All about the Apps

Oh how the technology has changed in the last ten years. Most school projects would have been created by the use of paper and writing utensils. There wasn't always access to computer technology growing up. It was a privilege to be able to use the computers to create a project; for the most part now all classrooms have access to Chromebooks or an iPad. Many app makers have caught onto this trend and have developed many tools to enhance learning.

This past week a few colleagues and I checked out the app called Venngage. It is an app to make interesting infographics! When first setting up your account the website asks a few questions to give templates best suited to your liking. Venngage has many templates to fit any style of work whether it be a brochure; poster; calendars, presentations and much more. By having these templates students can either choose from them and modify or start from a blank canvas. The ideas are endless from having the choice of shapes, backgrounds and icons. Venngage has an option of searching for a picture on the upload photo option; rather than searching on google and saving the photo to your documents. This tool cuts out the middle man and is just an easy search away. One thing that attracted me to creating a mindmap myself was the addition of little icons. Words are one thing to have on an infographic;by having the addition of a little icon it can make it more fun. I found there was an icon for any circumstance. Venngage is an app that is child friendly in the way it is set up with all of the options.

With every app there is always negatives towards it. In a classroom, students will have to be able to make their own accounts and they will be set up on the free account settings. Some of the templates and icons can not be chosen unless you upgrade the account. Another downside is that you can not have more than seven designs. So if this was an app that the student liked to use for every project they would have to delete their previous ones. As a free member you can not download and save to your documents; the most you can do is share the link and publish to the internet. This makes it challenging because the only way that they would be able to keep this project year round is by screenshotting to save to their documents.

Venngage is a neat infographic website; which I think I will be using in my future teaching years. It is a nice twist to creating a poster or presentation. I think students will be able to use this app with no problem. #edts325 #venngage #infographic