"Information is not knowledge." - Albert Einstein

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GWHAT's objectives depend heavily on the principles of cartography and the capabilities of modern Geographic Information Systems (GIS). GWHAT story modules will lean on cartographic design goals to focus attention on the author's objectives without losing the map reader in a sea of content. GIS technology will power this storytelling and provide the core capabilities of map presentation, time-sequenced animations, and ties to other web content.

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"Great stories happen to those who can tell them." - Ira Glass

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Great education, lesson plans, and good storytelling share many common features: focus, key players, scenes, stages, beginnings, endings, etc. Telling stories using maps requires a fair amount of planning and deliberation - what should be the scope of the story? What should be the timeframe for the story? Should the story be told all at once, or leave the audience hanging? What answers should the story answer? Which should it raise?

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GWHAT content will be organized around focused stories that emphasize a specific time and geographic period. Some times, those regions will be large, other times small. Some time periods will span the ages, while others may span days and months.

Maps, Education, and Storytelling

Cartography & GIS

Learning Standards and Maps

Playing Well Together

"The learning and knowledge that we have, is, at the most, but little compared with that of which we are ignorant." - Plato

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Learning standards have become a driving course in setting the curriculum in American schools. Federal, state, and local standards authors frequently identify learning objectives that are fulfilled by teachers' expertise and textbook content. 

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GWHAT aims to expand the range of content available to teachers by reducing the amount of time required to find new content for course materials and by tying GWHAT story modules directly to learning objectives. 

"The only thing that will redeem mankind is cooperation." - Bertrand Russell

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There is a wealth of existing map-based content available on the Internet. Finding it, however, can be quite difficult. Any particular historic event may be depicted in 15 different maps and websites. Or none. Most of these maps were not designed to be used together, for comparative purposes. Others were created before the advent of modern web presentation technology.

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There is a content revolution underway on the Internet. The advent of HTML5 has created an opportunity for migrating content from older formats into a common, shareable framework. .