Tips and tools session at the Summer Institute of Digital Literacy

1. Create a Georeferred Guide with
Your Students
Maria Ranieri
University of Florence
Italy

2. • StoryMapJS by Northwestern
University is an Open Source
tool under MIT license that
allows you to create your own
story map.
• StoryMap JS tool provides a
simple templated editor
environment that allows you
to create a storymap as a
sequence of presentation
slides that each describe a
map location, some header
text, some explanatory text
and an optional media
content.
What is StoryMapJS?
Access to StoryMapJS:
http://storymap.knightlab.com/

3. • Exploration
• Collaborative learning
• Peer tutoring/ Peer learning
• Facilitation
• Learners’ previous expertise
• Multimedia learning
• Narrative
• Reflection on practice
Pedagogical affordances

4. • Reshaping existing contents: Using storymap to
«visualize» and present already existing contents, enriched
with multimedia. For example, you can create a storymap
of Ulisse’s trip, or to create a timeline with geographical
references of historical events.
• Creating new contents: Using storymap as a tool to
present a work of exploration and knowledge of the
territory: in this case, the workfield becomes crucial for
the production of documentation and contents – including
interviews and photos etc. – which subsequently are
implemented in a multimedia format according to the
target audience.
Educational uses

5. A Guide with StoryMapJS & the PDI framework
How is the place
where I live?
What is its history?
Observe your
environment and
discuss
Negotiate with
peers decisions
and roles
Why my friends or
other people
should come here?
Confront with peers
about aspects that
deserve to be
highlighted
What decisions
inspired our design
of the guide?
How was my
contribution to the
workgroup?
How did the digital
device inluence
our decisions?
Define roles and
contributions of each
member of the group
Decide what type
of guide you want
to create
Make your ‘voice
heard’ through our
product

6. Example 1: Inside Florence
This guide proposes an itinerary in the center of Florence
to discover the Dome, ist buildings and old churches.
It has been produced to showto the students how simple
is to work with this digital tool.
At a first stage students can combine texts and images.
More sophisticated products will include also audio
tracks and videorecordings. They could be pre-existing or
created by the students.
Technical features
Storymap
Text
Images

7. Example 2:
Lino, the ball, descovering Prato
Technical features
Storymap
Text
Audio
This guide proposes an itinerary in the downtown of
Prato (a twon close to Florence) to discover to historical
monuments of the twon.
This guide has been created by teacher students at the
Faculty of Primary Education of the University of
Florence.
Teacher students experimented this activity to test it
later with their students in their professional life.

8. This guide proposes an itinerary in the area of Mugello
(close to Florence) looking for places where signiticant
events occurred during the Second World War.
The project has been carried out by the students of a five
grade class in the high school «Chino Chini» in Borgo San
Lorenzo.
This work has been possible also thanks to the
collaboration with the writer Sandra Cerbai, Andrea Gatti
and the association UNICOOP from Borgo San Lorenzo.
Example 3:
War and antifascism in the Mugello area
Technical features
Storymap
Text
Video

9. • You can add images to any page by uploading them from your
computer or by entering a link to an online image.
• You can also embedd any other type of multimedia content like
video from Vimeo or YouTube or audio from SoundCloud.
• The media box includes an URL area and a space to enter a caption
and credit for the image.
• You can add additional pages by clicking "Add Slide" in the left-hand
menu.
• You can add points to your map, one per slide, by typing the
building, street, city, and country, and use the zoom bar in the top
left to find the location.
• You can customize the map style, background color, and font using
the Options buttons.
• You can click Share to send through social media or to use an
embed code.
• As the editor tool is linked to a Google Drive account, a google mail
is necessary to access the service.
Overview of features

10. Mini-task
Task: In pair decide a place you want to present
to your colleagues. Locate it in the map and
create three slides including images and texts
with historical information about different
historical monuments of that place.

11. Reflection prompt
In pair, select one of these questions and discuss with your
colleague:
• Question 1: What type of teaching and learning activities
StoryMapJS might (or might not) support in your
workplace?
• Question 2: What conditions would favour and what
constrains woulf limit the use of StoryMapJS for your
professional activities?
• Question 3: What type of activities would you carry on to
prepare your students and what type of activities would
you propose to tour students to stimulate reflection and
transfer of knowledge and capabilities?

12. Thanks! 
Maria on the cloud
e-mail: maria.ranieri@unifi.it
academia.edu: http://unifi.academia.edu/mariaranieri
researchgate:
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Maria_Ranieri/?ev=hdr_xprf
linkedIn: it.linkedin.com/pub/maria-ranieri/2a/39a/b28
slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/MariaRanieri1
diigo: https://www.diigo.com/user/mariaranieri
scoop.it!: http://www.scoop.it/u/maria-ranieri
twitter: http://twitter.com/emmeran
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ranierimaria