Author Archives: Carla Ordonez

Personal Blog 9

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It feels like literal crunch time!!! But not for this class for some odd reason.

I worked on the map tweaking little things and my two blog posts for our site, I can now say I am a Queens carousel expert! I think the anxiety for my assignments in my other class has me thinking all about the carousels, maybe as a way to avoid the very long research paper I have to write for my other class.

But I have to say, carousels of NYC has really been a positive outlet for me. I am still deciding if I have the courage to present our groups amazing work, and with each passing day I am leaning towards yes. It’s been fun working with my group and being a part of a creative process, and I think the last thing I can really get out of this class is working on my presenting skills.

Last week, I went to visit the Queen’s carousels, and I spoke to the workers at Forest Park, I shared what the project was and told them I’ll be back to give out our super cute bookmarks (shoutout to Julissa)! Even though I have a zillion things to do for my other class, I find myself wanting to go back to my carousel sites, take more pictures and videos, and talk to more workers and people visiting. It motivated me to get my work done for my second class these past few days, and now I can go back this week and share bookmarks, nudge people to follow our socials, and just take a pause and admire the pretty carousels.

Personal Blog Post 8

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Spring break came at the perfect time! I was able to connect with Laurie Hurson at the Teaching and Learning Center on some issues we came across with the Commons.
The biggest issue was embedding our map, with the time off I was able to connect with her last week Monday, and now we are connecting via email for our other commons issues.
I think our team is very ahead, but I don’t want to jinx it! Now with little hiccups on the site coming up, we can tackle them as quickly as possible.
Our map is now embedded on the site!! Super excited to now lend a hand to the team on website development and end user experience as we start to prepare for our final project presentation.

Personal Post #6

Things have been running smoothly with our group. Our group chat on signal keeps us connected when we don’t meet.

It was super helpful to stay connected to the team last week on signal as I was sick. I was glad I got ahead with prepping the mapping platform so I don’t feel so behind. It’ll be nice to reconnect this week in class and hear about Leonard’s travels and  Julissa’s and Kelly’s trips to carousels, and updates from class

I went to visit Forest Park Carousel earlier this month, which is in my new neighborhood. The opening date was today, so excited for some warmer weather and to visit!

Personal Blog #5

Feeling a bit ahead in this class, but struggling to coordinate a time with digital fellow for more follow up questions on our map!

I need to ask about adding photos to our attribute table on our map. I am currently doing a funny copy and paste work around, and it’s messing with the quality of the photo.

Few updates-

I was able to change the color and customize the shading on StoryMap, and also customize what demographic data we wanted to showcase on our map.

I also changed the pin to include our new logo graphic! We voted on a logo last week, and during class time Julissa sent me the .jpg file of just the graphic for our map. A purple geo location pin with a picture of a carousel horse inside. It’s perfect for the map!

Today I plan to look at videos on how to add exact addresses for our pins, my goal is to have all the carousels in, with the agreed upon 4-5 metadata by the first week of April.

I am looking forward to start taking pictures of the carousels in Queens, counting down the days till March 31 when they open!

 

 

 

 

Personal Blog Post #4

Leonard was out this week, but our team really planned out our tasks and was able to coordinate offline and leading up to the outreach and social media presentation. Shoutout to Kelly, Leonard, and Julissa their teamwork really shined this week.

Since my focus is the data management and our map, this week, I worked on creating a mock-up for our map. It was fun to start learning Storymaps – Parisa, the digital fellow, has been super helpful in navigating and coming up with solutions with me.

We are still keeping options open on finalizing our platform (between Storymaps, which is open access or paid ArcGIS). We are open to using data publish on living atlas, but we don’t want to compromise on styling, customization, and aesthetic editing. Depending on what features are available on Storymaps, we’ll finalize our decision.

See our first draft of our map below!

Personal Blog Post

Writing up the data management plan has really organized what types of data we will be needing for our project. As the data lead, I think it was a great way to showcase my expertise but also learn new ways/skills to organize our data.

A few weeks ago, I thought our only pieces of data were the carousel metadata (like address, fees, etc.), the carousel spatial data, and the demographic data. Now, after listening to our guest, Stephen Zweibel, our team realized the photos, videos, our and the snippet of our individual visiting experience and review is also considered to be data.

