Infographics

Infographic

Creating a Infographic

Creating an infographic was difficult and time consuming, but... worthy! This time it was an experiment and it took a while for us to manage new tools. If we work as a team I am confident that we can create an archive full of awesome material including visuals, videos, graphs, and sure, infographs that can serve for our students. As a teacher I am always looking for new materials to share with my students, challenging readings, photos, videos... it would be great that part of that material can be created by me and by my colleagues  but again, working alone is hard, it is difficult to find the time to do so but working collaboratively as we did this time we can have rich and value PLNs!



Information taken from:

http://www.uis.unesco.org/

stats.uis.unesco.org/...document.aspx

Magazine Cover

Dogs Illustrated Magazine

Who is the publisher?

The publisher of Dogs Illustrated Magazine is PAPA (Pet Association Promoting Adoption) a non profit association that promotes the adoption of dogs instead of buying them. It is a International Association widely spread in the United States and recently in México.

Who is the intended audience; what do you (author) hope the audience will do?

The publisher intends to promote the well care of dogs by kids and reinforce parents to encourage their kids to be responsible for their pets.

What is appealing in the cover?

Two kids taking care of a puppy. They are having fun and showing care and love for a puppy.

How are headlines, colors, and font styles and sizes used?

The fonts and colors are attractive to children but it is not intended to look "childish" as it is intended to be attractive for kids and also for parents. 

What are two adjectives that could describe how you look on the cover?

Caring, tenderness and responsibility

What are you trying to communicate? 

The love of kids for pets, specially dogs and how they can be responsible for taking care of them. It tries to promote the adoption of pets by showing a tender image of two kids taking care of its newly arrive adopted pet to home.

Stereotype, Bias and Representation

Am I able to find representation, bias and stereotypes simple by looking into a magazine?

Just by browsing a typical teenager magazine, TeenVogue, it was relatively easy to find pictures with representations and stereotype.

The first one that I found was a picture of two girls jumping into the water, just by the smile of their faces, the posture of their body and the background I can asume it is a representation of freedom or happiness. In reality it is a picture if two young ladies jumping, but I could say the representation mentioned is clear, if not evident.

Picture taken form Vogueteen, April, 2012, p. 10

Looking for stereotypes is kind of easy if we are talking about teenagers. As a Middle School teacher I know this age is full of stereotypes,  like being young means being happy or that you are pretty if you are skinny. The picture that I found that represent a stereotype for me is a picture of three teenagers going to a party and being fully happy,like if going to a party is happiness it self. There are perfectly dress  makeup... and happy. That is the way teenagers are represented in commercial, magazines, pictures...

Picture taken from Vogueteen, April 2012, p. 71

Finding a picture of bias was not that easy for me. I looked over a Sports magazine, Sports Illustrated, and even though I barely know something about Football, I saw a picture where they represent a team as a winner, the other team looks small and insignificant near the other. They are presenting the "New York Nets" clearly as winners for the next season. Every newspaper, magazine have a clear tendency, but in this picture they really represent "their team" as the best one. It can be considered as byas as they do present just one side, they present their tendency as the correct one.

Taken from Sports Illustrated, September 2011, p. 41-42

Definitions:

Bias.- Particular inclination or tendency. In favor of it/opposed to it without having full knowledge of it.
Representation.- Give or serve as, picture, sign, symbol or example of.

Stereotype.- Fixed phrase, idea, belief used and represented without charge.

Oxford ESL Dictionary

Ser críticos ante los medios

SER CRÍTICOS ANTE LOS MEDIOS

Pregunta esencial :

¿Cómo podemos ser críticos ante los mensajes que los medios pretenden transmitir?

Objetivos :

Lograr que los alumnos desarrollen una actitud crítica ante lo que los medios les presentan

Duración:

Dos sesiones de “advocacy” de 30 minutos cada una.

Materiales necesarios:

Proyector y dispositivos electrónicos de los alumnos

Procedimiento :

En la primera sesión (30 mn)

1.- Abrir la clase con la presentación de varias imágenes y videos, buscando provocar el análisis de éstas.

2. Exponer a los alumnos la pregunta de la lección:  ¿Cómo podemos ser críticos ante los mensajes que los medios pretenden transmitir?

3.- Escuchar lluvia de ideas por parte de los alumnos, si la tecnología lo permite, escuchar las opiniones de los alumnos a través de Todaysmeet

En la segunda sesión (30 mn)

4.- Previamente, el maestro tendrá preparado carteles con los diferentes conceptos de los códigos de tecnología los cuales no se enseñará al alumno hasta que se concluya el paso 6.
Ver imagen adjunto sobre los códigos de tecnología.

5. Se presentarán a los alumnos 6 imágenes específicas: dos anuncios de revistas, dos comerciales y dos cortos de película.

6.- Los alumnos escribirán en post its características de lo que perciben en los mensajes.

