Google Maps

I've used Mapquest but never Google Maps. I was surprised by some of the features of Google Maps (some of which may be on Mapquest as well) that I thought would be really useful, both for in regular life and for teaching. I like that when getting directions you can avoid highways and tolls and that you can plan your trip for the car, walking, or even public transit. I especially like that the same site can give you both directions and a visual of what the location actually looks like. (How many times have you followed directions correctly, only to be unable to recognize your destination?)

I viewed the lesson plan and map for the Language Arts Lesson on the historical novel My 
Brother Sam is Dead and the map for the science lesson on the weather. I really liked the placemakers feature that allowed students to show a location and to tell more about it.  The map was really helpful for students to understand the distances between battles and cities mentioned in the novel, and to understand how these effected the lives of the characters in the novel. It was also interesting to see that even information unrelated to geography (such as discussion questions) could be added to peacemakers on the map, and how the key on the left provided a sort of timeline as well. It was also interesting to see how students could connect how different weather phenomena are related to geography,as they can see that the locations where tornados are prevalent are on the plains, ect.