Creating Diagrams

In my classes, I often ask my students to create visuals, whether it be their conceptual framework or visualizing the data they have collected. Data visualization is all the craze recently and for good reason. Visualizing one's conceptual framework and/or data/findings can be a powerful way to summarize important information. And as Stephanie Evergreen in her new book Effective data visualization: The right chart for the right data has argued "we visualize to communicate a point" and that "the research tells us that data are more persuasive when shown in graphs" (2017, p. 4).

But what tools/software can we use to create these visualizations, especially if we don't do this for a living and thus do not pay for sophisticated programs like Tableau? Some students use the charts function in MS Word, but sometimes these are limited. I just learned of a tool online that allows for diagraming and creating flow charts: www.draw.io. While I haven't used it myself, I thought I would share it in case someone else wants to give it a try.

This is yet more evidence that I am always learning things from my students!