Blog Post #5- Exploring a Mapping/GIS project

First I used Myths on Maps (btw: The PLS speed dial has an image which says  “Mapping Texts: Texas Historical Newspapers" but it links to Myths on Maps.)

It took me a little bit to figure out how to navigate it in useful way, since it doesn’t link to the home page explaining how to navigate but instead takes you right to the map tool. Myths on Maps uses the texts of Apollodorus’ Library and Epitome and locates character names and sites onto a Google map. It has different view/search options- you can read directly through the text which has hyperlinks to the map tool, or you can use the map itself and search by location (ex: Thebes) and then use the sidebar to see characters, events and text citations.  It was a little buggy and there were lots of error pages but it was pretty great. I could see how this would be useful if you were teaching with these texts as it gives a good sense of the geographic area of the Greek Myths, in a way that seems “real” today. The project was made at the University of Victoria, and since it’s an academic source and so closely linked to a fixed text, it would seem to me pretty reliable and responsibly curated.

Screensnap from Myths and Maps, search term: Thebes

 I also tried Google Sightsmap, which uses crowd-sourced photos and locates them using a photo's metadata onto a google map. The data is based on photos from Panoramio, a geolocation based photo sharing service. The Sightsmap lets you see how “hot” a place is based on the amount of photos that have been taken and uploaded at certain places. It uses the basic Googlemap format so you can scroll to zoom in and move around, and the more you zoom in, the more information and actual user photos you see, you also have the option to show tags in a wordcloud so you can see what people are saying. Below are some screensnaps showing the different options for Alexandria, Egypt. There is an instant pleasure factor with this site, even if you are just browsing without intention.

Sightsmap was simultaneously really cool, really banal and really creepy. Cool because it’s fun and I did spend a lot of time looking at things, banal because pretty much everyone takes pictures of the same things in certain places, and creepy because it’s yet another example of free labor provided by users when they sign up and agree to Panoramia’s terms of service.

I think Sightsmap would be really engaging for students, and could be used as a prompt for many creative activities, and could also bring up an interesting conversation about being mindful of what we provide and control when exchanging our information/data for free.

Screensnap from Google Sightsmap

tag based word cloud

showing a closer zoom, individual user photos appear

Example of a typical user photo for the Alexandria Library

Here was one photo where a user actually went inside the library.