Concept mapping

Who knew this little experiment in mapping literature would take us from a female utopia to a repository from software coding? What seemed relatively simple on the surface quickly became a deluge of browser tabs on the intricacies of StoryMapJS. How hard could it be? There’s a map of Arya’s journey from Game of Thrones.

or, in this case, add a marker to the digital copy of a beautifully hand-drawn interpretation of Herland.

StoryMapJS is a great tool, and I think would be easily learned, for locating points of interest on the supported existing maps. Using an image is much more involved. And, while it can be learned, the difficulty increases quickly if the user isn’t technologically adept. I enjoyed the challenge, and it’s nice to get to work in a group and get something accomplished. We did not have much time to discuss what exactly we wanted to show on the map, as most of our time was spent trying to create the map and get it to work as expected.

I enjoyed the network mapping in Gephi more than the work on this project. Most likely because the software felt somewhat familiar to me once the data was input correctly.The available options in Gephi lends itself to visualizing data in different ways. Emphasis can be placed on the node or the edges, and characteristics for each are plentiful.

I liked using both applications, but for different reasons. Gephi was pretty easy to work with. The difficult part for me was understanding what data to show and how the data related to each other. StoryMapJS was not difficult, per se, but a challenge in acquiring the desired results. If we could have used a pre-generated map, I don’t think we would have had any problems with the getting our desired results.

I a bit excited and a bit apprehensive of the final project. I like the challenge of learning new tools, but not if the data I’m using doesn’t lend itself easily to those tools. Of course, I may be over-thinking things as well. I look forward to being able to use a new text and see how that works.