Final Vision Project & Reflection: I Am A Champion, My Friends!!!! At a FAIL, anyway :)

I did it!!!! I won’t say that I did it well, but I did it!! I made an infographic! I really love the fact that I have gone from someone who was so scared of technology, to finding a tool that I connected with, and I now want to learn how to create it and share with others!  I have not only turned a corner in my learning, I have sprinted up a few blocks!!! I am not naive enough to think that I don’t have miles to go in my learning, but I don’t have as much fear and shame about where I am, or where I was at, in terms of my comfort level and knowledge of technology.  I won’t have any one observing that I’m a Luddite anytime soon!!! 

Now, I know your eye will probably scan down to see my infographic, but just wait, look back up here, I have some things to say first!  I have been as transparent in this class and with these blog posts as I am in my offline life, and part of me was worried that I was being too open/personal, and not professional enough, especially because I have never done something like a blog before, which is so open...to everyone...everywhere.  Then I perused some other blogs, and I got the impression that they were a venue to be open and personal about a subject matter that meant something to them.  So I stuck with the way that I was sharing on my blog, and I think by doing so, anyone who reads this series of blogs can really appreciate how far I have come in how I view technology, and even that the tone that I use when speaking about it has changed. 

I re-read my first blog post and I can’t help but laugh at myself and what I wrote; I sounded self-righteous and indignant at the “evil” invasion of technology.  Aaron, you were so generous with your comments, positive, AND tactful in not mentioning how absolutely negative I was about venturing into an area that I was really uncomfortable exploring.  I won’t say that I am fully embracing technology (I’m currently looking for two refurbished antique typewriters, one for me and one for my daughter...she loves them all on her own!! I have only taken her to the antiques stores, and she is drawn to them like a moth to a flame!), but I am more open to it, and willing to introduce it into other areas of my life, which is a HUGE change in my point of view! 

This journey of discovery has been scary, humbling, frustrating, informative, and, I can honestly say, fun!  I have actually made a few connections with people in my life who, in my opinion, have an unnaturally close, personal relationship with technology, but as they were well aware of my feelings towards technology, had never really brought it up in conversation.  I didn’t realize that I was preventing potential conversations from happening, just because I was so open about my feelings towards technology.  This definitely inspired me to examine other opinions that I might be a little too vocal about, that are possibly preventing other conversations, or connections, to be made.     So becoming self-aware about what I’m putting out there, which in turn, affects what I am getting back, is just another positive outcome of this class.

I can’t say that I am a Digital Native, but I’m not going to avoid becoming one anymore.  I am on the path that will lead me far, far away from being a Digital Immigrant, and I am proud of that, and I will now happily skip down that path instead of putting up road blocks that have been preventing me from venturing outside of my luddite-loving bunker, and seeing the good things that can come from taking the path less travelled (well, previously less travelled by me anyway).  Part of this skipping so happily along is largely due to the wonderful discovery of infographics, which I have been so vocal about for the last few blogs.  I am astounded that I am only discovering them now, when they have actually been around for quite some time, but I will blame the luddite-loving bunker on that one (shhhh...I know I’m the one that put myself in there, but we’re going to ignore that right now because I have made such monumental changes...okay, not monumental, but still big enough that we can ignore the whole self-imposed bunker aspect).

So now we get to the “professional” part of the blog, or “professional-ish” anyway, where I expound on the infographic Final Vision Project! This is exciting! But still no peeking!! Eyes up here for now! We’re almost there!  In all of my infographic researching, I really wasn’t sure that I was going to be able to pull it off.  Aaron, my teacher (for those of you who don’t know), gave me an out, and said that I could use clipart in a word document, but I was determined (have I mentioned that I may lean towards a wee bit of a stubborn streak?) to do an infographic, no matter how it turned out, and I did!  It isn’t what I would be excited to share, in terms of being on the same level as other infographics that delight me to no end with their visual and information provocation, but the process of creating one made me appreciate all infographics (even the not so interesting ones) all the more. 

I now know the difficulties of building something from the blank screen out: trying to display key points of information in a way that is pleasing to the eye, and not overwhelming; picking a color scheme that draws the eye, rather than repels it (although I’m not too sure how I fared there, but it is my first attempt!!!); choosing graphics that complement the text; and finally, knowing when to stop!  This last one was really important for me because I was trying to make my first attempt at making an infographic look like the ones that I find all over the net, but I had to take a deep breath, step back, and really look at what I had done.  I have created something that I had never even heard of 3 months ago, using tools that I had never had experience using prior to 4 days ago, and I am determined to continue creating infographics until I can make one “properly”, and by that I mean one that I would share with my district, colleagues, and publicly on the internet.    

When you look at my product, please keep in mind that although there doesn’t appear to be very much information on it, I really had to pare down what I was going to share, which was challenging to do, and the creation process was arduous for me!  I know that when I create my dream series of infographics that will be focused on each of the groups within the school community, I will be better equipped with the process of gathering pertinent information, how to choose the best graphics to showcase that information, and how to arrange all of these elements to create an impactful, interesting, educational, and exciting infographic.

