Interactive Map of 370 Jay St.

Problem

This fall, the ECT program moved to our new home at 370 Jay street. Our old space at
MAGNET had a lot of energy and a strong culture because it house multiple programs and
regular events. The upside of the move is that our program now gets a dedicated space to make
our own. The downside is that the new space is underutilized and it will take time to
re-established a strong sense of community.

Solution

To help jump-start the community building, I wanted to develop a tool that would invite students,
faculty and staff to help co-design the space. I decided to make an interactive indoor map where
we can be free to experiment with shared meaning-making as a department. I went with an
interactive map for these reasons:

● Bridge the gap between f2f and online students

● Empower creativity by going beyond the physical and literal
● Represent many layers of information and meaning in an intuitive and visual way

Process

1. I got feedback from Maaike about my concept. She shared an existing floor plan that I
could use as a starting point.
2. I researched the best way to ​map an image into specific coordinates ​on an interactive
map, using ​Mapbox GL JS​, a javascript library that I’ve used for other mapmaking
projects.
3. I selected a unique icons for each full-time faculty member from the ​fontawesome library
based on the faculty member’s research interests. I ran my choices by Maaike for some
initial feedback.
4. I created markers from these icons using ​this tutorial​ by creating a dataset in geojson
format and placing the data in the location of each faculty member’s office.

Theories

● CSCL - ​I consider this project to be in the tradition of computer supported collaborative

learning theory, which refers to situations in which computer technology plays a
significant role in shaping the collaboration (Goodyear, Jones & Thompson, 2014,
p.440). This tool mediates collaboration between participants who are separated by time
and space.
● Collaboration - ​Specifically, this tool is meant to support the act of collaboration, a
coordinated, synchronous activity that is the result of a continued attempt to construct
 and maintain a shared concept of the problem (Stahl, Koschmann & Suthers, 2006, p.3).
Although this tool is meant to be used asynchronously, in contrast to the definition of
Stahl et al, I believe the shared meaning making can still count and true collaboration if
users remix and build upon each other's contributions.

Next Steps

In the first phase, I overlayed a floor plan onto an interactive map and overlayed faculty specific
icons onto the floor plan. This is only a proof of concept and there are many other things I would
like to do in subsequent iterations including:

● Add many additional layers of information such as faculty bio, areas that are defined by
use, symbolic features, multimedia, etc..
● Configure the map to show different information depending on map zoom level.
● Develop a color scheme to strengthen the visual identity of the space.
● Incorporate locations outside of the building.
● Crowdsource what information should be on the map.
● Create collaborative tools so that users can add things to the map on their own.
● Etc.

Sources

Goodyear, Peter; Jones, Chris and Thompson, Katherine (2013). Computer-supported

collaborative learning: instructional approaches, group processes and educational designs. In:
Spector, J. M.; Merrill, M. D.; Elen, J. and Bishop, M. J. eds. ​Handbook of Research on
Educational Communications and Technology (4th Edition).​ New York: Springer, pp. 439–452.

Stahl, G., Koschmann, T., & Suthers, D. (2006). Computer supported collaborative learning: An
historical perspective. In R. K. Sawyer (Ed.), Cambridge handbook of the learning sciences (pp.
409-426). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.