 This is learning in hand. My name is Tony Vincent, and this is the show where I share tips, how-tos, and ideas for using today's digital tools or teaching and learning. Episode 30, producing info pics, recorded January 2015, happens now. You usually remember a photo better than you remember words, right? Visuals are more easily retained in memory than words. Pictures grab our attention faster than text. So how about we pair words with a picture to help us remember and convey information in an appealing way? For example, I watched Ken Shelton's TEDx talk on YouTube. To summarize what he spoke about during the 13 minute video, I took notes. I also took a screenshot of the video. I thought about Ken's message and the main ideas I personally thought were important. I added text on top of the screenshot and shared the final product on Twitter and Facebook with a link to the video. I'm calling this type of photo an info pic. An info pic is a photo with text layered on top that is designed to communicate a message. The message might be a summary, quote, definition, notes, data, a web link, a hashtag, or other informational tidbits. The information might come from a conference, workshop, activity, lesson, video book, a conversation, etc. Info pics are often created on a smartphone or tablet because it's easy to snap a photo and use a combination of apps to edit, enhance, transform, and annotate the picture. But you can certainly create info pics on a Chromebook, laptop, or desktop computer. I've been inspired by Jonathan Nalder. He does some incredibly artistic iPhoneography and he shares info pics from conferences he attends. He'll take a photo of the speaker or something from the conference, enhance the image, and add text. Jonathan likes to use the Mextures app on his iPhone to add textures, light, and color effects to his photos. And he might use the Over app to add text to an image he saved from Mextures. The process of creating an info pic forces you to listen to or read information and decide what is most important to remember and share. Learners of any age can make an info pic. Let me show you some tools and techniques I use for making info pics. Sketch is an app you might already know about and use. It's great for adding words to an image and that's because any text you add has a thick black or white outline. This keeps the text readable no matter what is behind it. You can also add arrows and annotations to your photo. Another nice thing about Sketch is that it is available on lots of different platforms. Pic Collage is another Android and iOS app you might already be familiar with. You can combine multiple photos. When you add text, you will probably want to have it outlined in a contrasting color for readability. If you are adding a text box with lots of words, try giving the text box a background color. It's okay if your text boxes are a skew, but if that bothers you, shake your device to straighten everything. Pic Collage makes all of its photos in portrait orientation. Those won't work so well for Instagram. If you don't place any text on the top or bottom regions of the background, you can always crop the image after you've saved it to your photo library. And while square images are what's needed for Instagram, landscape images are better for Twitter. That's because of how Twitter crops tweeted images. Create landscape images in Pic Collage by rotating the photo and text. After you save the image, open it and rotate it. Like many photography apps, Pic Lab for iOS and Android has filters. The vignette filter can darken the edges of your photo, providing more contrast for white or light-colored text. And like many apps, Pic Lab has an assortment of fonts. Your font choice is important. You'll want to choose fonts and colors that are legible when layered on top of your photo. Fonts and colors convey the tone of your info pic, so be sure to consider how your choices affect the message. Another consideration for fonts is the available space on your photo. You might need a tall, skinny font if that's what will fit. When you snap the photo for your info pic, be sure to leave space where you can add text. Don't get too close to the person or object you are photographing. Visualize where you could put text and adjust how you frame the photo. You might want to leave lots of space to the left or right of the photo. Or maybe you imagine putting text on the top. If you can, snap a series of photos each with different framing. Then you'll have options for your info pic. I made the info pic about Ken Shelton's TEDxTalk using Fonto. I scrubbed through the video to find a frame that would have room for text I wanted to add. I then took a screenshot which I brought into Fonto. I like that I can add shadow to text for readability. And consider changing the alpha, which is the text transparency. Having partly transparent words can be stylish. Want your words to follow a path? Try path on for iOS. You simply draw a line where you want your text to appear. Path on gives you font size, letter spacing, and shadow options. Check out this effect. You can turn a photo black and white and then choose to add color back to portions of the photo with apps like Color Effects for iOS or Color Splash Effect for Android and Kindle Fire. Colorizing a photo is a great way to provide focus. Also, black and white backgrounds can make your colored text easier to read. Here's a tip. When you go into recolor parts of your photo, be sure to zoom in so it's easier to get close to the edges. Thinking of apps you are already familiar with, slideshow software like PowerPoint, Keynote, and Google Slides can certainly be used to make info pics. In fact, slideshow apps have lots of great options for text and effects. And a little hint, if the app doesn't support exporting your slide as an image, simply take a screenshot of the slide in full screen and you've got yourself an info pic. Pixlr is a mobile app and web app. It has some really great textures you can add to embellish your photo. It also has some useful effects like focal. The focal effect can be radial or linear and you can control how large it is. You can add blurred and busy backgrounds so that it's not distracting from your photo's focus. And the blurred part of the photo is a great spot to put your text for easier readability. Pixlr also has a splash effect where you can change all but one color to black and white. You might want a person or a specific object in focus while the rest of the photo is blurred. There's probably a simpler app for this, but I use Photoshop Touch to cut out a person. I add the original photo back as a bottom layer, but I blur it. I like how it really makes what's not blurred look like it's floating. An info pic might have speech bubbles and callouts like a comic and there are lots of apps designed for this. Pixart is available for free for iOS, Android, Fire and Windows and has a huge variety of callouts you can add to your photo. Pixart also has loads of filters and effects. Canva and Rona designs help you make artistic choices by supplying you with templates, banners and artwork. They also have galleries where you can get inspiration for your own creation. There really are hundreds of apps you might use to make an info pic. Visit learninginhand.com slash info pics for links to apps and to see more info pics. So why produce an info pic? Well, the creator of the info pic gets to process their learning and turn it into something memorable. The info pic can be saved in Evernote, OneNote, Notability, Google Drive or wherever the learner might keep notes. It's fun to look back at my notes from a conference I've attended when I've included info pics. And if an info pic is posted online, the audience for the info pic gets to learn something in a quick and memorable manner. And posts that are photogenic get more attention on social media. Educators can use us to their advantage when communicating with students, parents and each other. When I taught 5th grade, my favorite daily activity was having a student roving reporter who took photos and wrote an article about what we learned that day. Now as an alternative, what if each day or each class had a student assigned as the photographer whose job it is to create and share an info pic from the lesson? By the end of the school year, the class would have a nice collection of info pics. And a great place to collect them would be on a blog or padlet wall. The best info pic advice I can give you is to practice and experiment. Info pics can be simple or complex. They can have very little text or quite a bit. They can take a couple of minutes to produce or they can take like an hour. But I think producing an info pic is time well spent. So go out and be Art Textic. That's it for Episode 30. Check out my website at LearningInHand.com and find me on social media. Thanks for watching.