Adventures with Story Maps&

Using the ‘Collector for ArcGIS’ App

Garry SimmonsHead of Geography, Wilmington Grammar

School for Girls, Dartford, Kent@garrysimmons @GeoWilmington

• Three ways of thinking about story maps

• Progression with story maps

• Reflections on using story maps

Story Maps as resource

• For discovering about new places.

• For exploring places.

• For contrasting different places

• For developing aerial photography interpretation skills.

• For helping students to remember fieldwork.

American SW Water Crisis: Map Tour

Reculver Coastal fieldwork: Map Tour

Disappearing Glaciers: Map Journal

River Darent Fieldwork: Map Journal

Story Maps as student activity

• Year 9 Built Environment

• Which template to use? Map Tour vs Map Journal?

Year 9 student’s Map Journal

Story Maps as adventure

• What’s next?

• Local area story map.

– Use the Snap2map app?

– Use a map tour

– “How diverse is my local area?” Create a walking, cycle or road route to visit at least 5 sites in your local area to show how diverse your place is.

– Diversity could be seen in land use, housing type, wealth of local people, environmental quality.

Journey into Danakil: Map Journal

Progression with Story Maps

• Web maps– Basic aerial photography

– Using ‘map notes ‘symbols in web maps

– Using CSV layers to managing symbols and labels more easily.

• Story Maps– Map Tour

– Map Journal

– Map Journal with embedded multimedia, multiple web maps and pop-ups

Reflections: Story Maps as resource

• Positives – Interactive way of presenting GI

– Works on any device but best with iPad or PC sized screen.

– Easy to embed material and photos to create a multimedia experience.

– Web-based so can reach a wide audience. No disc installation needed.

• Challenges experienced – Cannot use measuring tools in the underlying web

map.

Reflections: Story Maps as student activity

• Positives – Builds new ICT skills in a fun way.– Improved locational knowledge

• Challenges experienced – Students lost work if their edits were not saved

properly. – Map Journal is moderately advanced and requires

practice to master.– Including images to a Map Journal requires access to

web based photo storage such as OneDrive/Dropbox– Fiddly apps? Snap2map needs practice and a 3G data

connection.

Any questions or ideas?

• Resource: Which topics/places would you create a story map for?

• Student activity: For which topics/places would you want your students to make a story map?

• Please share your ideas!

Using the ‘Collector for ArcGIS’ App

Collecting microclimate data

Data collection site with pop-ups

‘Heat map’ showing data site distribution

Temperature proportional symbols

Temperature ‘Isotherm’ interpolation

Gust speed (ms-1) and direction

Gust speed ‘isotach’ interpolation

Reflections on using the Collector App

• Positives

– Students used their own devices to upload data.

• Challenges experienced

– Students struggled to log in to their ArcGIS Online account. Stressful for teacher! Ideally have an ICT technician to help you.

– Highly complex to set up the Collector App.

– Students could have recorded site coordinates and data on paper and entered into a CSV file.