Infographics prove harrowing for uninitiated

With the exception of our photo slideshow assignment from earlier in the semester, I have not worked much with web-based programming. I feel uninitiated with it, and it frightens me.

However, I rolled up my sleeves and dove into it. I looked at our three tasks through the lens of a story idea the staff kicks around every year: open lunch options at NKCHS.

I started off by building the map. I tried to use Google Maps and Mapquest, but—as dumb as this sounds in my head—I could not figure out how to work them. I use both fairly frequently for directions, but I couldn’t get the look I wanted, couldn’t get the pins for locations to stay put, and finally ran out of patience.

I wound up using Story Maps from arcgis.com. I found it pretty easy to use, after reading through the tutorial. I really found all of the different tools useful, and liked the different shapes and colors I could use when dropping pins on the map. It also made it very easy to determine which zoom I should use.

Instead of mapping the schools in my district—we have 22 elementary, five middle, four high school, two technical and one alternative schools—I decided to make the map more local. NKC has long had an “open lunch.” Students love the opportunity to get out of the building to eat, and due to the location of the school there are many restaurant options within walking distance. I decided to include the high school, and six of the more popular destinations. The staff is always discussing the idea of including a map and schedule, so I figured this would be a good way for me to show what was possible.

When deciding between the poll and survey, I will admit that I took the easy way out. I’ve been behind on our work this week, and I just wanted to get something done quickly, and make sure that it connected with the theme of open lunch. I used polldaddy.com to ask one simple question, and included the restaurants on the map as answer options. I think this may be more in line with what my students want to do on our website. Polls like this one complement these fun stories about life at NKCHS because they let students see what their habits are.

Finally, I concentrated on the timeline. This element by far took the most time to build. I decided on Tiki-Toki as the resource to use. It wasn’t all that hard to use, but there were a lot of fields that needed to be populated with information. I originally wanted to give a timeline of our 33-minute lunch periods. I thought it would be fun to show how long it would take to walk to a restaurant, order, and walk back. Unfortunately, I couldn’t figure out how to make that happen.

Instead, I looked up the information on the history of open lunch at NKCHS. I wanted to show when each of the establishments in the map and poll came to town, but I could only find that information for two of them. I may have been able to find more, but time ran out for me. I think my original idea would have worked better in keeping with the theme. I can picture my students using these timelines when doing season wrap-ups for sports or other activities, theater or musical schedules, or stories about the history of the school.

Overall, I struggled with the tasks this week. I think they turned out okay, but I would have liked to have spent more time with them.