GEOG 258: Digital Geographies is instructed at the University of Washington Department of Geography, and was designed by Professor Sarah Elwood. Emmma Slager, PhD candidate and internet rogue, crafted the hands-on learning materials for this course. GEOG 258 is a freshman+sophomore class designed to teach students about the structure, development and ethics of digital geographic content online. Lectures are conceptually oriented, where students discuss theories of web design and data development. Lab sections are dedicated to the mastery of several tools and platforms including IDEs, Google My Maps, Google Javascript API, Fulcrum, and Carto DB.
Students are tasked with creating a digital tour guide using Google's free "My Maps" service. They begin by populating a spreadsheet featuring the name of the site, a piece of primary data, ae piece of secondary data, lat-long coordinates, and embedding links to pictures. By the end of this proejct, students will have mastered the following skills:
Project 2 strips away the luxury (and limitations) of a packaged platform. Students are introduced to the usage of Google API (Application Programming Interface). Here, they learn to develop maps that can be hosted directly on their own personal websites. Part 1 of the project is a tutorial that coaches students in the baics of HTML and JavaScript coding. By the end of the project, students will have mastered the following skills:
Project 3 combines these skills across two different platforms, Fulcrum and Carto DB. Students are tasked with creating a mobile data survey for exploring public art. With Fulcrum they will create several questions for anzlyzing art, take a picture of their art, and generate a database for their responses. They will then export their database and its corresponding photos, host those photos on their student shared webspace and, just like in Project 1, embed photo links hosted from their webspace in their databases. The database file will then be imported to Carto DB, and they will then experiment with the Carto DB mapping service to generate an intuitive display of their data. At the conclusion of this assignment, students will have mastered the following skills:
The final project will be an online porfolio hosted on the UW Student Shared webspace. It will feature the students' three projects, and anything else they would like ot add. This will be an extended foray in website design. At the conclusion of this proejct, students will have mastered:
Aya is a doctoral candidate at the University of Washington Department of Geography. She is currently researching geographies of health and the martial arts. Previously, she studied at Virginia Tech and the Indiana University of Pennsylvania Robert E. Cook Honors College. This is her first ground-up website.
Navbar background image credit: Toptal: Topography" https://www.toptal.com/designers/subtlepatterns/