Blog Week 4: Prompt 3

    I first want to note how good the presentation looks. Compared to Neatline, I find the aesthetics more appealing. I think this software makes better use of gradients and contrast. For example, the grayed-out map with the one selected red point. Even though it looks more like Neatline, I found it to feel way more similar to a PowerPoint presentation when navigating through it. There was a forward arrow and a back arrow, nothing else. You could click on specific things on the map, but I don't think that was the intended design of the presentation. There is also a small map in the top corner that shows the selected area in a more zoomed-out format. This is a cool feature because it reminds you where you are in the world. I found myself sometimes feeling lost in my Neatline presentation because I would be too zoomed in and forget where in the world I was.

    Neatline does offer a timeline and sidebar navigation system that StoryMap lacks. I miss these features, but they do not ruin StoryMap for me.

    I appreciated learning about aboriginal boarding schools in Australia because the creation of these institutions soon followed the time period The Secret River was set in. One point that was especially informative was that the state would send a child further away if the parent resisted handing them over. If the parent complied, the child would be sent to a boarding school closer to home. It's crazy to imagine the choice the parents had to make: potentially keep your child/have him or her sent further away or let your child go but know they are close by?