Tag Archives: timelines

Of Formatting & Media

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ITF ed. note: This resource guide was originally crafted by ITF Maggie Galvan for use in Professor Paul Moses’s 2015 Seminar 2 course as students were building their website, The Peopling of Flatbush. Read the original post here.

In class today, we kickstarted the process of putting our research about Flatbush onto the course website as I demonstrated how to upload text and images. Then, each group met to discuss their specific content and action plan both for putting & formatting existing content online and for gathering & creating additional content (e.g. text, images, interactive media). To this end, this informational post introduces a few plugins that I, your Instructional Technology Fellow, have activated to help you format your text and also shares information for those of you who wish to create timelines.

If there are other functions that are important for your group, be in contact. The next time we spend class time working on the website, we will definitely cover how to create excerpts, how to create galleries, and how to create menus to organize our content. I can cover other relevant materials, but it is imperative that I am aware of these needs as soon as possible so that I can research and prepare. Continue reading →

Mapping, timelines, video, audio, plugins, etc.

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Here’s a list of resources particularly useful for Seminar 2, but likely useful for other courses, as well.

Making Radio
This American Life has a page of extensive resources about how to structure/write engaging audio.

Mapping Software Other than Google Maps
Google Maps, linked above, is often the go-to for map-making on the web, but it is not ideal for every use. Here’s a list of some other options that you can also edit and embed on your site. (If you want to extensively use maps on your site, you should activate the UMapper plugin that supports easy embedding of certain online map formats.)
ArcGIS Online
GeoCommons
Social Explorer
UMapper

Timelines
To make timelines, you might request a class version of Tiki-Toki that will allow for the creation of 5 embeddable timelines for the class under one account. For some basic information on how to use different media in Tiki-Toki, visit the FAQ page.

Audio
For those of you looking to use audio clips on the website, you should activate the podPress plugin.

Images
NextGEN Gallery is the one of the best plugins to use when presenting images. There are capabilities within this plugin to create the pop-up style image viewing you’re familiar with on Facebook.

Flash
If you want to have a Flash portion of your website, Wix is likely your best bet. You can create a page on there that can be embedded in the class site. You can see Wix in action on the main page of a past Seminar 2 East Harlem site.

For those of you who wanted to make a recipe book, this might be the best way to achieve that. Check out this book-like template on Wix. To access those kind of pages, once in Wix, you go to Add > Page Parts > Page Groups > More > Sketchbook. More information about Page Groups in Wix can be found here.

Seminar 3/Presentation Resources

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Poster
If you’re creating a poster, you can do so in Powerpoint or Keynote. The standard size is 36”x48” (one side MUST be 36”), or 3456 pixels by 2592 pixels (300 dpi). To change the size in Keynote, go to Inspector > Document Inspector > Slide Size > Custom Slide Size. To change the size in Powerpoint, go to File > Page Setup. If you want to print the poster for free at Macaulay, you’ll have to do so a week in advance and fill out this form.

Blog entry on the ins and outs of poster construction
Short video on how to make a scientific poster with Keynote
Examples of past Seminar 3 posters

Presentation
Using slides for presentations is so standard that the two major programs, Keynote and Powerpoint, both use this format. As we talked about in class, it might be useful to experiment with the idea of spatially grouping concepts and ideas together by using a Prezi. For your presentation at Macaulay, you will need to limit yourself to fifteen minutes.

Keynote Tutorials
Powerpoint Tutorials
Prezi for Education sign up
Prezi Tutorials
Powerpoint and Presentation Suggestions

Additional resources
In putting together your poster and/or presentation, you may find that you have a particular set of data that you want to visualize or organize in a particular way. Here’s a run-down of some resources that might be of use to you.