We had another Tech Lab this morning in order to go through an introduction to the StoryMap tool. I think that this tool is going to be a great way to illustrate our research projects in a fun, interactive, innovative way. I was really surprised how easy and fun it is to create StoryMaps. The tool was very intuitive—I do not expect a great degree of difficulty from our team members in picking up the basics of this tool. I think my team is relieved to now be able to actually play with the StoryMap tool, which will help to plan the project in a more effective and more detailed way.
What I am most worried about is making sure the citations are accurately attributed to content within the StoryMap. I do, however, think that a larger bibliography page on our class website will be effective.
At this point, I’m getting more and more excited about what these projects will look like in the end. I feel like this process is pioneering a new method of academic research at Guilford and will make our school stand out.
I think the next step is to work on research until we have a basic idea of what each person is saying. From that point, we can figure out how many slides are needed for each person, complete the writing for each slide, find the media for each slide, and organize the citations. I see the last piece of the project being the actual StoryMap data entry. It seems that it will be much easier to organize and edit outside of that tool and that once we begin to enter it, we will probably want to be entering a near-final draft.