Week 12: My Maps
Maps provide context and relevance to topics covered in class and allow students to visualize complex ideas and scenarios. Maps are a fundamental part of everyday life and the development and widespread use of geographic technologies require modern citizens to understand spatial information. For this reason, helping students become competent users and creators of these technologies should be an important element of all of classes.
Google My Maps is an online mapping tool, that allows students to create and share their own maps. Students can drop pins at certain locations throughout a map and provide a description of that pin, including a picture or video. Students can add different layers for different regions or topics. Other features available to use in My Maps are drawing a line between multiple locations, adding directions to get to a location, and measuring the distance between locations. Students can all be on the same map simultaneously, collaborating on locating different locations to drop pins on or measure.
It is not the same as Maps located in the G Suite apps which is used to locate a place and plan a route to travel to that place. Below are a couple tutorials that show how to get to the correct place and what to do while you are there.
In this tutorial, Richard Byrne explains how to import a set of data from a spreadsheet.
Google My Maps is an online mapping tool, that allows students to create and share their own maps. Students can drop pins at certain locations throughout a map and provide a description of that pin, including a picture or video. Students can add different layers for different regions or topics. Other features available to use in My Maps are drawing a line between multiple locations, adding directions to get to a location, and measuring the distance between locations. Students can all be on the same map simultaneously, collaborating on locating different locations to drop pins on or measure.
It is not the same as Maps located in the G Suite apps which is used to locate a place and plan a route to travel to that place. Below are a couple tutorials that show how to get to the correct place and what to do while you are there.
My Maps Tutorials
In this tutorial, Michael Kratchwell demonstrates a basic how to set up a map with locations and directions.
My Maps can be used by teachers as part of a lesson to introduce locations and events. It could also be used by students to share what they have learned from a lesson. Alice Keeler's My Maps Lesson Ideas offer other excellent suggestions.
I would like to try to use My Maps to plot the recession of Shakes Glacier. Each year, we take a team of students up the Stikine River to survey the glacier, but we have not really involved them in the mapping aspect yet because of the immense amount of time and energy needed to learn the mapping program. However, My Maps looks like a program they could pick up rather quickly and would involve them in more of the process!
Resources:
Carrie Day; Engaging Learners Through Technology at ASTE
http://ditchthattextbook.com/2016/03/15/20-ways-google-mymaps-can-enhance-lessons-in-any-class/
https://www.edtechteam.com/blog/2018/03/have-students-collaborate-on-maps-with-google-my-maps/
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| This is what I imagine our students creating with the data we have collected from each year. |
Resources:
Carrie Day; Engaging Learners Through Technology at ASTE
http://ditchthattextbook.com/2016/03/15/20-ways-google-mymaps-can-enhance-lessons-in-any-class/
https://www.edtechteam.com/blog/2018/03/have-students-collaborate-on-maps-with-google-my-maps/
I completed a project on this in my undergrad. It is a great for teaching about social studies in a way that is relevant to students.
ReplyDeleteThis is something I am also looking into for another purpose. Nice blog. I hope your students stick with it.
ReplyDeleteHi Heather great post, I am a bit of Maps nerd and love this post. Thank you for the illustration on how to use this with a group of students.. The geolocation of events is now and finding new ways of linking location to events in time can reveal new insights I have a friend that does coastal imagery and uses something similar to plan back country iceskating trips trips as there is open source s satellite imagery to access ice conditions...here is a link to that https://vimeo.com/313748064
ReplyDeleteI could see this a great tool for geography class or possibly even using in a history course for instance to map the distance between the westard expansion, trail of tears, gold rush to Alaska....etc. Fun out of the box application.
ReplyDelete