This week I returned to the infographic article on which I discovered piktochart last week.  This week, I have this idea that I will have a student assignment to create a digital "handout" to go along with their paper/presentation.  I enjoyed piktochart so much, that I wanted to attempt another infographic program to see how it compared.  This brings me to easel_ly.  It is a free program.  

For starters, easel_ly had many more free templates to begin with.  This seems to be because you have the option of sharing your completed graphic with their community (and so many people have), which contributes to the bank of templates and content.  Again, some templates lend themselves better to certain kinds of material than others (some have embedded charts and graphs that you can populate).  You are not required be default to share your creation, but happily, many creative graphic designers have shared theirs!  

The website boasts, "In fact, in 2013 Easel.ly was honored to receive the Best Websites for Teaching and Learning Award from the American Association of School Librarians (AASL)," so it is clearly already being geared towards classrooms.  Because of this, there are lots of educational templates to search.  Also, many of these seem to be designed in such a way that they could easily be printed as a handout or posted as a flyer.  From a social aspect, you can create and join groups and see all the graphics in the group, which could be nice for a class if you wanted the whole class to create their "handout" in this program.

Sidenote:  I discovered that pinterest has a great bank of infographics.  You can search "English Literature" or "Writing" or "Grammar" for creations that others have made on your topic!  Seriously, do this.

Review:  While I see that this program had far more capabilities, it was also harder to work with.  Manipulating the templates takes a certain patience and creative eye that I didn't need in piktochart.  Perhaps once I get good at it, it would be a better program, but for this assignment, the time investment was greater than I had hoped.  The end result is more complicated, but the work put-in does create a more intricate product.  You can upload images, but only from your computer, not from a web address (or at least, I didn't find a way).

Here is my easel_ly (added with a convenient embed code):

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Comment on Mike's Technology Challenge - BR 6 - 10/7:  Mike, I had no idea that Google allowed you to build sites like that (and for free, too).  I have also never used Wordpress (thanks for sharing that it is easier to use).  Also, thank you for sharing the various sites that you have built in the past; they are stunning.  I can see may uses for building a site like this.  I'll have to look up if many folks can collaborate on a page, or if each page is only for a single owner?  

Comment on Amy Reading Challenge NL6 (Week 7):  I was really interesting in seeing what you did in Eas_ly, since I used the same program for the same chapter is you (great minds think alike)!  I think that your execution was more successful than mine was.  I like your info graphic a lot.  It is interesting that you pondered, "I wonder, however, if students might be discouraged by the lack of variety offered by the free programs, and how that might affect their rhetorical choices (thinking of how the materiality / structure actually impedes or controls their agency here)."  Since we have been discussing infrastructural limitations and materiality, I think that is a question that deserves some thought!