#7 Progress report

Creating my presentation platform
First of, I've created a google site, using on of the existing templates, which was thought to be my medium of presentation of the project. Then I modified the template for a more user friendly environment. Sadly, all of this turned out bad. I erased to much of the sidebars and lost track of the red line of the site. So, instead, I created a separate blog, here on blogger: Final Project

The header consists of pictures of the oil spill in the Mexican Golf, I’ve photoshoped different pictures and created a montage which captures the oil spill disaster in a broad perspective. I have also included BP's logo in one of the squares, in this way, it makes it more understandable of which oil spill I have created the interactive map. I'm not sure thou about the copy right rules of the pictures in the header, and I need to look into that and see if I can use them...


A interactive map of the Gulf oil spill

The interactive map includes the position of Deepwater Horizon, the fishery closure boundary and also the position of the Gulf Islands National Seashore which is a protected territory because of it’s rich wild life. I’ve found a problem when using the line tool. I tried to insert a fish symbol for the fishing boundary line, but with out any success. I e-mailed google about this and we’ll see if I can get any suggestion on how to solve this. I think it would be more sense-making to have a symbol somewhere along the line to make it more understandable of what just that specific line means.

Text analysis

I have picked out five press releases from BP's 'Gulf of Mexico response' web page, they are all within the first week of the disaster. And I have also picked out some articles, just to check if my analysis program ManyEyes can create interesting visualizations. I'm pleased with the results and I believe ManyEyes is a suitable tool for my material. 

Problems and thoughts

1) Find a interesting approach on my material. I have still not found a approach for my material, and I need that before I can start my analysis.

2) I have decided that I'm only gonna create a interactive map, instead of both a map and a timeline. I think it will be enough, if I can place findings of my analys and keep on building it up with more tags with relevant facts.

To see the Final project, click here.

Remediating History through Mapping

I picked the battle of Dieppe because World War II is interesting in many ways. It has shaped and influenced the world as we know it today, both culture vice and geographically. All the information used in the map is taken from Wikipedia. I have selected parts from the event which I think works well with the look of the map.

My remediated map consists of three different tags. One representing a Nazi German radio station, which was one of the targets of the mission and one image representing a tank regiment and finally a tag which indicates where the army was put on shore.
I used clip-art images to capture and symbolize the action, in this way it makes it more interesting and also more understandable. I wouldn't go all the way and say that I create a realistic visualization, but something in that direction. In the tags you can find short information and a picture.
I have included links in the tags which takes you to Wikipedia for further information. As for the metadata, I chose to show the source from where I got them. I wanted to include a short movie clip of the event to give a even more clear picture of what happens, but could not find that option.

History Pin is a awesome tool for students whom doing history documentation projects. It is user generated, as for both pictures and stories and collaborates with google street view. This means that while you are using google street view you can also see how a building used to look etc.
Community Walk, differs however from History Pin, it is mainly a site for mapping communities and building interactive maps. Its target group are business and property owners whom wants to market houses and districts. Trippermaps is a website which allows you to make photo collaborations with your Flickr pictures. The target group is mainly blogger whom can use this to show of their photos in a more interesting way. Trippermap, compared to History Pin and Community walk, is not built on Googles maps interface. Insted it uses its own platform.



My creation of the 1942 battle of Dieppe Map

Final project

For my final project, I will look closer at the disastrous oil spill in the Mexican golf. This disaster occurd the 20th of april 2010 and lasted for months. It had a massive impact on humans as well as the nature, and it will take time for the natural life as well as for the humans to get back to the life and surroundings as they know it. Therefore, I think it can be interesting to to use the features as ManyEyes to perform text analysis on press releases from BP during the disaster. Due to the limitation of time, I will not be able to go thru them all. Therefore, I need make a selection. I want to see how they communicate in the beginning, middle and in the end of the catastrophe. ManyEyes allows to find similarities and patterns. I will also create a Timeline. Which, hopefully, connects with my text analysis, in that way that I can see patterns.

The press releases can be here 
http://www.bp.com/PressReleaseDateSorterAction.do?categoryId=2012968&contentId=2006635&year=2010&month=4&taxonomyId=2021012

This will be my last blog post on this blog, my work will be shown on a separate blog.