Well, here I am Sunday night posting my first ever infographic! I hope the link works and everyone can view the infographic created. I did have some anxiety about it but once I got started it did not seem too bad after all. I decided to use Pictochart.com because it provided a tutorial and trust me I used the tutorial several times as I went  about creating the infographic. I decided to keep it simple and once again focused on content I am familiar with and would use for instructional purposes. 

The main challenge I encountered was getting use to the block format for writing text. I found the box to be so small that I it was difficult to see the letters I was typing in the box. I quickly realized that I could expand the box so the size and choice of font would be easy for my audience to read. I selected to go with the Helvetica font, size 20 because it made for easy reading - even for students sitting in the back of my room.  According to Reynolds (2014, pg. 40) sans serif fonts like Helvetica are believed to aid readability  because the serifs lead the eye from one character and one word to the next. Another consideration made had to do with color. According to Reynolds (2014, pg. 82) school classrooms have enough light to justify white or light backgrounds. While this had a major impact on my decision I also did not want to take too many risks given this is my first encounter with infographics. Lastly, in making decisions for my infographic I purposely used icons included in the program to minimize error. I was going to use a line graphic but it was not working out for me. The bar graph was much easier to create and understand. 

A few things I would want my students to remember about creating their own infographics are the type of fonts used, the size of fonts and colors. These three elements I have learned are very important in creating power points, slides etc. However, I do think my students would be a little bit more daring with respect to colors and images than I. Another element I would want them to pay attention to is minimizing the amount of text on their infographic. I originally produced a very "wordy" infographic but decided to simplified the data to include the basics and aid in understanding the bar graph. Click here to view the infographic.

Source: Reynolds, G. (2014). Presentation zen design: A simple visual approach to presenting in today's world (2nd ed.). United States of America: New Riders.