The first part of this post was not required so it can be skipped and readers can begin reading at My Maps.

When I was told to complete this assignment I was confused on how the Lab 2 post would relate to mapping but that is where I first went wrong. It is not about what I wrote but it was about the questions asked in the lab and the things I learned about mapping. Before I get into the specific things I learned about the websites I covered I want to go over what I learned about mapping.

Mapping: 

What is mapping:

Mapping is the process of creating a visual representation of a geographic area. It involves the use of cartographic techniques to represent the spatial relationships between objects and features in a given area.

The Purpose:

Maps can be used for a wide range of purposes, including navigation, planning, and analysis. They are an essential tool for understanding and interacting with the world around us, and they have been used for thousands of years to represent and organize information about the earth’s surface.

Maps can be used to help planners and policy makers understand the spatial patterns and characteristics of a particular region. This can be useful for identifying trends and patterns, and for making informed decisions about the allocation of resources and the development of infrastructure. Maps can be used to help analysts and researchers understand the spatial patterns and relationships between different phenomena. This can be useful for identifying correlations and trends, and for drawing conclusions about the causes and effects of various phenomena.Maps are often used to communicate information to a wide audience. They can be used to present complex information in a visual and easily understandable format, which can make it easier for people to understand and interpret the information.

The Different Types:

There are many different types of maps, and the best type to use will depend on the specific purpose of the map and the information that needs to be represented. Some common types of maps include: Political, Physical, Thematic, and Road.

The Two Maps I looked at were Political and Thematic.

1. Political maps: These maps show the boundaries and names of political units such as countries, states, and provinces. They are often used to show the distribution of political power and to represent the territorial extent of different countries and regions.
2. Thematic maps: These maps show the spatial distribution of a particular theme or variable. They are often used to represent the distribution of population, income, or other socio-economic variables.

My Maps:

The two maps I looked at were Counties Blue and Red, Moving Right and Left and Mapping Poverty in America.

I will start with Counties Blue and Red, Moving Right and Left. This map was created by Mike Bostock and Shan Carter; Michael Bostock is an American computer scientist and data-visualisation specialist and Shan Carter who makes interactive graphics for New York Times. the processes of this project are how is this country moving in terms of votes and why, which states are moving and why, and how will this effect the upcoming elections. The presentation of this project is through a political map with special effects showing an either red wave or blue wave showing where those voters are flowing to.

The goal of this project is to show the American people which way votes are trending and why so they can be informed why certain stats have much different votes compared to the past elections. The history this map is getting into is previous voting. For many on Election Day ,massive surprises come up but this site is attempting to explain why these surprises happened. The target audience are the people confused, the election is never simple and can cause frustrations where this site can help explain these confusing shifts in the American people. This is a very specific type of data where it does not show the amount of votes shifted but just the votes shifted in certain states. I wish they could provide certain numbers to make it more Clea on just how big certain states shifted.

After reviewing this map it provided me with a lot of new information especially because it was from an old election.Many would have been shocked when President Trump won the election in 2016 and with good reason. This map gave an insight that many states were slowly turning republican before he ever ran into office. It provided details that states where Hispanic growth toward the right was strong, suburbs growing stronger right, and large population growing states growing right. While I am not saying this explain why True became president it gave an insight on how voters were starting to shift. I will end with if a map was made today of the exact same style how would states have shifted and why?

The next map I covered was mapping poverty in America. Many may see this as a political map however I feel it is a thematic map because it Is covering the distribution of population, income, or other socio-economic variables which I found to be the definition of a thematic map. This site was created by Matthew Bloch, Matthew Ericson and Tom Girltikanon. Matthew Bloch is a graphic editor for the New York Times who has a history of map making. Matthew Ericson is an assistant managing editor and Tom Girltikanon is a famous journalism who recently returned to the NYT with the goal of interactive journalism. The processes of this project is understand where poverty is in America and making it very clear which areas are areas struggling in the United States. It is presented with a thematic map allowing the audience to focus on certain states and small cities seeing what the poverty percentage is and the total population.

The goal of this project is for fellow Americans to understand where poverty is and Jost how many people in America are struggling. It is called the land of the free but so many are dealing with such brutal living implications. The method used is data, they provide clear data with a color presentation making it clear on who is struggling and where. The data in this site is much more helpful then the last due to how specific it is. It provides details on states and cities making it very easy for the audience to understand.

