Peer Review

Piktochart

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Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: Piktochart is a web-based infographic creator, allowing users to create professional looking layouts in a drag and drop interface.
Type of Material:: Tool
Recommended Uses:: Preparing documents for use in the classroom; illustrating directions; visual components for presentations, blog posts, social media, papers, and other communications.
Technical Requirements:: Works best with Chrome or Firefox; the latest versions of Internet Explorer and Safari also work with Piktochart.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: There are no prescribed learning goals; instructors may use this in conjunction with their own specific learning goals.
Target Student Population:: Middle school through adults can use Piktochart easily.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: Current browser; organized data is necessary; it is extremely helpful that users not only understand how infographics (data organization tools) can be used to represent data in a limited amount of space, but also have a potential project in mind.

Rating:
Strengths:: Piktochart clearly supports and helps to develop an understanding of organizing and grouping information and thinking analytically. The site contains icons and features that support good graphic design. The templates provided give people much help in modeling strong design layout. There is a good support section in the site. The videos could be used as a larger lesson on visual design principles.
Concerns:: If the prerequisites we articulated before would be available to new users, it would prevent a first visit from being a trial and error experiment.

Rating:
Strengths:: Educators can use it to share key information and data with students. Students can use it for the very same reason. The visual information is chunked for grasping key concepts. Student teachers can document experiences and curriculum content on field trips with their students to review after they return to the classroom. Students can use Piktochart to present their research data progress. The charts generated provide a common point of reference for discussion and debate. The material requires that users employ analytical thinking and organization skills in order to use it effectively. It is a useful tool for teaching analytical thinking and organizational skills. While there are limited free images, users are encouraged to upload their own or request that a designer create an item for them.
Concerns:: When a user requests the creation of an item, there is no timeline associated with completion of that task.

Rating:
Strengths:: The design of site is intuitive for most and can be learned relatively quickly; Video tutorials highlight each of the key steps in the process. The free program allows you to save up to five infographics. Free templates are provided and serve as a model or guide for developing infographics. Users can pay for other templates. There are many fonts, images and design tools available for developing, editing and sharing information. Templates can be easily shared for future editing. Your completed Piktochart can be exported as HTML, PNG, or JPG.
Concerns:: It is not readily apparent where to find the free templates---scrolling helps.

Other Issues and Comments:: The Piktochart watermark appears on free account infographics. It appears at the end of the infographic and should present no problem to educators using the material in their classes. Users should be aware that free account infographics are made public. It would be important that educators require transparency of data (citing sources etc.).
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