Exercise: Creating Your Own Map

Making maps to show where you've been or where you're going or what's interesting about a place is a great learning exercise. In this exercise you'll learn how.

1. As an example, look at the September 2007 Dodge Family Trip to New York City. Click on the icons to see what they saw and where they ate. Then explore a very different place: the small town of Bonthe, Sierra Leone.
   
   

View 2007 New York Dodge Family Trip in a larger map

View Bonthe, Sierra Leone in a larger map




2. Take a few minutes to walk through the Google My Maps Guide.
   
   
3. Now, to make your own. Go to Google Maps and click on the My Maps icon. (You have to be logged in with your Google ID or it won't know who "My" is.
   
   
4. Pick a place you'd like to map by navigating to it. It might be someplace you visited, the neighborhood around your school, the location of a scientific installation, a natural wonder, or some historic site.
   
   
5. Add a few placemarks.
   
   
6. Browse through the Google Maps directory to see if there additional content you could usefully add to your map.
   
   
7. Click on "Link to this page" to generate a (long) URL that you can share with others.
   
   
8. Go to http://tinyurl.com to make that URL shorter.
   
   
9. Add your map to the class directory by using this form.

What useful maps can you create, or ask your students to create, which would result in a deeper understanding of what happens in a particular place?

Some Rights Reserved - 2010 - Bernie Dodge