AN EDUCATIONAL CUP OF TEA

One of my favorite things to do when I was a kid was helping my dad use his Mapsco. For some reason, having to find the right page to turn to in order to find directions felt very treasure-hunty to me. Additionally, I asked for (and received) an Atlas of the United States for Christmas so I could highlight routes we took on family road trips. I’ve always loved maps! In this post, I will share a new favorite mapping tool I found recently.

I wanted an inclusion activity for the upcoming Area 10 Meetup at the 2023 TCEA Convention where members map their location and contact information. This way, we can see which parts of Area 10 are represented and connect with others in similar positions or districts.

The idea in my head was to have members fill out a form with their school district or city, name, role, contact information, and a photo. Then this information would auto-populate on a collaborative map I could share.

Interestingly, it was harder than I thought it would be to find a tool to do this that was easy to learn, navigate, and share with others. The closest I got was using a Google Form and manually uploading it to a My Map. Unfortunately, that would not work. I needed something automated so collaborators could see the points they added immediately rather than waiting for me to do another manual upload.

Enter Proxi “the Geospatial Powerhouse Behind Transformative, Human-Centered Interactions With The Real World.” Proxi exists because the founders were also looking for a better way to create collaborative and detailed maps. BINGO! Additionally, the founders are three women from Texas! I love being able to support women-owned platforms (not to mention supporting fellow Texans).

Before jumping into the platform, I had all the initial thoughts:

• “This is too good to be true. What is the catch?”
• “Oh goodness. What is this gonna cost me to use?”
• “What are my limitations if I go with the free version?”

I created an account and hopped on the Help Chat to ask. I received an immediate response…from one of the founders! The chat was a huge success answering all my questions and setting up a meeting with Proxi to discuss the platform’s future in education. (That went really well too.)

Cool things I’ve learned about Proxi:

• COMPLETELY FREE
• Adjust to focus on smaller parts of maps (big city view, province, street, neighborhood, etc.)
• Change map backgrounds
• Create categories and tags to group points of interest
• Add collaborators to add points – collaborators do not need accounts
• Customize icons for different points
• Set dates and times for events on points
• See points in spreadsheet form
• Get insights on a map
• Customize fields for collaborators to fill in for points
• Turn on or off Google images to go with a point