Instructify

BY BILL FERRIS

Set course for Wikipedia! Facebook ahoy! And so on. These quaint nautical terms arose from a time when people depended on maps and charts much more crude than the Mapquest and GPS-enabled phones to which we’ve grown accustomed. The internet, a mistress as untamable as the seven seas of yore, is the subject of the Internet Mapping Project, a modern-day cartographic endeavor commissioned by Kevin Kelly, author of the Cool Tools blog and lots of other ‘net niftiness. Kelly has called for amateur Rand McNallys everywhere to “Please draw a map of the internet, as you see it. Indicate your ‘home.’”

It’s an interesting project, one that could make for a fun in-class activity (especially if you compare their maps of today’s internet with one you produce of the web’s early days). It could also be a good warm-up to start an art class.

You can download the blank map PDF from Kelly’s website, or just start on a blank piece of paper. Just don’t forget to include Instructify when you create your own map.

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