Stage I. Project Concept
As mentioned in the Introduction, I had done maps from memory before with my geography students, but I figured I would need to make some changes to the assignment to fit the online environment. The modified assignment is shown below:
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On an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper, draw as detailed a map of the world--from memory--as you can in 15 minutes without first looking at a map. You should also include your name, age, gender, year in school (if applicable), your profession (if applicable), your state/country of origin, the languages you speak at home, and the countr(ies) where your parents are from. |
Stage II. Wrangling the Participants
After a slow start, I decided to see if I could get any collaborators in the online world. I posted my project to the GSN site, but due to the relatively short duration of the project, the fact that it's summer (in the northern hemisphere, anyway) and many classes are not in session, and the relative lateness of my post, I didn't get any GSN takers. I decided to mine my other online contacts.
I'm a member of the Illinois Geographical Society (IGS) and of GIMBY (Geography in My Back Yard), the IGS listserv. I sent an APB out to GIMBY, outlining my project, thinking that a bunch of geographers would surely come through for me...Several people expressed an interest, and one of my IGS colleagues mentioned that she'd done her Master's Thesis on the mental maps of college students! "What a great resource this GIMBY is!" I thought. And it is, although no one has yet sent his or her maps!
I then sent an email out to my CTER3 pals, and a big thanks goes out to Nelda and her husband for their maps, which are especially nice since they're from New Mexico, and the bulk of my maps are from Illinoisans.
After a series of threatening emails, (:-), my family came through for me! My mom and dad both drew maps, as did one of my sisters. She actually roped several of her friends into drawing maps for me as well.
Lastly, while not an online source of participants (I was desperate, see) I was able to have my husband's summer school US History class draw maps for me. These kids are most like the population I teach (same school, roughly the same age group) during the "regular" school year.
Stage III. Website Construction
The final stages for me are always the most time consuming and often relate less to content and more to site design: thinking up a metaphor for the site, finding appropriate graphics, scanning maps and other graphics, fiddling with text. Learning some of the interesting features of Dreamweaver took significant chunks of time, but that's the topic of Activity 6!
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