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Idealab April Report

The phases of this project consisted of the author teaching themselves how to create Google Maps, developing a tutorial on how to build maps, and providing one-on-one training to colleagues. This allowed the knowledge and ability to create maps to be shared. The author believes including maps adds value for readers and helps the newsroom develop digital skills. Going forward, the author plans to experiment with Storify and create tutorials to further incorporate social media into news delivery.

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kellyametz
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71 views

Idealab April Report

The phases of this project consisted of the author teaching themselves how to create Google Maps, developing a tutorial on how to build maps, and providing one-on-one training to colleagues. This allowed the knowledge and ability to create maps to be shared. The author believes including maps adds value for readers and helps the newsroom develop digital skills. Going forward, the author plans to experiment with Storify and create tutorials to further incorporate social media into news delivery.

Uploaded by

kellyametz
Copyright
© Attribution Non-Commercial (BY-NC)
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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APRIL REPORT IDEALAB

This past month, I experimented with Google Maps and made that my 30-day project and thus
the April report.
At the start of the month, I didn’t know how to build a Google Map. I knew Tom Skoch, the
editor-in-chief here at The Morning Journal, knew how to build one and so did Freddy Hunt, our
Web editor, but I didn’t know how to make one. No one had taught me.

So, one day I got handed a story about a car chase through a local neighborhood and I figured
that moment was as good a time as any to incorporate a Google Map into the story. It took me a
little bit of time, it took me a lot of frustration, but I did it. I made my first Google map.

I taught myself how to create the map, personalize the icons and pinpoint the starting point and
ending point based on the information that was in the police report.

After I taught myself how to create one, I went through the process of creating a tutorial on how
to build a Google map, which required nearly two hours of going through Google Maps, writing
the steps, screenshots and figuring out if there were other ways of doing it. I created the tutorial
and posted it to the www.newsfromthefield.com blog, and while I know it’s not the first tutorial
on Google Maps to make its debut in the JRC family, I feel confident about it.
Not only did I build the tutorial to post to the blog to share with the rest of the JRC crew, I held a
mini-workshop in the newsroom and taught two colleagues (an editor and fellow reporter) on
how to create the maps.
I sat down with them one-on-one and we went through the steps on how to sign in, create a map,
enter the points and in the end, embed the map into the story. The reporter doesn’t know how to
create and publish stories onto the website, so that last part was somewhat of a moot point.
The editor quickly learned it wasn’t as hard as she thought it was and created a Google map
through our one-on-one session on a series of dumpster fires in the area that appeared suspicious
and connected.

Phases: Resources: Metrics:


The phases of this project I used Google Maps and I am not sure how one can
consisted of me training also used search engines to measure the success of a
myself, creating a tutorial, figure out other tips. I also Google Map, without
posting the tutorial for my learned you can’t create a conducting surveys to
knowledge and the ability personalized icon without learn if the readers found it
to share that knowledge a URL. useful. I know we include
and conducting one-on-one maps with several stories
training with the staff in now, and those stories
The Morning Journal seem to have a little extra
newsroom. oomph because we are
helping the reader see
where something
happened.

What I learned:
I learned how to implement and personalize maps for everyday use in stories. The maps add a
visualize to the readers and helps lift the burden of describing each turn, location and so on. I
also learned, or at least I hope I learned, that teaching others in the newsroom will help with
creating a new digital mentality. If more than one person in the newsroom knows how to do it,
maybe I won’t be the only one thinking about digital resources that need to be incorporated into
our everyday workflow.

The Issues:
As I stated before, I am not sure how to measure the metrics for using Google Maps, other than
posting a “Did you find this helpful?” survey at the end of a story. Also, you can’t monetize
Google Maps (as far as I can tell).

Training:
As I stated before, I was able to sit down with two individuals in my newsroom as well as post a
tutorial on the blog. The sit-down with the editor was most helpful, because I believe she will be
able to incorporate the digital thinking into the everyday workflow, because she knows what
building a map might entail.
Building a map is also a lot easier than say, building a timeline, and therefore the building of the
map and copying and pasting an embed code to a copy editor takes a lot less time. Therefore, it
will not hinder a reporter from completing the task, writing the story and possibly hopefully
creating a video before deadline. And now, because an editor and another reporter knows how to
build one (in addition to those who knew before I taught them), it will be much easier to delegate
work and the newsroom will be more overlapped in creating these multimedia components –
rather than the task falling on just one set of shoulders.

What’s next:
I have officially experimented with Storify. I created a Storify, just to tinker with it, in order to
post what I was doing, thinking and feeling, about the use of social media in the May 1
announcement that Osama Bin Laden was dead.
I plan on creating similar tutorials when toying with Storify and figuring out what stories we can
do here to really incorporate the use of Storify into our news delivery.
Luckily, Storify is able to embed both Twitter and Facebook into a unique timeline – which is
something that will truly come in handy because we have more of a Facebook presence in Lorain
County than Twitter.
However, we can still use Twitter when posting national stories.

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