The insight I gained from reading this map is how scary America truly can be. I decided to check out where I live which is San Francisco. I knew there was a massive homeless problem but to reads there are 120,000 people that are struggling was shocking to me and made me realize just how difficult life can truly be. Another insight I took away was the effectiveness of numbers. In the first map you could not truly tell just how much a star was swinging because no numbers are used, in this map when you see 120,000 people are struggling in a city you live in it truly has an effect on the reader. I will leave you with the question of how can you make a reader feel effected without numbers?

Struggles:

Voyant is nowhere near simple, at least for me. I would not say Voyant is perfect and that may be contradicting to many people but I still believe there are many positives to Voyant. Unfortunately for people just getting started in being a DH scholar this site may have you lost, frustrated, and confused. I had trouble at first trying the most frequently used words part of the site but was able to understand it and definitely want to use that to my own advantage in the future. What you realize through the frequent words part is where biases can be found and all types of biases. This is a helpful part when going back to the first section of annotations for the week. It explains how so many sites can be based off statistics and sites need to be based on context and operating n the level of literary forms and conventions. 

These were my most frequent words and you can already see gender bias with the most common word being mr. But there is so much more questions you can answer than just about biases. You can find the most common phrases, topics, and trends and so much more. This can truly improve a DH scholar in their work to becoming an even better person on the internet. While it can be so helpful this site does have flaws. It might find biases but it does not determine hate which could lead to misleading data. As well it is extremely difficult to understand the purpose of the site if you do not partake in this class.

My DH-themed WordPress site was much more difficult then I thought it would be because it is difficult more me to express myself through words so to do it through a website was extremely challenging. The way I addressed this challenge was I called my parents. I asked them to describe myself and what specific words they would use to describe me. Once that was finished I wrote those words down and decided to see what themes those words fit. As well it helped with my about me. I definitely can still add a lot more to my about me page but I started with nothing to say and I really think talking to the people that know you best is a great strategy.

Questions

The internet is a place where all people can go and have an escape from the “real world”. It is a place of comfort for many but can be the polar opposite for some. For me, it is a place where I attempt to become a better person and a smarter person, however, without digital citizenship and the ability to use the internet effectively with care for others. In my attempt to become a digital citizen I have found ways in which every citizen should carry themselves online to build a digital culture.

Becoming a digital Citizen required Responsibilities-

• Critical think, simply do not write what is the first thing that comes to your mind but think about others before something is said or written
• Realize you have a digital footprint where things said will stay with you forever
• Understand that no matter how caring of a person you are there will still be evil people hat attack you for the way you look, act, and feel
• The internet is always evolving and you can not simply not evolve with it, you must continue learning which is the difficult part of the internet
• Make sure to understand where the information you are gaining is from a trustable source
• No matter how difficult the internet may seem it is a place of freedom where you are allowed to do what you want

For the ability to find community there is a great article by Braiding Sweetgrass on how to build community. While for many they may seem pointless when relating to the internet but it explains how a community is built up. There is a great example of how what you do will not just affect yourself but will affect the people around you which could not be more prevalent for the internet. Everything you write or say could be seen across the world in a few seconds. You have to use the wisdom of the past to help the future on the internet. A similarity I found was in Maple Nation, mainly with the quote of “Fortunately, there are those in every organization, few but invaluable, who know their responsibilities and seem to thrive on meeting them. They get things done. These are the ones we all rely upon, the people who take care of the rest of us, quiet leaders. On the internet these people are digital citizens, they do not have to be outspoken, they have to be able to lead by example. The internet is expanding at a rate that has never been seen before making it a dangerous place. People need to begin understanding the guide to becoming a digital citizen will continue to expand. It is not simply the 6 things I stated and it could change in a month but it is all about understanding the audience of the internet. The internet will continue to have bad people like many communities do but for those negative people there need to be citizens who know how to use the internet and allows everyone to feel comfortable on this platform.

For this week I chose the project History of Eugene & Springfield to read, learn, and analyze. 