7.- Se presentarán los carteles con los conceptos de los códigos de tecnología y se les pedirán a los alumnos que clasifiquen sus post its de acuerdo a los conceptos.


8. Una vez reunidos los post its clasificados pegados en los carteles correspondientes, se les explicará cada concepto, buscando que entiendan qué es un código y cuál es el impacto de éstos  a través de los diferentes medios.

Evaluación:

Los alumnos escribirán una reflexión sobre la importancia de ser críticos ante los medios de
comunicación.

ANEXOS:

TV Ads


http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/11/nascar-twitter-tv-commercial/

http://www.examiner.com/article/local-presidential-tv-ad-spending-soars



Movie title sequences

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/the-walking-dead-unofficial/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/walle/

http://www.artofthetitle.com/title/gattaca/


Anuncios en revistas









Reflexión de grupo:

Como grupo observamos y analizamos varias imágenes, dos de ellas de revistas, dos de anuncios de televisión y dos de entradas de películas.

En las revistas las imágenes y textos sugieren un diálogo entre el lector y el producto. Buscan crear un vínculo directo entre producto y consumidor. Se exhiben los objetos para expresar un fin práctico de ellos, integrando un mensaje textual y la imagen. En cuanto a los colores, es notorio el uso de los contrastes, en particular blancos y negros. En ambas imágenes se busca crear en el receptor una respuesta ante la imagen: orden ante el caos y diversión ante el aburrimiento.

En cuanto a las entradas de las películas, llama la atención como detrás de las simples letras se transmite todo un mensaje que posteriormente estará implícito en la película. En el caso de la película “Gattaca”, se ven las letras que aparecen y desaparecen como si se estuvieran escondiendo, eso es justamente el tema de la película, es decir, una persona “de segunda categoría” que se esconde tras una falsa personalidad. La música, la velocidad de las letras y su paulatino esconderse transmiten misterio y manipulan al público.

Después de analizar los anuncios de televisión podemos concluir que los mensajes sugieren diversos puntos de vista manipulando así la información que arrojan. Pudimos percibir que los mensajes están dirigidos a cierto público y con un propósito específico, sin embargo no siempre se llega a este. En las imágenes que analizamos se puede percibir claramente la intención por las que se presentan.

Reflexión personal:

Como profesora de alumnos de secundaria, mi responsabilidad va más allá de enseñar historia de México. Tengo la enorme responsabilidad de dar herramientas a mis alumnos para desarrollarse satisfactoriamente dentro y fuera de la escuela. Los profesores somos un eslabón en su desarrollo personal y eso va má allá de enseñar contenidos. Así como ellos deben ser críticos con la información académica, deben aprender a ser críticos con las imágenes que los bombardean día a día. ¡Qué mejor que enseñarles como ser críticos!. Un plan de lección como este que se puede aplicar en un grupo pequeño como el de "advocacy" nos permite poner nuestro pequeño grano de arena.

Book covers

 "The first impression matters"

After watching the video by Chip Kidd and then trying to choose and analyze three book covers from the book cover archive  I realized how important is the image you get from a book just by its cover. Either if you read a book by recommendation, as a task or by pleasure, the first impression of it comes by the way it is presented.- its cover. It is the impression you will keep of the book while you are reading it and after it. 

As said by Chip Kidd, book covers matters the author, the publisher and the reader. So it has an impact in the way it is sold, the way it is read and the way it represents the authors vision of it.

The first book I chose is the biography of Mandela. For me this cover talks of a serious book, where they show Mandela just as he is. He does not need any logos, phrases, flags... to represent him, he is just Mandela. I would say by this cover that it is not a book of a polical party or tendency, but it is the book of a man who promote freedom. The colors of the flag of South African are presented just tiny in a corner of the cover. For me it reinforces that it is a book of a international man, a Nobel Priced man. 

Truth, hard work

The second cover that called my attention "About a Mountain" and what resonated to me is that there is no mountain in the cover but the words in a descendant line. As Chip Kidd says in his video, words and images together can talk to much about something , so here we can see only words so  "mountain" without the picture of it, can refer the reader to a "huge amount" of something, to  a pile. For me the simply ausence of the picture refers to some "mystery" and maybe even to a  novel involving lawyers, police men...

Legal conflict?

  

Mystery, suspense 

A mystery novel, suspense, highly hidden secrets.... that is what I would expect to read in this third book that I chose. Just by the blurry presence of the man in the cover and it small proportion with the letter and the size of the cover itself I can feel it is a book of mystery, suspense and even sadness. 
I would love to read or know the authors thoughts about their books. Does the covers really represent what they want to transmit to the reader? 
I can perceive the making of a book cover as a huge responsibility from the publisher and author to the audience. I can compare it to the movie making of a book, it needs to respect the content of the book and at the same time it needs to be attractive, balanced...


http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/mandela

http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/about_a_mountain

http://bookcoverarchive.com/book/presence_stories