I teach in a K-8 school, and we currently have ArcGIS accounts for 5-8th grade students. During Virtual Learning I helped another 5th grade teacher adapt his traditional Greek Wax Museum project for distanced learning using StoryMaps to create a Virtual Museum<https://arcg.is/19TPav>. I used StoryMaps as a way to guide students through lessons each day. And, I’d like to expand the use of StoryMaps in my school to use it in more sophisticated ways as well.
The issue is that if one teacher at each grade level uses StoryMaps for student produced work twice a year, that ends up populating the Shared With Me feature with over 400 individual StoryMaps (and we are a small school). Students in 5th grade are wading through hundreds of projects from students in other grades that they don’t need to see. And, if a teacher wants to use StoryMaps as a professional presentation tool, he or she might not necessarily want students to have access to that work.
I wish there were a way to either organize content into folders or have some intermediary level where you could make what you’ve created not necessarily visible within Shared With Me to the entire organization but still visible to the larger world (making publishing to group feature still a live URL). I am thinking is like how Unlisted video content is handled on YouTube. My instructional videos aren’t visible on my public facing feed, but I can still share them if I choose to share the URL.
StoryMaps has a lot of potential for greater use in educational settings. Having a better understanding of the UE in educational settings from an administrative, educator and student perspective might help to smooth the transition.
Kathy Carroll
World History
Social Studies Vertical Team Leader
St. John’s Episcopal School
848 Harter Road
Dallas, TX 75218
214-328-9131
www.stjohnsschool.org<http://www.stjohnsschool.org/>
www.weavingourstory.org<http://www.weavingourstory.org/>
<http://www.stjohnsschool.org/>
