Moving at the Speed of Creativity by Wesley Fryer

Create and Share InfoPics to Show What You Know

This year at the ISTE Conference in San Antonio, I led a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) workshop titled, “Visual Communication with iOS InfoPics.” The official description was:

We live in a very visual society and culture. In this hands-on session, participants will learn how to become more effective and powerful visual communicators by creating InfoPics on an iOS device. Learn how to find, save, modify and share copyright-friendly images with related textual annotations.

All of the resources from my session, including the introductory slides (“Why InfoPics?”), a narrated slideshow version of those introductory slides (7.5 min), and a screencast version of my InfoPic workflow using Adobe Spark Post for iOS (21 min) are available on the Google Site resource page for the session. (wfryer.me/infopics) I’ve also embedded these videos below.

Since Adobe Spark Post is also available in a web-based version, it’s ideal not only for classrooms where students have iPads, but also learning situations where students have Chromebooks or other Internet-connected laptops.

InfoPic by Wesley Fryer, on Flickr
InfoPic” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

I also created a new multimedia project page for “InfoPic” on ShowWithMedia.com, which replaced “5 Photo Story” on the 3 x 4 homepage grid. 5 Photo Story is still on the site but is linked from the Narrated Slideshow / Screencast page.

A new “Green Screen Video” page replaced “Puppet Video” on the homepage. It remains linked from “Quick Edit Video.” The new ShowWithMedia.com homepage project choices now look like this:

Show With Media Project Options by Wesley Fryer, on Flickr
Show With Media Project Options” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

This summer during iPad Media Camp (@iPadMediaCamp), my wife Shelly (@sfryer) and I used BadgeList to create a series of multimedia project badges as well as “iPad Supporting Skills” for participants. The iPad Media Camp BadgeList group is open for anyone to join and use. A suggested workflow is included on each project badge, including the project badge for InfoPic.

InfoPic Media Project by Wesley Fryer, on Flickr
InfoPic Media Project” (CC BY 2.0) by Wesley Fryer

Please checkout and join the iPad Media Camp BadgeList group and/or the Show With Media BadgeList group, which I started last week for my 2 day “Making Media” workshop sessions at “Create, Make and Learn.”  You are hereby invited to complete the requirements for some of the badges and submit evidence for review and badge approval! We’d love your feedback on any of these badges as well as the overall ideas, skills, and projects. All of the work for iPad Media Camp builds on the ShowWithMedia digital literacy framework, which I’m continuing to develop through the free website, books for sale, and (hopefully soon) an online course.

Consider teaching your students how to create InfoPics this year, and inviting them to “show what they know” about topics in your curriculum using InfoPics! Share your own InfoPics and your students’ InfoPics publicly “outside your classroom” (with student and parent permission, of course) and tweet me a link (to @wfryer) so I can check them out! I LOVE creating and sharing InfoPics. Being able to effectively communicate with InfoPics, combining images with text, is an important literacy skill for the 21st century!

If you’re interested in creating and sharing InfoPics using Bible verses and in a Christian context, also check out the “InfoPic” chapter of my forthcoming book and online project, “Pocket Share Jesus: Become a Digital Witness for Jesus Christ.” (@PocketShare) Also check out the public shared iCloud library “Bible Verse InfoPics” which I update fairly regularly. I additionally share these on my Instagram and Facebook pages.