Neatline, a creation of the Scholars’s Lab, is a geo-temporal exhibit builder that uses archives and artifacts from an Omeka collection to create interactive timelines and maps.
Neatline imports collections created in Omeka and makes it possible to plot them on a map. Text, images, and timelines can be added to points of interest on the map, or a stand-alone timeline can be created. No special software is required to view completed Neatline “exhibits.”
There are many ways to navigate through an exhibit created with Neatline. A user can click on a point of interest on the map, a title, or click through the timeline. The simple layout of Neatline makes it a valuable visualization tool for digital humanists.
Thursday, Thursday, April 19, 12:00 noon, Frist Multipurpose Room A
Using Maps in Teaching with Ben Johnston
In this session we will investigate the use of Google Maps and Google Earth as a teaching tool. Google Maps have become so common on the Internet partly because they are so easy to create. It is just as easy to plot your own locations on these maps and store information about those locations. Google Maps can be used as a way to organize location-related research notes or as a research archive on which an entire class can collaborate and compile, mapping out for example all references to locations in a novel or mapping the locations of historical sites. The WordPress plugin, WPGeo will also be presented in this session. The WPGeo plugin, available to all blogs on the campus WordPress platform, allows one to associate locations with blog posts and create cumulative maps displaying all the locations described by posts. In this way, a map can easily be used as a navigational element for the blog.
About the speaker:
Ben Johnston is Senior Educational Technologist at OIT’s Educational Technologies Center and manager of the Humanities Resource Center in East Pyne. Ben has been involved with educational technology for over twelve years in positions at Columbia University, Bryn Mawr College, and at Princeton University. While at Princeton, Ben has worked with educators and researchers across the Humanities and Social Sciences to facilitate the use of digital assets, technology tools, databases, and digital video in teaching and research.
National Atlas.gov is a place where you can find maps from different time periods. Along with the maps, you can add different amounts of data to see visual representations on the map. The map is interactive and at times gives you information on what county in a state you are in. This site is great from anybody studying the natural sciences (social sciences too) or history (because of the visualization of the data). The site is free. To test drive some interactive maps, click on the link below:
I recently found this post on the Mashable site about 5 map sites that can allow you to view all over the world. Some have 3D pictures, some have video. These are great sites to use in the classroom to add an interactive component to an assignment. Check out the original post on Mashable here:
If you use Google maps and you like the 3D look and flying capabilities of Google Earth, you can now have the 3D look of Google Earth in your Google Maps. It makes it easy to switch between the two views in one interface without having to open up the Google Earth application. To check out a preview before you try it at Google Maps, watch the video below: