Today’s Training: ArcGIS StoryMaps
Today’s Reflection Question:
- How would you feel about helping someone else learn how to use it? What did you find most interesting? What did you find most frustrating? What questions do you still have, and what parts of the tool do you want to explore more deeply?
In this training, I created an ArcGIS StoryMap based on guiding instructions, in collaboration with another fellow. The map about the Santa María volcano in Guatemala and people’s experience living and discovering its extraordinary environment. The StoryMap was very visual with many photos, interactive topographic maps and sidecars, which highlighted the strength of the StoryMap as a tool to tell story in an interactive and captivating way.
I have an experience creating multiple StoryMaps during and before my time at Grinnell. Some ArcGIS StoryMaps I have worked on at Grinnell include: “Les banlieues parisiennes : la réalité et les stéréotypes” (“The Parisian “banlieues”: The stereotypes and reality” [created for FRN 222: Intermediate French II], and “Evolving U.S. Visa Policies and Global Identity at Grinnell” [created for TUT 100: Tutorial – The Global Fight for Democracy.
This tutorial taught me that StoryMap was a lot more customizable than I had imagined. This was my first time using the ‘Design’ panel, which let me add a navigation bar of the entire map, as well as change fonts and visuals.
Overall, I feel confident and comfortable guiding and assisting people with using StoryMap. The customizations on StoryMap are very visual (for instance, you would upload an image as a standalone object or be it part of a sidecar to emphasize that they are part of a story or a sequence). This would mean that I would need to gauge the purpose and the intended outcome of the project as I discuss with my client. I also noticed that there is a new feature to add a table to a StoryMap, and I am curious to know more about the ways of incorporating data or quantitative information to StoryMap, which traditionally emphasizes qualitative information (like telling a story).