Using the Community of Inquiry model as your framework, you will design an infographic around the CoI model and post it to your blog along with a blog post that provides a rationale and a context for the infographic.

When designing your infographic, I would like you to think about your own teaching and learning context (higher education, k-12 corporate or non-profit training) and illustrate or explain a minimum of 3 strategies for each presence that you, as a facilitator, could use that would address each of the different presences (Teaching, Social and Cognitive) outlined in the CoI framework. These strategies should be drawn from the readings and discussions in Weeks 1 and 2 of the course. You will then post this infographic on your blog along with a blog post of a maximum of 400 words that provides more rationale and context for your infographic. If you are comfortable sharing the infographic as an Open Educational Resource, add a Creative Commons license to the infographic.

Value: 25%

Submit: Submit a link to your blog post that contains the infographic and write-up to the Assignment 1 dropbox in Moodle.

Suggested Tools

The infographic can be designed in whatever technical platform you wish. Some free platforms for creating infographics include Canva and Venngage. Microsoft also has infographic templates available for Word or Powerpoint.

Design considerations

Designing an infographic may be a new activity for you (and if you are unsure as to what an infographic is, the Wikipedia article may help), so you may have questions about what is expected from your design. While I am not looking for quality similar to a professional graphic designer, if you use one of the free tools listed then you should be able to create a reasonably attractive infographic from the many templates they offer. To help guide your design process, here are some design tips that will help you navigate how to structure your information to make an effective infographic.

1. Create a narrative with your infographic. Think of your infographic like an essay and structure it with clear introduction to the topic, the problem your infographic is trying to solve, your central argument (aka your tips), and a summary conclusion.
2. Include your sources on the infographic. These don’t have to be APA, but should include article titles and where you sourced it from (ie links back to the source).
3. Organize your information and design your infographic with a logical information flow. Do your tips relate to each other somehow? Are they hierarchical (tip 1 is the most important, 2 next, etc)? Your infographic should have a flow to it that helps define the story you are wanting to tell.
4. Keep things simple. Limit your use of font types and colours to a small palate. Leave space in your design and try not to clutter it with tons of information. Use images and shapes instead of words where you can.
5. Be efficient with your choice of text. Since your infographic will likely be text-based (as opposed to data-based) because of the nature of the assignment, be sure to limit the amount of text you use. You do not want to make your infographic a solid block of dense text. Short sentences work well. Make use of headlines and different font sizes to help indicate sections, importance, and hierarchy.  Save the deeper explanation for your blog post.

For a greater fleshing out of these principles, check out the article How Designers Do It by Canva.

Rubric

Assessment Criteria	Excellent	Satisfactory	Unsatisfactory
CoI Alignment	Each of the strategies selected supports the CoI presence it is associated with.	While most of the strategies selected support the presence it is associated with, there may be 1 or 2 that do not align.	While some strategies are aligned with the CoI presences, there are numerous examples that do not align or are misclassified in the infographic.
Infographic Narrative Design	A compelling & cohesive narrative is evident with a clear introduction, body and conclusion demonstrated.	A good narrative is evident but may be missing or lacking clarity in one of either introduction, body, or conclusion.	Narrative is unclear or confusing and may be missing a clear introduction, body and/or conclusion.
Visual Design	Elements are visually connected to each other in a logical order. Short titles or statements with appropriate amounts of text to support statements. Graphic elements visually support the text.	Elements may or may not be visually connected to each other, or are not in a logical order. Short titles or statements with the appropriate amount of text to support the statement Graphic elements visually support text with minor exceptions.	No visual elements, too many visual elements, or visual elements do not connect to narrative. Lengthy titles with no supporting text, or too much supporting text. No graphic elements, or graphic elements do not support the text.
Cited sources	All sources are from the course readings and/or discussions and are clearly listed on the infographic with correct APA format.	All sources are listed on the infographic.	No sources are listed, or sources are missing.
Descriptive blog post	Blog post provides strong evidence and rationale, and connects to author’s context.	Blog post provides good evidence and rationale and connects to author’s context.	No accompanying blog post, or blog post fails to provide a rationale or fails to connect rationale to authors’ context.
Spelling & Grammar	Infographic is free of spelling or grammatical errors.	The infographic contains minor spelling or grammatical errors that does not detract from the meaning of the infographic as a whole.	The infographic contains considerable spelling & grammatical errors that detract from the infographic.