Mapping Women’s Movements

Following up on our earlier post about Google Maps Engine Lite, Ariella Rotramel, Visiting Assistant Professor of Gender and Women’s Studies, recently created a collaborative assignment using Google Maps in her Transnational Women’s Movements class last semester.

The goal of the class project was to “help students explore a broader range of women’s movements beyond what we could cover in our course materials and help students gain first-hand experience with the complexities of researching and representing women’s movements…” Students were organized into groups based on region which enabled them to support each other and provide peer feedback on their map entries. Each student added 10 unique sites to the map. Each site included a brief synopsis of the site’s relevance, images or video, links to additional information, including news, academic or advocacy sources. After creating the map, students used their research as a starting point for a short paper, providing them with the opportunity to engage more deeply with topics that grew out of their map research.

Professor Rotramel worked closely with librarian Ashley Hanson and an instructional designer Laura Little in the design and implementation of this assignment, and they both visited the class to introduce elements of the assignment. Students were encouraged to contact them with research or technology-related questions during the course of the project.  Professor Rotramel hopes to further refine the assignment and work with future classes to develop the map.  Her long term aspiration is that the map can receive additions from people across the globe and become an open-access teaching tool.

Visit the Transnational Women’s Movements Map here. How might you use maps in your class? Post in the comments below, contact Professor Rotramel with questions about her assignment, or your Instructional Technology liaison with questions about using Google Maps Engine Lite in your class.