The Future of Education

Infographics are visual representations of information that can convey large bodies of data using design, illustration, tables, charts, and other graphics.  As social media use has expanded in recent years, the presence and sharing of infographics has grown significantly [1].  Although our students are frequently referred to as “digital natives,” they often lack the ability to critically analyze or understand much of the material they encounter.  Through formal and informal engagement with media, 21st century students are consuming graphic presentations of data in myriad ways and can benefit from developing critical analysis, numeracy, and visual literacy skills as both consumers as well as producers of infographics. We have developed a series of scaffolded assignments using infographics so that students become more critical consumers of data and information, can engage others in discussion and analysis of data visualizations, and can produce infographics collaboratively and independently that effectively communicate to a given audience.  Rather than writing a traditional research paper, this learning sequence falls in the transformation portion of the SAMR framework popularized by Dr. Ruben Puentedura, representing a significant task redesign that helps students achieve the top tiers of Bloom’s taxonomy: analysis, evaluation and creation [2]. Throughout this series of infographic assignments, students analyze collected data, evaluate the presentation of data to support a thesis, and create an infographic that can educate others on a specific phenomenon. 
These assignments are shared in a variety of ways, including being catalogued on a website   
(https://eanderson3101.wixsite.com/introtosoc) to inform audiences beyond the classroom and to help future students in the process of infographic analysis and creation. The skills gained in this sequence are beneficial to students not only in future classes, research and scholarship, but are also desirable and sought-after in today’s workplace [3].

Keywords: Media, Infographic, Data Literacy, Visual Literacy, Numeracy.

References:

1. Inanc, Banu and Uyan Dur. 2014. “Interactive Infographics on the Internet.” Online Journal of Art and Design 2 (4).
2. Schrock, Kathy. “SAMR and Blooms”
   https://www.schrockguide.net/samr.html   
3. Conner, Cheryl. 2017. “The Data is in: Infographics are Growing and Thriving in 2017 (And Beyond).” Forbes
   https://www.forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2017/10/19/the-data-is-in-infographics-are-growing-and-thriving-in-2017-and-beyond/?sh=503a4e4137c7