This session provides resources and examples of how to run a workshop on creating maps for storytelling. We will focus on a suite of Google tools in the free personal account platform that can be used together to teach workshop participants how to create stories and maps that can be used for presentations and sharing on the web.

Structure of a Story

If we want to map a story in a meaningful way, we must pay attention to the structure of the story and make sure that it makes sense to have the story play out over the landscape. Stories like the ones that Robin describes include the land as an important element in the development of the plot. This is common in some storytelling traditions, especially in Indigenous and Traditional Communities. These types of stories are used for intergenerational knowledge transmission, to contextualize knowledge, to integrate values and perceptions in knowledge systems, and to provide insights into relationships between events, characters, places, culture and society. Places are important in these stories and that allows us to create maps for storytelling.

Indigenous Storytelling* has been characterized as having 5 beats:

Beat one: Set up the theme or the journey you are going on, and what land and cultural framework you will use in the story

Beat two: Introduce the main character

Beat three: The journey/crisis of the main character

Beat four: The resolution of the crisis of the main character

Beat five: The message and resolution of the theme where the character and land are once again in balance with one another

The first and fifth beats explicitly involve the relationship between the character, the land and the cultural/social context of the story. By creating a balance between land and character, the story provides a deeper role for place in our story as compared to a simple three beat story structure (introduction of character; crisis of character; resolution of crisis) that is so common in Hollywood films.

If we use this five beat structure to situate our stories in a landscape of meaning, place has a role in the story that is far greater than in the three beat structure. A story written in the three beat structure can be transferred to different places and different social settings without changing the structure or meaning of the story; in contrast, the five beat structure situates the story in a specific place and a specific social/cultural context and it can't be moved to a different place without changing the meaning of the story. In the three beat structure, place is often simply a stage upon which the action occurs; in the five beat structure, changing the location of the story changes the story in a fundamental way.

Often times "story maps" are created by marking locations named in a story without incorporating the land into the story itself. If we use the five beat structure, using a map in storytelling means that we forefront the land and provide a geospatial context for the story, moving through the landscape in specific ways. Using the five beat structure we can tell the story while walking the land, and that sets us up for storytelling using Google Earth Web or Google Earth Pro to virtually move on a path through the 3D landscape in an immersive fashion.

*Clague, Pauline. "The five beats of Indigenous Storytelling." Lumina: Australian Journal of Screen Arts and Business 11 (2013).

Below are a series of tools that you can use in your workshops. We like to center our trainings on collaborative activities where participants learn how to combine multiple tools and platforms to complete a project. This project based learning is much more engaging and can lead participants to new discoveries and insights. Rather than leading participants through the tools we begin with a demo, provide examples, then help them work at their own pace. You can go to our workshop website to see how we teach storytelling workshops for Tribal Environmental Professionals.

To teach storytelling with maps you will need two parts; tools to help develop the story itself, and tools for creating the map. Below are a selection of tools that can be combined into a workflow to achieve these two goals.

1. Tools to help with story creation

Google Drive: Forms, Jamboards, Docs

The Google Drive platform can be used to create drafts of stories, work collaboratively, and have brainstorming sessions. Once a story is blocked out on a Jamboard, or stories are collected using a Google Form or a collaboratively edited My Maps, the story can be imported into a more sophisticated platform such as Google Earth to create a polished presentation.

You can see a workshop that used Jamboards to collaborative storyboard a map click here Note that several Jamboards were created in a folder that was set to "anyone with link can edit" and embedded into the workshop Google Site. Participants clicked on a Jamboard to access it.

Jamboard

Click here to go to the Jamboard for our activity

A Jamboard is a virtual whiteboard that can be used collaboratively to brainstorm on stories. You can find Jamboards in Google Drive. You can add text, sticky notes, shapes, photos and you can even add a screenshot of a map from My Maps or Google Earth as a static image to mark up and annotate.

Google Form

Fill out the Google Form for our activity

Below is an example of a form that can be used to collect information from participants. The form populates a Google Sheet which can be imported into a map. This is an easy way to collect information from workshop participants or from community members. The form can be accessed using a QR code for mobile devices or by embedding it in a website. Try it out!

You can import the Response sheet into a Google My Map or Google Earth Pro to map the stories.