Soooo, without further ado, here it is; it may not look like it, but I put so much time and energy into this, it truly was a labor of love!   

Final Vision Project: Where, oh where, will my info go?

Wow, this is scary!!! I have been researching infographics for three weeks, and I don’t know if I can do one!!! I am going to do my best to produce one, but I may be going “creative-low-tech”...stay tuned!! 

I feel a little bit like I am drowning in information overload, but so much of it is relevant information, I’m just realizing that I may not be equipped to construct an infographic like the ones that I get so excited about.  I naively thought that I could Google “How to create an infographic for free”, and magically, I would find a site that would supply me with a stunning template, that also miraculously had graphics that COMPLETELY synced with my topic of Top Digital Literacy Resources (don’t worry, a more delightful, attention-grabbing, and epically appropriate title will be chosen...well now, that’s kind of putting pressure on myself...), where I would just have to input my information, and Voila!! My masterpiece would be ready for the adoring masses....sooooo....it turns out that life doesn’t really work like that, as such, I am going to lead with my struggles and challenges, before I start talking about my triumphs (few that they are, or seem to be).

Struggles & Challenges:

There is no end to the amount of information about infographics, I even found a multitude of infographics ON infographics, but filtering through all of the data, trying to find something useful is very time consuming, and so far, is leaving me empty handed.  I have logged many hours attempting to learn how I can create a really impactful infographic filled with mind boggling “data viz” (Amy Balliett, Smashing Magazine, 2011), but I still haven’t found a site that will allow me to create an infographic.

I have been to sites like visual.ly, piktochart, infogr.am, and easel.ly, that claim to be free, but you can basically register to look at samples, but if you want an exciting looking infographic, you have to pay.  The site visual.ly actually charges $1000 for one of their graphic designers to create an infographic for you, based on data you send them, and with your intended theme, but there is nowhere on the site that actually allows you to create one of your own.  The other sites have either one template with a variety of coloring schemes to choose from, or a few different themes, but if you want any of the templates that might actually fit with the project you have in mind, you have to pay and upgrade to “Pro” to have access to ALL of the fabulous templates.

I also looked for tutorials, and was discouraged when these “easy” tutorials were actually a study in foreign languages for me; I felt like I needed a Technology to English translator to follow along because there was a plethora of terms that were so unique to the technological lexicon, that I was completely lost.  Alternatively, there were other tutorials with simple language, but VERY complex steps to take, and they are clearly meant for people who have had some experience with graphic design, such as the tutorial for Adobe Illustrator found here: http://www.digitalartsonline.co.uk/tutorials/adobe-illustrator/create-cool-infographics/ .  I think I would need more than a couple of hours to figure this out, or a couple of weeks.  I think I could do this if I had nothing else going on in my life, and I could dedicate a serious chunk of time to just this.

A friend of mine suggested I look to see if there was an app on my phone, as there seems to be an app for almost everything else, and all that I was able to find were two apps to create infographics, one tutorial app, and a really interesting app that will give me an “Infographic of the Day” (which I will have to keep, of course).  Of the two apps that allow you to create your own infographic, one is actually a data gathering app called “InFoto Free” that creates infographics based on the data of your favorite time of day to take pictures, your favorite day of the week, your busiest month of the year, etc. It is a fairly entertaining, and informative app, but not something that I can use as a tool for my Future Vision Project.  The other creating app, iVi Touch Lite, has minimal graphics available, doesn’t have a large area to create the infographic, and even if I paid the $1.03 to pay for the upgrade, it is still quite limited in it what it offers.  I may come back to it if I can’t find anything else though.  The tutorial app, Udemy, has 10 videos that total up to an hour, but doesn’t provide a tutorial about how to actually create an infographic.  The videos don’t tell me anything that I haven’t already found out in the last few weeks of researching.     

Triumphs:

            One thing I’m not struggling with is finding information about my topic!  I am excited to put together a useful tool that will allow teachers (who are not yet Digital Natives) to have a quick guide to some of the best Digital Literacy tools that will assist them in raising the bar in their teaching pedagogy in relation to technology in the classroom.  I am pleased that I have developed a new found confidence in my lack of technology skills, in that I know I am not the only one, and from my research, I have discovered that although there is a huge push to have students become digitally literate, teachers who are not digitally literate are not being addressed.  Or they are not to being addressed to such a degree that I was inundated with information about them, which makes me believe that my focus for my Future Vision Project is relevant.  I have also given some amount of thought and consideration on creating a series of Digital Literacy infographics, where each one would be focusing on one member of the school community: administrators, students, parents, and educators...but I think that I will stick with one for now, see how that goes, and maybe revisit this lofty idea at another time.  Although my triumphs seem minimal in comparison to my struggles/challenges, I am really proud of how much I have learned so far about infographics, so even if I do FAIL, I know that I am going to keep trying until I am able to create an infographic that really engages my intended audience, educates them, and inspires them to share it with others.

References:

 http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2011/10/14/the-dos-and-donts-of-infographic-design/