Many educators may be familiar with Lit Trips on Google Earth--teachers and/or students post geographical information around the storyline of great literature. Google Treks follow the same concept, but are not limited to just literature; you can create treks around any content area.
Alice Christie offered a workshop on using Google Maps for student to create content related to curriculum:
Mapping Mash-ups that Motivate: Deepen Learning Using Web 2.0 Tools . (Specific info for the class is found on the class website page ).
Educators or students can create content by created place marks on Google Maps that contain text information, links to websites, photos, movies, or any web2.0 content that can be embedded. A series of these place marks can be grouped as a "custom map" that is shared publicly or limited to specific individuals. Google Maps also allows multiple users to collaborate on the same custom map, which is ideal for classroom small group projects. Because it is web based, students can even collaborate from their respective homes if they have an internet connection.
Alice provides examples and a tutorial to help educators learn the process.
There are many pluses to using Google Maps to create Google Treks content:
- virtually any content area can be used
- it is a collaborative tool
- higher order thinking is engaged with the process
- students can incorporate any web links, media, or web2.0 tool for the content
- Google Maps is much less network intensive than Google Earth (any of you who have tried to run multiple machines with GE will know what I am talking about)
I highly recommend teachers look for ways to incorporate Google Treks into their curriculum.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
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