The Power of Infographics with PicCollage

In an age of Big Data and Information Overload, the ability to read and to create visual representations of complex sets of data are becoming increasingly important skills. Such visual representations are often called Infographics and learning how to interpret them is a mandatory element of the Australian Curriculum for senior primary students.

During the term in History, the Year 6 students have been investigating the wave of immigration to Australia over last century. One of their culminating tasks was to study census data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, from 1910 (when information about immigrants' countries of origin was first collected), to the present. Each student was asked to select a country and represent immigration statistics in graphic format, to make the data more meaningful and easier to comprehend. They then had to write a paragraph interpreting the data and suggesting reasons for the wave of immigration.

Students could use any app they wished to create their Infographic. Some students discovered PicCollage which they put to use very effectively to make the task straightforward and fun.

PicCollage is available FREE in the App Store

Here you can see the Year 6 students hard at work on their Infographics in the library.

Below you will see some of the impressive infographics created by Year 6 students:

Infographics1 from Maria Mead

Infographics2 from Maria Mead

Expressionism in Year 6

In Art this term, Year 6 students have been looking at 'Expressionism' and how line and colour can invoke particular moods or ideas. They have created some impressive pastel drawings, inspired by a character in Aaron Blabey's book, The Brothers Quibble. 

Check out the 6 Blue artworks in the video slideshow below (created in the Mac Photos app):

New App for LOTE Lessons

Sensai has found a great new FREE app to help you learn Japanese. She would like all students to please install the app, called Kana Tutor, on their school iPads. It would be fantastic if you could all have this app ready to go for this week's Japanese lessons.

Kana Tutor by Twin Pines Software