Friday, August 5, 2016

Create an Infographic Instead of a Traditional Syllabus

I sat down at my desk and began looking over my syllabus for my seventh grade English class. I realized that there was way too much text which most parents did not read, and the important stuff I wanted them to know was hidden in that sea of text. I decided that this year I would simplify my syllabus by creating an infographic of the essential points I want to communicate to parents. I then opened up Piktochart, my favorite infographic creation tool, and looked for a template that would fit my information. I did not find a free template that fit my needs, but I did find an infographic in the "Featured Galleries" that I felt I could recreate.

I decided to use Google Draw as my infographic tool. I have struggled before with creating an infographic from scratch, but I knew I could follow a model. A large part of creating an infographic is blocking out spaces using shapes and color. One I blocked out my sections, I added text and images to create this:


At the bottom of the syllabus I plan to include a short url to the traditional syllabus that I usually print out for parents. I am hoping that since my new syllabus is only one page and visually engaging more parents and students will take the time to read it. Below I have included the template I created so that you can use or modify it for your own class.