“Looking at maps in textbooks or lectures is a fundamentally different experience from creating a map yourself“
The first quote of the article really sets the stage for the rest of the article, and shows what the main point is. Story maps are a wonderful tool to use in a history classroom. Whether you made one and you’re teaching your students with it, or you have the students make their own, it is something that should be used in the classroom. It allows students to build a greater foundation for understanding the topic, as well as it being hands on. History classrooms lack in the hands on department. I feel like it always revolves around making PowerPoints. I don’t think there is anything wrong with that. I liked making PowerPoints in history classes through high school, but having something to shake it up like story maps would have been nice.
“Actively mapping the information they were reading led students to focus on different kinds of information in their sources. This spatial approach not only familiarized them with Latin American geography, but also encouraged closer reading and a critical lens the geographic assumptions of scholarship.”
The second quote really hammers in the reason story maps should be used in classrooms. Allowing students to focus on different information and build they maps really helps them have a greater understanding. One aspect schools in the country is failing in is geography. Geography isn’t taught like it should be, and this can help weave that into classrooms, to better help with geographic understanding. Maps helping students build better reading and critical lens skills is also great. Students need to be able to go through historical sources and information and use their critical lenses.
“The Story Maps platform does not allow editing by multiple people at the same time. Due to the nature of how students do their work, they struggled to schedule times when they would each work on the site.“
The third quote to me shows a big problem with the program when used in a collaborative classroom setting. Being able to simultaneously work on it is hugely important in a classroom setting. Not being able to do that is one thing PowerPoint has over it. Even though the students could just organize their work in a google doc or something similar, I think it would add to the confusion in the classroom. After reading the article the inability to work on it simultaneously is my only issue. I think if they allowed that as a feature then it would be perfect for classrooms and group work since it would eliminate any added confusion with having to use another program.
