Developing and Evaluating an ESRI Story Map as an Educational Tool

Abstract

Environmental Systems Research Institute (ESRI) Story Maps are web applications based on maps and other multimedia, which can be effectively used in soil science education. The purpose of this study was to develop an ESRI Story Map "Soil Forming Factors: Topography" for teaching an introductory soil science courses and to assess the performance of the newly developed story map using ESRI's "five principles of effective storytelling" and user responses to a quiz testing the acquired knowledge. Specific learning objectives were stated on each story map page and throughout the learning materials. Navigation of each story map page is controlled by the participant via tabs to allow the user to control the pace of the learning experience. Participants received an average score of 8.2 (out of 9 maximum points) for the quiz. The ESRI Story Map scored well for each principle of the ESRI's five principles of effective storytelling, with more than 70% of responses having an excellent rating. Additional comments suggest that participants were positive about the ESRI Story Map as a stand-alone teaching tool or in combination with PowerPoint slides. The ESRI Story Map "Soil Forming Factors: Topography" can be further improved by incorporating interactive exercises. ESRI Story Maps can be effective teaching tools in science education.

Storylines for practice: a visual storytelling approach to strengthen the science-practice interface

“…For example, Majooni et al (2018) assessed the effects of infographic structure on ease of understanding using eye-tracking methods. Another purpose could be to evaluate the retention of content among university students using a quiz and self-reported ratings (Cope et al 2018). For our study, we assess participants' ratings and user experiences regarding the perceived usefulness of and their engagement with the storyline while identifying the storyline elements during focus group sessions.…”

“…In the Internet era, researchers increasingly communicate their work by combining short texts with appealing and (interactive) visuals (Figueiras 2014). Attention to visual storytelling and data visualization is growing in environmental communication to, for example, represent changes over time and space to multiple audiences, such as management actors (Herring et al 2017;Stephens et al 2014), students (Berendsen et al 2018;Cope et al 2018), and the public (Bednarek and Caple 2010;Cairo 2013). In turn science communication involves conceptual challenges to define the necessary approach for a given audience (Jones and Crow 2017).…”

More than Fast Food: Development of a Story Map to Compare Adolescent Perceptions and Observations of Their Food Environments and Related Food Behaviors

“…Thus, a better understanding of ways to develop the map in the web-based application as well as effective, evidence-based methods for presenting back to the community with evaluation is the necessary next steps in the literature. Some literature indicates appropriate teaching methods of story map development to adult learners and ways for community members to create their own story maps [23,57,58]. Further engagement in the research with participants directly developing the story map from training provided by researchers may also be a mechanism for community action and behavior change.…”

Pandangan guru dan murid terhadap pengaplikasian Story Map GIS dalam mata pelajaran Sejarah STPM

“…Kajian ini merupakan sebuah kajian kes yang menggunakan kaedah kualitatif dalam menganalisis data yang diperoleh. Sampel kajian terdiri daripada tiga orang guru sejarah yang berpengalaman lebih daripada lima tahun dan 30 orang murid tingkatan 6 yang mengambil mata pelajaran sejarah dalam peperiksaan Sijil Tinggi Pelajaran Malaysia STPM (Cope et al, 2018;Warshawsky, 2016). Ia juga sesuai untuk penggunaan bagi mata pelajaran Sejarah konsisten dengan dapatan oleh Marta dan Osso (2015).…”