First the sources of this project are plentiful and I will start with the sources of this article. They used a map of the Eugene/Springfield are making it more clear on what the reader is being told, images of the houses these historical people stayed at, newspaper article on the topics being discussed, timelines, articles, interviews, and so many more helpful sources for the reader to dive deeper into. The processes of this project is displaying the rich history of Eugene, explaining the activism this area has gone through and focusing on the key leaders that lead the path to where I am sitting today. As well as explains the importance of remembering this history and celebrating it by understand what people went through for future generations to succeed under. The presentation of this project is beautifully done and is done through maps, articles, journals and allaying prior texts and previous moment of history and explaining it to the readers though words and though visuals.

The goal of this project was to allow the people of Eugene to understand where they are and why they are here. For many people including myself, had no idea about the history of where I go to school and I feel it Is very important more people who this project is intending to get out to is read by them.t is something many people should want to know because it is the only reason why so many great things are here. There are many components in this article including descriptive analysis,  maps, interview, newspapers, images, and more. They use the method of descriptive analysis and it is not argumentative which I really like. At first I thought this article could get into an argument but it stayed away and was simply extremely informative. The target audience is for the people of Eugene especially people who have just come here (new students) because they do not understand the sacrifices people made. The project is open access which I strongly believe is a good idea and the creators are Bobbie Adelson, Kiele Head, Catherine Oswalt, Sesilie Stout who are previous students.

An insight I gained from this project was the importance of other concepts. Words are what make this world run and without words the world would be nothing. However if the project  just read was only words I would have never read it and switched to a different topic. This project included so many interesting visuals with information explaining them below it truly made me want to continue reading. Without visuals you have to picture in your head what is going on which can be difficult because I was not alive for a lot of the history they are talking about. Because they added such great visuals and constantly for almost all information I feel the information is retainable, helpful, and interesting. A new skill I practiced during this project was annotating while reading. As almost all high school students are, I am one who has felt annotations are not useful and simply a waste of time. However I used annotations this time to mark things I did not fully understand and use those parts to find what they truly mean and enhance my understand on the topic. A lot of times I used to just brush over confusing parts and feel if I didn’t understand one paragraph of an entire essay it would not be the end of the world but after annotating I feel I have gained so much more knowledge because of it. One question I would ask is when is there too much information? Because this project was heavily detailed and I can see many people losing interest so how could someone include all this history but shorten it down if that is even possible?

Reflecting on my process from when I first chose the book The Sport of the Gods by Paul Laurence Dunbar. Looking back on the book one new idea I wanted to focus on was history and how books have evolved over time. Reading old books is one of the few things where it will hold the tale of time. When I have gone through high school you have always been told what to read and so my bias did take into account when I first got to choose my book. I wanted a book based upon sports and I did a deep dive into the amazon books options and that is hat I thought I stumbled upon. However, after looking into the book it is nothing related to sports but I wanted to keep with it because the book tells the story of a group of characters who are struggling to find their place in a world that is rapidly changing around them. And it is a topic I feel still is so common today. Oe challenge I had was finding a free book that I could easily access. I had a lot of other options however they were either difficult to access or not free and it was definitely a challenge. Another was finding the right book.What I mean by that is a book that challenges me intellectually but is going to be able to be finished by the end of the term.I felt this book was the perfect choice. One spot which helped me was the social annotations the way this helped me was mainly the part on search engines and how I can use search engines to my own advantage. I explained earlier just how difficult finding my book was and one of my biggest hops was search engines. It allowed me to get so specific with exactly what I wanted and lead to me eventually finding my book of choice. Amazon is such a large site it can be difficult to be exact without the engines of google and on the site. During this process I definitely had serious biases with using amazon because I had used it before, choosing a topic based on sports, and worrying about the difficulties of the book. These biases promoted me picking only a certain few books an I wish I had opened up my searches if I could do it over again. I think what was most missing from my search is being general. I narrowed down so quickly and left myself with not many options. While I love the book I chose I wish I could go back and find a topic I no nothing about because there is no purpose to reading if I am not learning and it would only help me more if I read about something I had no clue about. Another thing is I wish I spent more time exploring. Once I found the book I wanted I stopped looking. I wish I had found that book, been alright with reading it, then looked for more books that I am maybe less comfortable with but would be a great read.