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"[This is part of the Infographic Design Series. Check out the other posts!] Good visual arrangement for infographics is putting together graphic and visual elements in a manner that draws your reader's attention. The key to achieving simple, elegant and attractive content are ample whitespace and a well arranged layout. What is whitespace? White space is as its name defined-space that is unmarked in a piece of infographic or visual representation. It could be margins, padding or the space between columns, text and icons and design elements. Whitespace matters to create visually engaging content A page crammed full of text and images will appear busy. This makes the content difficult to read. It makes you unable to focus on the important stuff too. On the other hand, too much of white space can make your page look incomplete. It is always crucial to remember visually engaging content is usually clean and simple. Here's an example of what I mean. whitespace-matters Understanding common infographics layouts help ease visual arrangement Infographic layouts refer to the arrangement of your visual elements and your content. When you begin working on a piece of infographic, you should have a story to tell hence, you will need to select a layout that best suits your story. Using the right layout will ensure good readability and convey your message well. We have put together a cheat sheet for your quick reference to the right arrangement to use, here are six common ones you can quickly work with. Infographic Layout Cheat Sheet Useful Bait: Works well with most types of data. Rather than focusing on design, it works more for practicality, thus making it easy to read. For instance, a reference sheet where you can print it out and use it over and over again. If your content has many subtopics to a main subject, this layout enables you to segregate them into clean chunks that are easy to consume. Versus/Comparison: This layout is typically split vertically to

"Visual content is a powerful tool. As children, we learn to recognize visual cues before we learn to speak or write. We're wired to rely on these cues to understand the world and to use visual content to communicate our thoughts and feelings. Teachers can integrate graphic design into their classrooms to facilitate instruction and to prepare students for success. Here are four ways teachers are using visual content already. Try them and discover how visual content can positively impact teaching and learning. "

"Here are some interesting graphics I came across in fortheteachersblog and thought you might want to have a look. These visual graphics feature a set of useful pieces of advice to parents on how to help their kids with Math, reading and spelling. I invite you to explore them and share with your colleagues. The graphics are also available for free download in PDF format in case you want to print them out and use them in your class. Make sure you give credit to the owner of these visuals anytime you use them."

"Here at WIRED Science, we're big fans of science graphics. And not just the fancy, big-budget ones, but charts and figures and visualizations: the folk art of scientific imagery. In this gallery are our favorite graphics of the year. They're in no particular order (though we did save a treat for last). Each tells a story with elegant simplicity, and sometimes even beauty. Enjoy!"

"Interactive visuals are great learning and teaching materials to use with your students in the classroom. From explaining difficult processes to visual brainstorming, interactive graphics are a good way to consolidate students learning and promote their comprehension. Below are three of the web tools I would recommend for creating interactive visuals, I know there are several other titles to add to this list but the ones below are, in my view, more student-friendly and simpler to use."

"Unlike the numerous graphics I shared here on the topic of flipped learning which were substantially theoretically based, the one I have for you today provides a practical demonstration of how Dr.Russell flipped his classroom . The graphic also features some of the activities and procedures he drew in his flipped instruction. Another section of this graphic highlights some of the bearings of this flipped methodology on students performance particularly in terms of the enhanced test scores. The purpose behind sharing this visual is to provide you with a concrete example of how you can go about integrating a flipped learning methodology in your instruction. This is only a paradigmatic example which you can adapt with due modifications to your own teaching situation."

"Today as I was sifting through some of graphics created by the Visual Communication Guy, I come across this interesting visual on plagiarism. This could be a very good document to use with your students in class to teach them about plagiarism : what constitutes an act of plagiarism and the different types of copyright violations involved in it. Unfortunately, as I was looking for a download link I found out that the visual is not free. You can access and read it in large version by clicking on the image there but if you want to have a copy you  need to pay. If you are looking for web tools to help you detect plagiarism in your students works, this list is a good place to start with. Enjoy"

"Graphic design students require a variety of tools in their arsenal at all times, ranging from high-end laptops to smartphones. Most K-12 schools and higher-ed institutions, however, are focusing on the use of tablets. This is because designers are now able to use more of a 'free hand' in tablet use due to the availability of additional screen space. This is especially helpful in item personalization and logo branding, for mechanical engineering, as well as custom t-shirts or other commercial products, and perhaps most of all web design."

searchcube is a graphical search engine that presents search results in a compact, visual format in three dimensions.

"Here is an interesting visual on the concept of differentiation in education which I came across on a tweet by Karen Friedman. This visual is created by ASCD and outlines some key differences between what differentiation is and what it is not. Have a look and share with us what you think of it."

