Week 13: Building the Pieces – Timelines & Historical Maps

Week 12 Homework (due by Noon on 4/9):

  • Finish Blog Post #5
  • IF YOU HAVE NOT PUT YOUR OUTLINE IN YOUR WORDPRESS SITE PLEASE ADD IT TO YOUR #wireframe POST (see above for instructions)
  • Finish your Omeka Sills Assessment (see above for instructions)
  • Blog Entry #6: Write a blog post about your experience creating an exhibit and be sure to include a hyperlink to your Omeka exhibit (in draft form)
  • Sign up for a Google account if you don’t already have one.
  • Read: Revolutions in the Classroom: Digital Humanities and the U.S. History Survey 
  • Metadata in Timelines Before we can build a timeline
    • Find 10 items to add to your timeline
      • Your items can be any date range, or even era
      • Your items will be stronger if you have a visual element, but not every item needs a visual

Coursework (April 9):

  • Review Sample timelines and discuss successes and areas for improvement:
  • Lecture: Creating a timeline
  • Skill Assessment – Embed timeline into WordPress (no later than Noon April 16):
    • For this skill assignment you will use Timeline.js to make a timeline that chronicles important developments in your topic.
      • Should contain 12 events about your topic. We will start with the ten you bring to class, but you are expected to add 2 more dates by the end of the assessment.
      • Events should be drawn from your research.
      • An introductory slide/entry that contains a definition of your topic.  What were the major themes, events, and issues that dominate your topic? The 12 events you add to your timeline should support this statement. Consider each event a piece of supporting evidence.
      • Each event’s entry must include an accurate date, a several sentence description, links to more information where relevant, and an image if possible.
      • Each entry’s description needs to address the 5 W’s:
        • who or what is this entry about?
        • what happened?
        • when did it happen?
        • where did it happen?
        • and lastly, but most importantly, why is this event important or significant in the history of your topic? In other words, why did you choose to include this particular event on your timeline? What makes it special or important?

Class Prep (for April 11) – Geospatial and Narrative Maps:

  • Locate at least 5 events (with a location), monuments, point of interest that relate to your topic (images or a/v)
  • Locate at least 5 archival images or A/V pieces that you can use to tell a story as it relates to your topic

Coursework (April 11):

  • Lecture- Publishing Spatial Data & Working with Historical Maps: Google Maps and StoryMapJS
  • StoryMap JS Tutorial – light version
  • StoryMap JS Tutorial – full version
  • Full tutorial on using the David Rumsey Collection for a custom map option in StoryMap JS
  • Example: Denmark Vesey’s Life Up to the Revolt
  • Skills Assessment – Embed Storymap into WordPress (no later than Noon April 16): Using StoryMapJS, build a narrative map that consists of at least five elements. Use the narrative map to relay some significant aspect of your topic.
    • Go to the StoryMap website and click “Make a story map now.” You will need a Google account with Google Drive in order to save your map.
    • Create a title slide. The map on the title slide will be derived from the places associated with later slides, so don’t expect it to display much at first.
    • Create at least five slides. Each of these slides will be associated with a point in space. You can find the places by zooming the map and dragging the pointer, or by using the search box. Try uploading an image and adding text.
    • Explore the per-slide options and the general options. For instance, which base map works best for your purposes?
  • If you did not bring your own elements, create a narrative map of the life of a formerly enslaved person as relayed in their autobiography. Make use of the available open access primary sources that we have reviewed in previous weeks to populate your map.
  • Google Maps Tutorial (Webpage) 
  • Skills Assessment – Embed Google Map into WordPress (no later than Noon April 16): Following along with the lesson, create a Google Map with the 5 events, monuments, points of interest related to your topic
    • Entries are about 150–200 words in length. They can be a person, a place, an event, a commodity/thing, or an idea. If the entry doesn’t fit into one of those broad categories, Write in full sentences.
      • Historical Significance – The “why” does this matter. What is important about this entry? Did it effect history? Is it a representation of a particular theme? What’s the broader story here? Try to limit this to a few sentences.
      • Important Notes – Anything that you deem to be particularly noteworthy about your entry. Sometimes this section will be left blank but if you find you’re left with extraneous material from the Historical Significance category then fill it in.
      • Connected to – Are there other people, places, events, ideas, etc that this entry could be connected to? If so, mention it and then be sure to draw a line to that on the map.
    • Entry Name/Title – make it easy to understand
    • Date(s) – Does not need to be exact year; Some entries may be centuries
    • Location – Necessary for the map pinpoint!
    • Media – add images or videos to enhance your entries

After Class (due by Noon on April 16):

  • Blog Entry #7: Describe any challenges or issues that arose during the creation of your timeline and/or Google Map/Story Map. What is the added value of incorporating these types of visualizations? How can you see incorporating these into your final project?
  • Once you have finished your timeline, embed your timeline into a blog post (if you also want to embed it to your Omeka exhibit, click here for instructions).
  • Embed one Google Map and one StoryMap to your WordPress Skills Assessments Page
    • You can use the data I provide in the tutorial/slides or incorporate your own research (if you also want to embed it to your Omeka exhibit, click here for instructions).
    • If you are feeling adventurous, here is a tutorial for Google Earth
  • Read: Marten Düring, “From Hermeneutics to Data to Networks: Data Extraction and Network Visualization of Historical Sources,” Programming Historian 4 (2015), https://doi.org/10.46430/phen0044.

Resources (click here to see all the resources used this semester):

Timelines:

StoryMap JS:

Google Maps:

Embedding:

Datasets and Examples for Spatial History

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