the classroom” https://t.co/5GmYz5vg3T
Jim Lerman @jimlerman
is an educator who offers so many Tweets on educational technology. The information and resources shared are
amazing and very beneficial, yet readers are taken to his Scoop.it site and navigate
through it to read the articles. I found
this to be a bit of a hassle though. Besides
this, my eyes were drawn to one post in particular, I know teachers and
librarians would appreciate.
KristinaA. Holzweiss @lieberrian shares so much resources
on her Tweeter feed.From tech tools,
inspirational quotes, retweets to other amazing educators, to weekly FistPumpFriday!
shares. I was blown away with a tweet about Telly Prompt Chrome extensions.
— Kristina A. Holzweiss (@lieberrian) May 30, 2019
Instagram:
Navigating through Instagram
is a photographic treat for our eyes!The
numerous Insta posts, stories, and giveaways.For a visual person like me, I absolutely love following librarians and tech
educators that share resources and ideas for others to implement.I definitely notice students and parents are fonder
of following someone on Instagram than Twitter.Teachers can utilize Instagram to demonstrate
what they are doing in their classrooms, for parents and school community members
can see.We all need to advocate all
that we do in the classrooms and in the library, and Instagram is a quick and
easy way to do it.From projects, curriculum,
reminders, and activities, to community engagement, Instagram can let followers
know what is happening at school. Tagging and using hashtags, will allow businesses, vendors and followers know how tools, resources, and ideas are being implemented. This is a great window of opportunities to collaborate with others. A librarian I began following is Jessica Zannini
@notesfromtheportable.She showcases what
she has been up to in her library.She
also shares literacy and technology everyday tips. I think this post about using old technology was fabulous!
On this Instagram
post, I shared with my followers a small section of my bookshelf where I store
my professional development textbooks and inspirational books. I keep this section up to date and try to
change books as needed. It is small,
because lots of my professional development lately I do it online.
Next, is a post I
shared of my daughter caught reading on a Summer night.It has been a goal of mine to instill reading
in every child, and that includes my own.
Overall, I believe each
person will choose their social media according to their preference or needs. School community members’ needs vary and some like
parents will prefer Facebook to connect with teachers or follow the school’s
page to learn about events happening.Pros
of Facebook are events and reminders, as well as its opportunity to share with
many.Cons of Facebook can be the
overwhelming amount of feeds and lengthy comments that you have to scroll through.Others like educators or educational vendors
will choose Twitter to connect and gain professional development.Twitter pros can be its short tweets that are
fast to read, and the grand educational and news information shared.However, a Twitter con, can be that tweets
can gounnoticed if the correct or trendy
hashtag is missing. Instagram tends to
be liked most to students and parents, because of its visuals and fast
reads.However, many teachers and
librarians are becoming very popular on Instagram, by showcasing their work and
advocating for their profession.Which
I think its genius!Instagram has many Pros,
but one that I think is amazing is the ability to link to other platforms, like
Facebook and Twitter.Nevertheless, an
Instagram con is lack of editing privacy of images individually.Instagram does not allow you to do so.Social media has brought many problems to our
society, however it is an awesome resource for educators, we just need to know
when and how to use it.