Carol LaRow - Educational Technology Consulting & SUNY Albany - School of Education, Niskayuna CSD teacher 33 years

Learn how to create customized, interactive Google maps, which are included in Google Drive. Use for lessons you teach and/or have students use them to demonstrate what they have learned in units of study. Students can use "My Maps" for collaborative student projects, project-based learning, individual reports, and teaching their peers. Maps help students visualize the world around them and understand where places are located and events took place. Teachers can illustrate lessons by showing students exact locations for historical events, famous landmarks, science lessons, upcoming field trips, timelines, current events, and more. Maps can be used with Google Classroom. They can be embedded on school webpages, blogs, etc. Users place “pins” on the map and add information - text, images, videos, slide shows, and links for more information.

This is a great tool for having students create projects to show geographical features, national parks, volcanoes, famous battlefields, the states, and more. "My Maps" is useful for both teachers and students. Teachers can add maps to web pages and/or post maps in Classroom for students to access as part of assignments. Student maps can be "shared" with teachers via Google Classroom, and they can be added to teacher websites to "publish" student work.

Conference Strand: How to/Integration

Target Audience: Grades K-12, Post-Secondary