In a blog post on your portfolio site, reflect on the experience of learning how to use StoryMaps. How would you feel about helping someone else learn how to use it? What did you find most interesting? What did you find most frustrating? What questions do you still have, and what parts of the tool do you want to explore more deeply?

Using StoryMaps seems similar to using WordPress, except StoryMaps might be more dynamic and far-ranging. Mostly all of the features were “templatized,” so I think it would be easy for someone I’m helping to get the hang of this. Once you have all your materials collected (thankfully, we were provided with an example of what to re-create organized exceedingly clearly), the work of the collecting it all into the StoryMaps app seems fairly simple. With the training materials, it was almost monotonous, but that could be because I didn’t personally do the research and writing on the Santa María Volcano.

StoryMaps is a tool that my project lead and I are considering using to tell the story of the history of women’s studies programs and academic feminism, particularly focusing on the creation and dissolution of them in particular countries around the world. When are you just putting information on a site? And when are you actually telling a story? I want to gain a better understanding of how to tell this story effectively or whether another tool might tell this narrative better. Something that is limiting about StoryMaps is you can header each topic and clicking on a topic will drag the user down to it, but if you want to send a link directing someone to a particular portion of the StoryMap, this may not be possible. This feature almost demands that everything be in narrative with each other. Would someone realistically want to read through this full history? Would they want to jump around? What would compel them to continue through the whole StoryMap? I also noticed that there is a “coding” feature, and I wonder what possibilities could arise from that.