Digital Tools

When studying each of the cities referenced through the creation of exhibits, I was charged with the task of implementing the digital tools provided for me. In thinking about how these digital influenced my learning The overarching theme that I think characterizes my experience with digital tools thus far is “challenging”.  Firstly, the creation of each assignment via Omake was a challenge in itself. Navigating Omeka served to be the most arduous piece of creating any exhibit as I had to learn what tools were going to be at my disposal to begin with. The format of an exhibit is a bit more extensive than that of the traditional essay in that one must begin to think of the aesthetic approach they are using in crafting their work. Thinking about the aesthetic, in one way or another, definitely played into the idea of the urban aesthetics I was looking at in each city. Using Omeka as something of a home base, I then was introduced to different tools such as Google Maps. While I’d surely used Google Maps in the past to navigate from point A to point B, Id certainly never created one of my own. Using google maps to create a pathway through Moscow opened my eyes to the concentric circles that were talked about but I’d never really assessed for myself. In the same way, the use of the timeline application for Mumbai opened my eyes to the turnover of the locations that I’d been discussing in my paper. In accordance with the theme I introduced, it was certainly a challenge to incorporate these tools. Making the map for Moscow certainly was not a “one and done” deal. It certainly took a few trials before I could settle on the map that I decided to embed. In the same way, the timeline took some figuring out before I was able to settle on a design and sequence that I felt truly represented the themes of my exhibit. However, these challenges were certainly welcomed as they surely added much more depth to the discussions of the cities that were being discussed throughout the semester.