Friday, May 2, 2014

How is the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator Supposed to Work?

If you've visited the Chicago Tutor/Mentor Program Locator recently you'll see that some features, such as the boundary overlays, the zip code overlay, and the political district overlays, do not work. We're also having trouble adding new program information. This is all a result of Google changing how sites like mine interface with their map, and the fact that I don't have any money, or tech talent, to fix the problem.

If you want to know how this should work, visit the Chicago Public Schools "School Locator" page. It may take you a while to figure out how this works, but on the left side is a label that says "political overlays". Click on any of these and you'll see political district outlines on the map.

Now on the Tutor/Mentor Program locator, you'd be able to use a drop down menu to zoom into a specific district or geographic areas. I don't see this on the CPS locator, but I really like the way the technology works.

Of course, having a great map-directory is only useful if many people are using the maps to tell stories that draw needed resources into school neighborhoods so families and schools have more help encouraging youth to become active learners who take a greater responsibility for their own learning, and their own futures.

If you are creating map stories using this information please post a link to this article so others can learn from how you are using the maps.

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