How to Create a Story Map
A couple of days ago I published a post about a story map titled 1,001 Novels: A Library of America. That post is already one of the most popular things I’ve published this year! Viewing 1,001 Novels: A Library of America reminded me of a free tool that students can use to create story maps. […]
StoryMap JS – A Nice Alternative to Tour Builder
Like many teachers, I was disappointed when Google deprecated Tour Builder and Tour Creator last year. Since then in my webinar series with Rushton Hurley and on social media I’ve answered a lot of questions from teachers about alternatives to Tour Builder. StoryMap JS is one of the tools that I’ve been suggesting when asked […]
Five Tools for Telling Stories With Maps
One of my favorite alternatives to traditional book report assignments is having students create multimedia maps based on books they’ve read. Google Lit Trips first made that idea popular more than a decade ago. Of course, creating a multimedia map is also an excellent way for students to summarize and geo-locate a series of related […]
Mapping Thanksgiving
Where Does Your Thanksgiving Dinner Come From? is an interactive storymap that displays where eight popular Thanksgiving foods are grown and harvested in the United States. The storymap includes a map for each ingredient. Each map shows the locations of commercial producers. Fun facts are included in the storymap too. For example, did you know that […]
How to Create a Map-based Story With StoryMap JS
StoryMap JS is a free tool that comes from the same people that offer the popular multimedia timeline tool called Timeline JS. On StoryMap JS you can create map-based stories. You create the story by matching slides to locations on a map. In the following video I demonstrate how to use StoryMap JS. Applications for […]
800+ Persuasive Maps – And a Tool for Making Your Own
About a week ago Open Culture published an article about Cornell University’s Persuasive Cartography collection. I hadn’t seen that collection before so I went down a rabbit hole looking at map after map for a good 45 minutes. Persuasive maps aren’t maps that you would use to teach a classic geography lesson. That’s because persuasive […]
Great Journeys and Explorations – Stories Told With Interactive Maps and Timelines
Ever since I was an elementary school student I have loved reading about great journeys and explorations like those of Lewis and Clark, James Cook, and Robert Peary. As an adult I still love those stories and recently started reading The River of Doubt for a second time. Picking up that book reminded me of […]
Storymap JS – Tell Stories With Maps
The New York Times has a new feature called Harriet Tubman’s Path to Freedom. The feature is a presented in scrolling map format. The map is combined with a timeline format that shows the sequence of and locations of significant moments of Tubman’s work in freeing herself and helping other slaves escape. Harriet Tubman’s Path […]