Maptime

Time for making maps!

Our mission is to open the doors of cartographic possibility to anyone interested by creating a time and space for collaborative learning, exploration, and map creation using mapping tools and technologies.

Learning Together in 2015

By the Maptime SF & OAK Gang, which crosses over with HQ a lot

Happy new year, Maptime! There’s lots brewing for 2015 already, and we’re excited to get started with all of it. Conferences, mega-organizer meetings, and chapter support are all on the list, but first we must tend to our primary mission: getting our tutorial schedule together so we can get teaching!

This year, we want to try something new: making a schedule that puts tutorials in some kind of order. We hope that doing this will address a couple important challenges:

  • Education support for Chapters. If we put things in order, and we do it in advance, then other chapters can join along in the fun. We can also better support each other and answer each others’ questions if we’re doing things together.

  • Offer a set of skill-building tutorials. We’ve had lots of newcomers this year attend more advanced topics (like d3) as their first Maptime and tell us they feel lost. Starting with Anatomy of a Web Map and working through data display (CartoDB + Leaflet) and then map design (Mapbox Studio) and other lessons addresses this need to start at the beginning and learn from there. It’s a traditional approach, but one that works. Why not give it a try?

Without further ado, here’s our schedule. Tutorials marked in this lovely purple color are ones that build on one another and should go in order.

DATE ACTIVITYSF/OAK
January 21 Anatomy of a Web Map OAK
January 28 Tutorial Development SF
February 4 Project Night OAK
February 11 OSM 101 SF
February 18 OFF Null Island
February 25 Geodesy (part 1: datums) SF
March 4 Displaying data: CartoDB + LeafletOAK
March 11 Hand-Drawn Maps @FOSS4GNA Burlingame, CA
March 18 OFF Null Island
March 25 Geodesy (part 2: projections) SF
April 1 OFF Null Island
April 8 Hand Drawn Maps OAK
April 15 Styling basemaps: Mapbox Studio + GL EditorSF
April 22Satellite SF
April 29 OFF Null Island
May 6 Turf.js OAK
May 13 Hand Drawn Maps SF
May 20 Geographic Data Formats and Data Acquisition SF
May 27 OFF Null Island
June 3 Show + Tell SF

If you are an organizer you may already have questions, like…

Do I have to go in the exact order or do tutorials on the exact date? Nope! Organizers can do whatever they want. That said, it’s highly recommended to do the tutorials marked in the lovely purple color in the order they are presented, as each contain principles from one of the previous lessons. The more people who are doing the same tutorials around the same time, the more people who will be asking and answering similar questions.

Wait, I’ve never seen some of these tutorials before. What are they? Some of these tutorials – like Turf.js and Geographic Data Formats and Acquisition – haven’t been made yet. As they are made, they’ll be posted on the Resources page.

I have an idea for a tutorial!! Where should I put it? What should I do? We have a growing list of tutorial ideas in this here Github repo. We totally encourage everyone to make and share tutorials!

Did we miss a question? Let us know! Reach out via the Organizer Slack channel or via hello [at] maptime [dot] io. If you’re interested in attending one of the Maptimes listed above, sign up at th the Maptime SF/OAK Meetup page.

We’re excited to learn together in 2015!