To create your own forms go to Google Drive help Go to Google Drive

2. Tools for map creation

My Maps

Go to the My Maps and add your location

You will need to sign in to your Google Account by clicking the blue sign in button in the upper right corner of the map

My Maps is a simple, lightweight collaborative platform that you can use to organize your workshop participants. Because it does not require a powerful computer and can be used on Android phones or tablets if participants don't have a computer, and it does not require good bandwidth (you can even create a map offline on Android devices), it can be used in a lot of rural settings were other mapping platforms may not be practical. My Maps will only give you a 2D map, and you cannot create an immersive experience like you can in Google Earth Pro and Google Earth Web; you can, however, export KML from My Maps to use on the other platforms. My Maps can be created in Google Drive and saved in a project folder. They can be embedded in websites (see below). Google My Maps help Google My Maps 101

To make logistics simple, you can create a My Maps and set the sharing to "anyone with link can edit" and provide the link to your participants. Each participant can work on a different layer, up to 10 layers. You can then easily monitor everyone's work and help correct mistakes. Participants can see the work of others in the workshop. It is a good idea to set expectations, for example, that you only work in your layer and you don't delete the work of other participants.

Click here to see an example of a training that uses this technique

Once participants complete their layers you can have them download their layer and import the KML into Google Earth Web for presentation in 3D (note; you won't be able to share a Google Earth Web map made from imported KML).

Google Earth Web

Click here to see a Google Earth Web map telling the story of a refugee's journey (it may take some time to load)

Click here to see a Google Earth Web map telling the story of the Kanza Nation place names for the Kansas River

This is a platform that requires good bandwidth and a good computer. If you create a new project and choose "Create project in Google Drive" you will be able to share the map (if you create the map by importing a KML file you will not be able to share it). You can have your workshop participants share their maps with you so that you can view it and collaboratively problem solve.

The advantages of using Google Earth Web for Storytelling are:

• Maps are in 3D with rich, immersive topography and the angle and direction of view can be controlled

• The text, photos and videos are nicely formatted and easy to show in presentations

• You can use HTML coding to add customizations to your information panels

• Maps can be shared on the web

An example of a workshop using Google Earth Pro can be found on this website and this map

Google Earth Web help

Go to Google Earth Web

Google Earth training materials from Earth Outreach

Google Earth Storytelling 101

Google Earth Pro

Google Earth Pro is an especially rich platform for storytelling. Maps are in 3D, you can control the view and the path through the landscape, use the time slider for historic imagery, create screen overlays and image overlays, and add text and images to the markers. Using Google Earth Pro you can create tours. Google Earth Pro is a desktop application and you must be able to download it onto your computer; this can create problems for some workshop participants if they are using work or school computers which limit app downloads. You can cache imagery to use Google Earth Pro offline, so it can be used in circumstances with poor bandwidth. Unlike Google Earth Web you cannot share maps; you can share kml files that others can open in their Google Earth Pro on their laptops, or you can make screen recordings and share the videos on YouTube on the web. You can see an example of this in the YouTube below.

Download Google Earth Pro

Google Earth training materials from Earth Outreach

How can we run a workshop using this framework? It is more engaging and meaningful to provide workshop participants an opportunity to create and map a story, and if time allows, to share their story. Here is an example of an activity that can be used by a variety of different workshop participants without requiring a common cultural context.

For an example of a workshop using this technique click here. You can see a My Maps that was produced using a similar set of prompts - all of the participants worked on a single map with each using a different layer.

A more extensive two day workshop can be seen here

Example Activity

The current pandemic is forcing us to change how we relate to people and places that are important to us. Using the tools presented below, tell us the story of how the Covid-19 pandemic has changed your life.

Please note that if you make your map public you should not put private information on it such as the location of your home; you can place your markers in the middle of a nearby town or other public place.

Here are some possible elements that you could include in your story - you can create a 5 beat story based on any one or more of these prompts:

• How did you arrive at the place where you stayed during shelter-in-place orders, and why did you end up choosing (or being forced to stay in) that place?

• Were you separated from family, friends and loved ones? Where were they? What difficulty and emotional stress did this cause? Have you been reunited, or must you communicate virtually?

• Was your health or the health of family, friends or loved ones impacted by the virus? What difficulties did this cause? Were you able to visit them, or were you separated at different locations? Did you have to use medical facilities such as clinics or hospitals?

• Are there places that are spiritually important to you that you can or cannot visit during the pandemic? How has this impacted your life?

• Is there an important lesson that you have learned from your experiences during the pandemic that relates to where you have been staying and where you can or cannot visit? Has the place or places that you have been able to visit during the pandemic caused you stress or given you solace? How has this changed over the course of 2020?