It says on the website that Meograph is “Four-Dimensional Storytelling.” Unlike normal 4-D theaters, Meograph does not have gas or water
spilling over your face. Instead, it has
a multitude of visual and aural aids: YouTube videos, photos (by uploading),
narrations (by recording), maps, links, and timelines. After watching a Meograph video for the first time, the audience might be dazzled by
this powerful integration of multimedia.
The timeline function is like a time machine that brings the audience
from one moment to another. The map
shows the location changes and moving trails of events. The embedded function of YouTube videos brings life to the presentation. The photos and narrations make the
presentation an audio storybook. The
embedded links provide extra information.
Meograph simply makes presentations
more entertaining and informative.
To try out the powerful Meograph, users do not need to register. Any new comers can enjoy creating experiences
with Meograph as a guest. If later on, users want to save their created
stories, they can sign up and keep their original files. It is important to note that only users of FireFox, Google Chrome, and Safari
can create stories on Meograph. For users of other browsers, they can only
view the stories on Meograph.
Once users start to create their Meograph stories, they will find that the manuals are very easy to
follow. The instruction is not redundant
like many other websites, and the construction layout is neat and
comprehensible. That being said, the
instruction provides step-by-step tutorials with a brief description in each
stage. The construction layout does not
require users to check and uncheck complicated options during their story creations. Users only need to insert the names/ time/
locations of the events and add their YouTube
links, photos, and/ or narrations to create a timeline story. For educational purposes, Meograph is a great tool for teachers
and students to do projects on Arts, History, Geography, Languages, Literature,
etc. Via the creation process, students will
establish further understanding on the topics.
The target audience of Meograph
stories can vary from kindergarteners to graduate school students, depending on
the content of the presentations.
Although
Meograph seems very powerful, it also
has some drawbacks that the web constructors need to think about and
conquer. First of all, the website only
supports FireFox, Google Chrome, and Safari in terms of story creation.
My computer is Windows 8, so
my pre-installed browser is IE 10. I also prefer to use IE when I surf the Internet.
Because of the browser restrictions of Meograph, I must switch from my preferred browser to use the
website. Secondly, when I was creating
my Chinese History timeline on Meograph,
I found that the loading speed of the webpage slowed down after the insertion of
a series of events and long YouTube
videos, which meant that users might not be able to upload or embed a lot of
data into their timeline stories. Lastly,
although one of Meograph’s powerful
features is the presence of a global map, the map is not totally visible as the
embedded YouTube videos and photos
cover half of the map. I once tried to
pull out the videos and photos to see the complete view of the map on Meograph, but the box of the videos and
photos is not movable. If Meograph can fix this problem and allow
users to zoom in and out like Prezi,
it can be more powerful and create a clearer understanding of the geographical
relations of the timeline events for the audience.
Overall, Meograph
is still a great tool for teaching and learning because it integrates many
visual and aural functions into one system.
Its timeline and map features also make it stand out from the other
story-making platforms. Most
importantly, as Meograph is still a
beta product, creating stories on Meograph
at this moment is free!
PS. I learned about Meograph from this blog http://www.freetech4teachers.com/, so I'd like to give partial credits to the blog's author. His blog is pretty good! :)
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