We’ve been asked to make a map this week as part of the Making Learning Connected MOOC, and I wonder if people are struggling with the idea. I’ve started any number of maps that seemed like they might be interesting (one was a map of my childhood apartment complex; another is an ongoing attempt to map out some elements of Twitter), but I didn’t get very far. I think I have struggled with how to make the map have deeper levels, to move beyond the literal. This is not part of the assignment, but I felt myself wanting to do that more and more.
So, taking a cue from the concept that mapping can come in many forms, I wondered if I could use the metaphor of music for a way to map out my life, or at least, views on life. Music has long been part of the fabric of myself — from playing music, to writing music, to just plain loving music.
I decided to do it in comic form:
Peace (in the melody),
Kevin
PS — Joe created this cool playlist about mapping.
Timely…I’d been thinking about how to integrate making #3 into my ongoing makes and networks. Recently a community social media project blindsided me. Don’t they always?
Anyway, thinking mapping without calling it that, I decided on a post or page with annotated, linked thumbnails of local participating groups’ event related pages ~ a meatball visualization of local networks. It might even encourage them to communicate with each other. One can always hope!
While looking for a page thumbnail tool, I came across http://shrinktheweb. There are others but this works more consistently than some I’ve used.
I like your use of the comic format, which might remix with this too ~ and filing it for future reference.
The thumbnail collage idea has a lot of merit. Thanks for sharing that site and I’ll be curious to see how it goes for you and your idea.
Kevin