Christopher D. Sessums :: Blog :: Ways of Seeing: Maps, Mapping, and Visualization Resources

I heart (<3) maps. I always have. I like to have a sense of where I am and where I could go. Maps also seem to provide me a sense of fate control. If I can dream it, I can map it.

Maps take many forms and serve many purposes. As an explorer/wanderer/researcher, I have collected a handful of sites you may find compelling or even useful. Many of these links are fun as they are. However, as I browse through many of these sites, my brain flips into educator mode and I find myself wondering, "How might I use this resource in my classroom?" Sometimes, the answer is obvious. Other times I find myself making a mental bookmark and to return to later. Feel free to leave any links or ideas on how you might use these sites in your teaching/learning experiences.


Geography & Map Reading Room
I got wonderfully engrossed in a number of early railroad maps. I enjoy examining the various cartographic styles and techniques. I often find myself enjoying them the same way I enjoy fine art.


Perry-Castaneda Library Map Collection at the University of Texas-Austin
This site holds maps from around the world (current and historical), as well as a variety of data, information, and thematic maps.

An Atlas of Cyberspaces
This is an atlas of maps and graphic representations of the geographies of the new electronic territories of the Internet, the World-Wide Web and other emerging cyberspaces. A fantastic and consuming site.

 
Google Maps Mania
An unofficial Google Maps blog tracking the websites, mashups and tools being influenced by Google Maps.

 
Strange Maps
This has become one of my favorite sites and once you visit, you'll probably agree.

 
Google Maps: Create Personalized Maps
A brief tutorial on how to create personalized maps using Google maps. Many, many potential classroom uses using this application limited only to your imagination.

Finding Other Maps from ancestry.com
If you can’t find the map you want, try using your favorite Web browser and typing in the following:

[place name] + map

The place name can be as simple as a single word, such as Thailand, or a multiple-word name such as Bangkok, Thailand, for which you would enter the place name as an exact phrase, enclosed in quotation marks as follows:

“bangkok thailand” + map

You also can help narrow your search for historic maps by perhaps adding a year or decade as in one of the two searches below:

“north carolina” + map + 1775
“baden germany” + map + 1800s

VISUALIZATION SITES

While geographic maps simplify mountains of data in a concise (or confusing) ways, data visualizations operate similarly by turning sets of data into meaningful representations which aide the visual recognition of patterns or trends. The following sites can get you started exploring both visualization techniques and example data sets.

A Periodic Table of Visualization Methods
Many of you are probably familiar with this site, but for those of you who are not, I think you might find it appealing. The site itself is a visual map that houses hundreds of links associated with a specific visualization type. Outstanding design.

 
Visual Complexity
This site intends to be "a unified resource space for anyone interested in the visualization of complex networks. The project's main goal is to leverage a critical understanding of different visualization methods, across a series of disciplines, as diverse as Biology, Social Networks or the World Wide Web."

information aesthetics -- Data Visualization & Visual Communication
"This weblog explores the symbiotic relationship between creative design and the field of information visualization, in an emergent multidisciplinary field what could be coined as 'creative information visualization'." Also check out the blogroll for additional visualization resources.

many eyes -- for shared visualization and discovery
This site is part of IBM's Collaborative User Experience research group. Many eyes explores information visualizations that help people collectively make sense of data. Plenty of examples and tips on how to use techniques to visualize data and information.

Data Visualization links at ICTlogy
Ismael Pena-Lopez's weblog provided a wonderful list of visualization tools/links that include network/map drawing, map analysis, and timeline drawing applications.

Word Count - Tracking the Way We Use Language
This site serves as "an artistic experiment in the way we use language. It presents the 86,800 most frequently used English words, ranked in order of commonness. Each word is scaled to reflect its frequency relative to the words that precede and follow it, giving a visual barometer of relevance. The larger the word, the more we use it. The smaller the word, the more uncommon it is."

WIKISKY.org
This site provides a stellar detailed map of the sky and the millions of galaxies in our surrounding cosmic hood. Another fine example of how technology can support  ways of seeing that were once practically unheard of.