map skills test

View JN3800 Map in a larger map

The above map illustrates three stories from the Lancashire Evening Post, and was created by me, Hannah Breeze, for the assignment JN3800, for my course at the University of Central Lancashire. You can contact me via any of the details on my about me page.

For this assignment, I had to choose four stories which were suitable for geolocation on a google map. Below I will explain my rationale for each story, and explain why and how I found and placed them.

Winckley Square: I picked this story because I felt that it had a strong where and visual element. Winckley Square's town centre location often means it is not found as people assume there are fewer green areas in town, so for that reason, I thought it was good to illustrate where it is. It is slightly hidden away from the main streets of town, and again this added to my decision to geolocate it. Additionally, I experimented with using images and the tree icon on this placement as I felt they were suitable. The photograph of Winckley Square was very pretty, and definitely added to the overall effect, in my opinion. I think that having such a pretty area in a traditionally industrial town centre was definitely worth geolocating on the map.

Biker's memorial: This story lent itself very well to being able to use the line feature on Google Maps. I was able to track the movements of the tribute drive with a line (which I changed to black as it looked slightly like a river when it was blue!) I marked the first icon green, as it is where it began, and marked the final loaction red, as it is where it stopped. I think that the line tool was useful in this sense as it gave an idea of the distance that they travelled, and this added to the sense of occasion and tribute that was highlighed in the story. Finally, I added a photograph of Preston Minster, as it is a very nice building, and gave a bit more information to the story.

Vehicle check story: For this story, I changed the icon to a police car, as police were carrying out checks on vehicles. I geolocated this story as I felt that the location was slightly obscure, and would benefit from clarification. The drawback to this is that the information in the story 'near the M65 at Bamber Bridge' was not entirely specific. If I was a working journalist and this was my story, I would have known the exact details and could have pin pointed it more accurately. However, I did feel like my placing was a sensible spot. If I had have been the journalist writing this story, I would have known where the other checks would be carried out, and I would have mapped them too, however this was not the angle that the LEP took on that day, unfortunately.

Leyland homes: For this story, I made use of drawing a shape to highlight where the homes are planned to be built. I changed the colour to purple, as blue made it look a bit too much like a lake. I thought that highlighting the areas was really useful, and anybody from that area would instantly be able to recognise the areas and not have to worry about street names and that sort of thing. I used the house icon to give more information about the story and a bigger visual presence.

Overall, I was pleased with this assignment, and felt like I really learnt something. I had no idea how to do any of this at the start of the last session, and feel I learnt a lot in a small space of time. I would like to use these skills again.