April 5, 2007
Google My Maps
My Google Reader was littered today with news of Google’s My Maps.
I have looked at Platial, Microsoft Live Maps and Mapsack and thought that these tool offer a great way to present information for students. I was interested to see what Google Maps would offer and assess if this was the leader of the pack.
So, I’ve spent an hour this morning putting together my first map. I am impressed with how easy it was. I firstly created a Picasa Web Album to store the images I wanted to add to my map. I then created My Map presenting my holiday photos from last Summer. I guess if I was more adventurous I could I added some text to describe the pictures or added details about the history of the areas visited.
Creating the Picasa Web Album allowed me to easily add the images to my map. Picasa We Album has a ‘Link to this Photo’ button that provides the html code to add to My Maps. To add the html code I added a placemark and then pasted the html code in ‘Edit HTML’.
The Google My Maps help is very straight forward in explaining how to create a map.
This would be a create tool for students to use for a geography field trip, a local history project or any topic where geographical location was related to the infromation presented.
So after an hour this morning I was very impressed - this is my favourite mapping tool. It was simple, straight forward and quick to create my map.
Video can be added in the same way as images were added from Picasa. Selecting the embed html code from sites such as YouTube and Google Videos and adding this to a placemark is as easy as it is for a picture.
To add sounds I could a link to a file I had stored on Archive.org or a podcast I had created with software like Podium. I could create a movie in PhotoStory or MovieMaker, add this to my OurMedia page and link this to my placemarker.
The easy of use and versatility, as well as the emphasis on creativity, would make it very appealing to students - well at least for the first dozen times students are asked to create a my map!
Filed by Paul at 9:45 am under collaborative, web tools
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