FTT - LucidChart

LucidChart: Visual models for visual students.

@LisaBerghoff/@MrKimDHS

At our most recent building administration meeting, an incredibly talented district technology staff member walked us through what digitizing schedule changes would look like. While it doesn't sound all that interesting, it is a fairly complicated and work intensive process that affects all levels of our school. Needless to say, there were dozens of different processes that would trigger events like requested digital authorization, or auto-generated emails. What impressed me the most was just how easy it was to follow the myriad steps due to the simple yet powerful flowchart our tech guru used. So step one: let's make some charts.

LucidChart.com is one of many visual model platforms out there, and while any of them will do the job, LucidChart does the best job providing free templates that can anticipate your needs. So while you can start something from scratch, it'll be beneficial to peruse through the hundreds of templates and customize from there. LucidChart is all about communicating visual data and thus you can create some of the following:

• Flowcharts
• Timelines
• Schedules
• Pyramids
• Mind maps
• Floor plans
• Venn Diagrams
• Cause and Effect charts
• Data flows
• Family trees
• Sequences
• KWL Charts
• Supply and Demand graphs
• Study Guides
• Heat Maps
• and more!

From Scratch

All of this is mostly straight forward. When you choose to create one from scratch, they give you a blank diagram with every conceivable variation of symbols, shapes, patterns, colors, and a full HTML text editor to create with. I would start here to practice using the user interface of the platform. To continue your flowcharts, just hover over your text boxes, and directional points will appear. You can also simply click and drag arrows to fit all of your needs.

Once created, you can easily present, export, or share your creations. You can present full screen to a projector, you can send a live link, embed with a customizable HTML code, or export as a PDF/Image file. You can even save directly to Google Drive!

Templates

As mentioned above, there are literally hundreds of well made templates that can fit all most of your needs. Coaches can use the goal setting templates for their athletes, or even floor plans to prepare large sporting events. Teachers can have their students utilize and most importantly customize different charts like essay planning, or cause and effects maps.

Professional looking visualizations can definitely capture your audience's attentions and convey data and information in efficient, effective ways. Go ahead and explore. You will realize there are visual models for needs you didn't even think you had.