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Digital Literacy and Practice

This guide provides useful resources and information to support faculty teaching courses in the Digital Literacy and Practice pathway for The University of Alabama's General Education courses.

Designing Technology Assignments

In this activity, I am going to present a digital project that you will then produce in the next 15 minutes. I will give you directions and a link to the tool we are using, and I will spend a few minutes introducing the tool to you. 

We will follow my assignment instructions and build a simple StoryMap using StoryMapJS. This application is a very easy tool that does not require installation or specialized skills. 

After you spend 15 minutes building a project using StoryMapJS, I will give you 5 minutes to reflect on the directions and make notes.

Together, we will come back together and identify a few key assignment components such as potential learning outcomes and disciplinary potential. 

StoryMaps use a combination of annotated pins on a map and other media sources through image embedding and links to tell a space-based story. The JS in Knight Lab’s StoryMapJS stands for JavaScript, which is a programming language that allows users to interact with web-based information. StoryMapJS uses Google Spreadsheets on the back end to connect the map to the content.

Directions:

  • Navigate to StoryMapJS
  • Sign in with your Google Account
  • Start a new project
  • Add three places to your project
    • Location
    • Headline
    • Description
    • Media

Reflective Questions:

  • What kind of additional technical information or instruction do you think your student might need for this? Think about what we've been talking about today. 
  • This project is completely absent of any framing or goals. What are some potential ways to frame this project that apply to YOUR class? What would you want your students to be learning if they used a tool like this?