Zweibel made me rethink what data is, it can be anything we use to make conclusions, visualizations, etc. Thinking about the stages of our data also helped make our data management plan, and also for me to add to our work plan. Thinking of cleaning the demographic data and adding time to do so, I thought of the step to be minimal and quick – but after our guest’s lecture, cleaning is a heavy task and requires attention to detail and time like other parts of our project.

Although, data is my strong suit – I always welcome the opportunity to learn from others in the field to continue to keep rethinking ways I use data.

Carousels of NYC – Data Management Plan

The Carousels of New York City project will collect, analyze, and visualize data on 14 carousels across the city and include analysis on neighborhood demographic data. Data collection will include observational metadata gathered through Google Forms, demographic data sourced from NYC Open Data, and geospatial data visualized using ARCGIS StoryMaps. The project will use Google Drive for data storage and organization, following standardized file naming conventions. Final datasets will be publicly shared via WordPress and ARCGIS Living Atlas under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license. Security and privacy concerns are minimal, as no personal or confidential data will be collected. Long-term data preservation will be maintained through Google Drive, with additional archival options considered for institutional repositories. The project will conclude in mid-May 2025, with periodic monitoring by the project lead (Kelly). Adherence to this plan will be monitored by data lead (Carla) and project lead (Kelly),

Carla Ordonez – Personal Bio

Born and raised in New York City in a large, close-knit Latino family, I’ve always been surrounded by people, stories, and connections. Bridging ideas to share with others and build community has been at the core of my professional journey. 

Currently, I work as a consultant for the Administration of Child Services (ACS), where I focus on policies and initiatives that support New York’s children and families. My passion for researching the lived experiences of NYC’s youth and communities fuels much of my work. Alongside my consulting work, I channel my creativity as a bridal and salon hairstylist, crafting styles and hair colors that help people feel their best on their most important days.

Merging my data-driven mindset with my artistic sensibilities, I also serve as the lead digital cartographer and data analysis expert for the Carousels of NYC Project. Through this initiative, I use mapping and spatial analysis to highlight disparities in access to recreational spaces, advocating for a more inclusive and family-friendly city. For me, maps are more than just data points—they’re a way to tell stories, reveal hidden patterns, and bring together the worlds of data and creativity.

My professional journey reflects that dynamic blend of analytical expertise and creative expression. Whether I’m analyzing policies, styling hair, or building interactive maps, my work is driven by a deep love for New York City’s families, communities, and the ways we all navigate and shape this ever-evolving city.

Personal Blog Post 2

Having a day off from class week worked out perfectly for me. Our team met on Friday before we had off and decided to take the time off and meet this week. I went away to see family in Colombia, and the timing worked out great. It’s still early in the semester that it wasn’t a heavy lift to go away and be offline.

By working through our project proposals, defined our roles, and established concrete team and project guidelines, I am clear on the expectations. We have established a good relationship and rapport, I know if I needed clarity or assistance I can reach out at any time. I’m leading the data collection and mapping for the project. Our team set ourselves up to work and think about the project individually, I set up a task tracker in google sheets to organize deliverables and created a data folder and began collecting information.

 

Before leaving, I looked at more data sets on IPUMS, kaggel, and NYC Open Data and began to work and play in ARCGIS. I thought I work on more during the weekend, but with no wifi on flight and terrible connection at my grandparents my productivity slowed down. Again, it was nice to disconnect, it’s early enough in our project to take the break now.

I am excited to meet with our guest this week and take advantage of the ARCGIS workshop being offered on Wednesday. Time to jump into work mode!

Lesson from Week 1 – Personal Blog Post

Meeting with the team was super helpful this week, it was really nice to touch base, finish up some items from class, and to get to know the team a bit better.

We were able to work out the details of our group and discussed future times to meet. Kelly got us organized and using tools like google drive to set up notes, project proposal, and other files all in one place. With her agenda for the meeting with hit many of the points in Rockwell’s quick guide to working in teams.

Without looking into this week’s readings, our team hit some of the advice given. Getting to know each other, team building, and laying the groundwork on how we will make tough decisions. The readings tied nicely into our first personal blog posts. It was cool to read the process of One Week One Tool and their day to day. It was a reminder that the importance of the class is the process of creating a tool, the team building, and the skills we will learn along the way, not necessarily the product that comes out of this class.

I am looking forward to getting to know my team better, to dive into the work of the project, and to continue to learn from our professor, my other classmates, and the digital fellows throughout the semester.