I used Canva to create an infographic for my Constructivism Learning Theory page. Even before starting this course, I had been wanting to learn how to make an infographic. I was uncertain about best practices for infographic design and unfamiliar with software options. I also don’t consider myself a very artistic person; no matter how much my brain dreams up cool ideas during other tasks, when confronted with a blank slate, all creativity and artistic instinct flees instantly. I think in words and get insecure about the accessibility of color choices or whether my design aesthetic is going to look childish or dumb. So, when this course required an infographic and suggested a number of possible software, I was pretty excited to give it a shot in a structured assignment. I chose Canva from the list because someone once mentioned that as their preferred platform & I wanted to have peer support if I ran into issues.
Here is a link to the Constructivism page where the infographic resides. I wish it didn't take me so long to make, I'd have liked to include infographic elements to my other pages. For now, words come more naturally to me than pictures and editing & aligning the text so everything lines up and looks nice was just a lot to handle on top of the information synthesis and writing process.
In retrospect, my process for learning to use Canva and how to create an infographic incorporated elements of Connectivism, Constructivism, and Andragogy, with a problem-based learning approach:
My most transformational “ah-ha” moment in reflecting on my approach to learning was recognizing much of Connectivism and Andragogy in my general thought processes. I am very much a “problem solver” and I have definitely spent most of my educational career learning HOW to learn, rather than worrying about memorizing content. I am a forgetful person; I need to use a Thing for quite a while before it sticks around in my brain. For example, I’ve had to reference my own Learning Theory pages several times just while writing this reflection to remind myself which Learning Theory goes with the principle I’m thinking of. I retained the principles; it’s naming the theory where I need help. This ties into the element of self-efficacy in Cognitivism as well: because I trust that the information I need exists somewhere on the internet, I have found myself more comfortable with “I don’t know” than I ever thought I could be because I know it is a temporary state.
Self-efficacy is a huge deal for someone with my capacity to overthink. I need to have confidence that I can do something before I’m going to feel okay about doing it (note: the “feel okay” part - I can muscle through the feelings of doom and panic, it just ain’t graceful). I have a lot of home renovation projects going on right now, including replacing all the floorboards on my back deck. For whatever reason, using a circular saw for the first time with the objective of just… freehand cutting a straight line across a board was just The Hardest Thing I did that entire week. It didn’t even end up being that hard (it never is, why am I still like this??). However, while I still struggle with the confidence to perform a new skill or daunting task, I have every confidence in my ability to find and process information. Doing a thing for the first time might still trigger a temporary panic, but I know with every fiber of my being that I can definitely learn how I might theoretically do the thing.
Here is a link to the Constructivism page where the infographic resides. I wish it didn't take me so long to make, I'd have liked to include infographic elements to my other pages. For now, words come more naturally to me than pictures and editing & aligning the text so everything lines up and looks nice was just a lot to handle on top of the information synthesis and writing process.
In retrospect, my process for learning to use Canva and how to create an infographic incorporated elements of Connectivism, Constructivism, and Andragogy, with a problem-based learning approach:
- Connectivism – all of my knowledge about infographic design principles and “best practices” came from internet search results. I know how to find the knowledge I need & how to use that information to inform my decisions.
- Constructivism – armed with some general strategies for infographic design (e.g., “leave white space” or “make it fun!”), I jumped into Canva and just started figuring it out. I think there may have been a tutorial and I know I used one of the templates, but picking the right template and editing the layout was a purely trial and error process. By the time my infographic was getting close to done, I had developed a comfortable competency with creating and editing design elements.
- Andragogy – you can pretty much match my process to every bullet point in the "Principles of Andragogy" list. My learning process was entirely self-directed, up to & including the tool I used. My motivation to create an infographic was (almost) entirely intrinsic, as it was a skill I already wanted to develop independent of the course requirements. My learning process was similar to that I found successful for learning to use other software, so it was built on my past experiences. The experience was focused on “problem solving”, where the problem was “create an infographic about Constructivism.”
My most transformational “ah-ha” moment in reflecting on my approach to learning was recognizing much of Connectivism and Andragogy in my general thought processes. I am very much a “problem solver” and I have definitely spent most of my educational career learning HOW to learn, rather than worrying about memorizing content. I am a forgetful person; I need to use a Thing for quite a while before it sticks around in my brain. For example, I’ve had to reference my own Learning Theory pages several times just while writing this reflection to remind myself which Learning Theory goes with the principle I’m thinking of. I retained the principles; it’s naming the theory where I need help. This ties into the element of self-efficacy in Cognitivism as well: because I trust that the information I need exists somewhere on the internet, I have found myself more comfortable with “I don’t know” than I ever thought I could be because I know it is a temporary state.
Self-efficacy is a huge deal for someone with my capacity to overthink. I need to have confidence that I can do something before I’m going to feel okay about doing it (note: the “feel okay” part - I can muscle through the feelings of doom and panic, it just ain’t graceful). I have a lot of home renovation projects going on right now, including replacing all the floorboards on my back deck. For whatever reason, using a circular saw for the first time with the objective of just… freehand cutting a straight line across a board was just The Hardest Thing I did that entire week. It didn’t even end up being that hard (it never is, why am I still like this??). However, while I still struggle with the confidence to perform a new skill or daunting task, I have every confidence in my ability to find and process information. Doing a thing for the first time might still trigger a temporary panic, but I know with every fiber of my being that I can definitely learn how I might theoretically do the thing.