Category: Visualizations

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5 Rules of Infographic Excellence

txkcd_infographic

xkcd’s brilliant mockery of the explosion of “info-junk” (at left) should remind us that the best infographics should efficiently combine quantitative data, prompt pattern recognition and cogent visual storytelling.

Perhaps aspiring infographic designers would do well to revisit the work of the Edward Tufte, the guru of the art form. I’ve had a chance to attend one of his inspiring workshops, but you easily appreciate his thinking from his books. In his classic “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information,” he lays out his principles of Graphical Excellence (p 51) Graphical excellence is:

  1. well-designed presentation of interaction data – a matter of substance, statistics and design.
  2. consists of complex ideas communicated with clarity, precision and efficiency.
  3. that which gives the viewer the greatest number of ideas in the shortest time with the least ink in the smallest space.
  4. always multivariate.
  5. requires telling the truth about data.

In the same book he showcases what he feels to be the best narrative graphic of space and time – Charles Joseph Minard representation of Napoleon’s ill-fated invasion of Russia in 1812. Six variable are plotted – the size of the army, it’s location on a two-dimensional surface, direction of the army’s movement, and temperatures on various dates during the retreat from Moscow. The comparative sizes of Napoleon’s invading army (in tan) to his meager retreating forces (in black) tell the story with eloquence.

Click images to enlarge
Minard Napoleon's Iinvasion
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Use Haiku Deck to Build Academic Vocabulary

Haiku Deck visualize
Haiku Deck visualize

Haiku Deck is a great iPad app for building academic vocabulary – and its free. It provides a student-friendly tool for teaching common core vocabulary standards with motivation and creativity. Good defining skills are rooted in collaborative negotiation of meaning rather than memorizing glossaries and testing via two-column matching questions. The genius behind Haiku Deck is its simplicity – just type in text and use its built in search tools for related terms and images. With minimal design choices, student can focus on visualizing vocabulary and sharing their thinking with peers.

Haiku Deck add text
Haiku Deck add text

I’m not going to offer a Haiku Deck tutorial. It’s easy to learn, and has some thoughtful online help. Instead let’s look at the steps a student might use to visualize the term “freedom.”

  1. Create a new Haiku Deck.
  2. Type in the term or phrase.
  3. Tap the image icon and Haiku Deck displays a selection of high-quality and copyright-free images. Scroll down for more.
  4. Don’t like the images? The “similar tags” column offers related terms. Tap on one and the image selection updates.
  5. Select an image and the student is offered a chance to “add some additional text.” They could use that space to explain the association between the image and the term.
  6. Tap the + sign and create another slide following the same process.
Haiku deck search
Haiku deck search

I see so many options for using this app. Create decks of synonyms vs antonyms. Let students explore terms for a close reading, defend their choice of images, or contrast multiple meanings. Only have a few iPads? Let the students collaborate in a collective deck. Perhaps the first student picks the image and the next student curates the choice of image in the “additional text.” Have a term that doesn’t turn up any good image matches and you’ve created a chance to explore synonyms in the “similar tags.” Still can’t find relevant images for the term? Then you have a chance to speculate why the system isn’t turning up usable images. BTW – don’t worry about student using inappropriate words. Haiku Deck does a great job of screening those out.

There are lots of options for sharing student work. Completed Haiku decks can be saved to the web and viewed on any device. You can share decks via email or social networks. They can also be embedded in a blog or exported to PowerPoint or Keynote.

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) divide vocabulary among a variety of disciplines and grade levels. The standards focus on multiple meaning, context clues, figurative and connotative meanings and the impact of specific word choices on meaning and tone. Haiku Deck could be used to support all of these goals.

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#Watertown #MITShooting: Unfiltered News vs Speculation

watertown

This morning, Twitter broke the story of the events in Watertown MA. Following the hashtags #Watertown and #MITShooting, I selected a few  tweets from roughly 2:10- 2:15 AM Boston Time.

As I tried to sort fact and speculation, I was reminded of a post I did a few years ago What Happens in Schools When Life Has become an Open-book Test?

I grew up in an era of top-down information flow – book publishers, newspapers, magazines, network TV, radio. I was accustomed to someone else making decisions about what I should read, watch and listen to. They created information, I consumed it. … Fast forward to a digital age which has fractured the information flow – fragmenting it into ever smaller pieces: LP record > CD > single song download > ringtone. Now we are armed with gadgets that allow us to re-assemble the info bits; by-passing the curatorial function that had been served by the legacy mass media. Who needs a Walter Cronkite? I can be my own editor, reviewer, researcher and entertainment director. … What happens in schools when life has become an open-book test? … Students are adrift in a sea of text without context.

Note: A few hours has passed since these Tweets appeared and the connections between the Watertown event and the Boston Marathon bombing continue to unfold. Looks like Twitter’s crowdsourcing scooped the major new outlets. But are we ready to curate our own news?

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Haiku Deck – Free Presentation App for iPad

haiku deck

I’m prepping for an “iPad in the Classroom” workshop and I thought I’d try Haiku Deck – a free presentation app for the iPad. It’s an impressive and easy to use tool for creating a knock-out presentation on the iPad – a great way for teachers and students to quickly share their ideas with the classroom and the digital world beyond. Here’s a deck I created in a few minutes. I used the same image but typically you’d have different images for every slide.

haiku select image

Haiku Deck relies on strong visual content and minimal use of text. Think Edward Tufte meets Pecha Kucha. Creating a slide is simple. Add some text – there’s not much room, so keep it brief. You can insert your own image from a variety of sources – take a photo with the iPad or grab an image from your iPad camera roll, Instagram, Google Drive or DropBox. Haiku Deck takes the words you’ve used on the slide and runs a fast search for Creative Commons images. It even adds the sources in the small font at the base of your finished slide. If you don’t like the search from the words you’ve used in your slide, you can type in your own search term.

When you’re done you have a variety of ways to share. You can project from your iPad or push out to the big screen via Apple TV. You can post to a variety of social media – like Facebook or Twitter. Email it as a PPT or Keynote. Embed it on your blog. Or just keep it private.

If you want to reorder a slide, press and hold down on a slide in the sorter view at the bottom of the screen. It will enlarge and you can drag it to another point in the deck. (Be warned that the app does not run on an iPad 1.)

I can’t promise that the Creative Commons search feature will play nice with your school web filter (actually I hope you don’t have filters). But I did harness my inner 8th grader to search on a variety of “naughty words.” You’ll see my test below turned up a variety of innocuous images and even mocked me with a “aww you are making me blush.” 

haiku search

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Animated Guide to 8 Essentials For Learning

This clever and fast-paced 6-minute animation provides insights into how teenagers learn. An “insider’s guide” to the teenage brain, it answers the question – “If you were a teenage speaker brought in to address a crowd of teachers on the subject of how you and your peers learn best . . . what would you say?”

Done in hand-drawn whiteboard / voiceover format it sets out eight essentials for learning, including my favorite – reflection. Share it with your students and see if they concur or use it as a discussion starter for your next faculty meeting.

  1. I feel okay.
  2. It matters.
  3. It’s active.
  4. It stretches me.
  5. I have a coach.
  6. I have to use it.
  7. I think back on it.
  8. I plan my next steps.