An increasingly significant aspect of literacy is an awareness of the visual elements that fall beyond the traditional components of written text. Termed 'Visual Literacy' this is the ability to read and create communications that use visual elements. It combines the skills of traditional literacy with knowledge of design, art, graphic arts, media and human perception. It takes literacy further beyond a decoding of text to a decoding of the complete package around the communication.

"Here is an awesome graphic on 7 degrees of connectedness created by Sylvia. The content of this graphic clicks in with what I have said about the importance of being a connected educator in an earlier post. Creating and being part of learning networks is a requisite for any professional development in the 21st century. You just can not change it. Either you climb aboard the bandwagon or become outdated."

The Marine Photobank is a leading visual resource that has galvanized people from all over the planet to collect, share and download marine photos, images and graphics that shed light on how humans have affected life in the ocean. The Marine Photobank was founded in response to a lack of readily available, high quality underwater and above water ocean conservation images. These images are available at no cost for non-commercial purposes as well as for media use.

"I just came across this handy graphic on creativity and want you to have a look as well. The visual features a variety of ways and techniques that can inspire your creativity and drive you to act creatively.These ideas seem simple and common sensical but are often overlooked. You can share them with your students and try them with your kids, just remember whatever method you use, you need to be consistent and repeat it everyday. Habituation is a key element in the creative process."

"I have been sharing several visuals on Bloom's Taxonomy over the last couple of years but I never came across a graphic that captures the essence of the three versions of Bloom's taxonomy as the one below. Actually, Bloom's taxonomy comes only into two versions, the original which was created by a committee of educators chaired by Benjamin Bloom sometime in the 1950s of last century. During the 1990s another group of educators and cognitive psychologists led by Lorin Anderson ( a former student of Bloom) updated the original version to make it convenient with the learning needs of the 21st century."

"I have spent most of educational technology career supporting secondary students. Projects and Presentations are always a plenty… but what I noticed is typically students have great presentations and poor content or great content and poor presentations. "Rarely, are students able to deliver a compelling message in a visually stimulating and engaging way with purposeful use of media and graphics." - Lisa Johnson So… being Type A, a perfectionist, and someone that relies on visuals to communicate… I went a googling in order to create a comprehensive guide (and yes, I also staged a few Lego Minifigure pics in my back yard for emphasis too.)"

"The new Canva for Education site features eighteen lesson plans written by Vicki Davis, Steven Anderson, Terri Eichholz, and Paul Hamilton. The lesson plans include things like Paul's making historical infographics in which students summarize and visually represent the connections between historical events and their causes. For the elementary school crowd Terri has a lesson called Initial Selfies in which students learn to isolate and pronounce the initial, medial vowel, and final sounds. One of Steven's lesson plans calls for students to build graphics about percentages. And to take advantage of students' familiarity with Facebook, Vicki has built a lesson plan in which students build historical figure fan pages."

"A driving strategy that serves students-whether pursuing self-knowledge or academic content-is questioning. Questioning is useful as an assessment strategy, catalyst for inquiry, or "getting unstuck" tool. It can drive entire unit of instruction as an essential question. In other words, questions transcend content, floating somewhere between the students and their context. Questions are more important than the answers they seem designed to elicit. The answer is residual-requires the student to package their content to please the question-maker, which moves the center of gravity from the student's belly to the educator's marking pen. In that light, I was interested when I found the visual above. It's okay to say "I don't know." Teach your students how to develop questions (because) it helps conquer their own confusion. Rebeca Zuniga was inspired to create the above visual by the wonderful Heather Wolpert-Gawron (from the equally wonderful edutopia, and also her own site, tweenteacher). The whole graphic is wonderful, but it's that I don't know that really resonated with me. Traditionally, this phrase is seen as a hole rather than a hill. I don't know means I'm missing information that I'm supposed to have."

"At TeachThought, nothing interests us more than students, as human beings. What they know, might know, should know, and do with what they know. A driving strategy that serves students-whether pursuing self-knowledge or academic content-is questioning. Questioning is useful as an assessment strategy, catalyst for inquiry, or "getting unstuck" tool. It can drive entire unit of instruction as an essential question. In other words, questions transcend content, floating somewhere between the students and their context. Questions are more important than the answers they seem designed to elicit. The answer is residual-requires the student to package their content to please the question-maker, which moves the center of gravity from the student's belly to the educator's marking pen. In that light, I was interested when I found the visual above. It's okay to say "I don't know." Teach your students how to develop questions (because) it helps conquer their own confusion. Rebeca Zuniga was inspired to create the above visual by the wonderful Heather Wolpert-Gawron (from the equally wonderful edutopia, and also her own site, tweenteacher). The whole graphic is wonderful, but it's that I don't know that really resonated with me. Traditionally, this phrase is seen as a hole rather than a hill. I don't know means I'm missing information that I'm supposed to have."