Toward the beginning of starting the project, I struggled to decide upon what sort of image I wanted to use. I knew I would be utilizing ThingLink as my digital platform, though. With this in mind, I decided upon utilizing an infographic that displayed statistics on disability visibility for television. This is useful because it provides crucial information on the topic before I even added any links. Compounded to the information I gathered and added to it, I think it bolsters the image better than if I simply presented the image alone. It allows the audience more interactions, as well as a chance to explore the research I have gathered on the topic. The creation of this visualization undoubtedly deepened my understanding of the topic in ways reading alone might not have. It provided useful graphs charts and graphs that made some information clearer. These statistics were not present within the readings and are very useful when talking about this topic. Even better, this infographic expands past the narrow focus I was dedicated to and observes how few actors with disabilities actually play characters with disabilities. Besides providing these useful visual components, the project also provided a brief summary of what disability visibility consists of. This allows me to save time in explaining that and simply provide more supplementary information that I want to share in the lessons. This process had convinced me that visualization is a powerful vehicle for learning. When students are attracted to the infographic and gain new insights from it, they will likely desire to learn more; these infographics can also convince more apprehensive students to participate more by drawing them in with easy-to-understand visuals. They also offer the students ‘chunk-size’ information, so it will be easier for them to recall the main ideas from the lesson. The short passages and straight-forward visuals make this project easily readable and useful for learners. Beyond that, this process taught me that visualization could be a useful tool for my future teaching because it provides an array of activities. This is important in special education, where the students are all at varying levels of academic performance. Moreover, visualization can provide room for unique activities if used appropriately. In that same vein, since infographics are so often used, exposing students to them would be good for their development. The ultimate test of this could be having students create their own infographics. If students create one, they will be using their skills in technology, visualization, and creativity. Overall, working on this project taught me more about visualization and provided me the opportunity to plan how to use it in future lessons.
