These animations are designed to help give students a better understanding of the growth and exploration of the United States. The maps address the topics of encounters with Indian tribes, Lewis and Clark’s journey, territory acquisitions, and manifest destiny. I used Flash to create these initially, and since the Flash player is no longer supported, I am going to include several screenshots of the maps so that you can get an idea of what they looked like. The maps are intended to show the expansion of the United States throughout history. The maps tell the story of how the country became what it is today.
Reflection
At the time that I created these maps, Flash was the program of choice for creating animations. In the years since, the Flash player is no longer supported. For me, Flash was a good choice for creating these maps because it can be used to show changes over time. These maps tell the story of the United State’s westward expansion and I felt that the best way to do this was to animate the changes. It is hard to get a good view of the expansion by just looking at a static map. The animations provide a level of depth that can’t be duplicated in a series of pictures. This was a fun project to create and I feel that animating these timelines was the best way to present this material to students.