Using a Google map as the background, MapSkip users can add stories, photos, and sounds from all over the world. Membership is free, and it is easy to add your information to the community maps. This is a great review of MapSkip from TeachersFirst.com that includes ideas for use in the classroom. Other ideas can be found on the MapSkip blog.
Friday, October 17, 2008
MapSkip
Using a Google map as the background, MapSkip users can add stories, photos, and sounds from all over the world. Membership is free, and it is easy to add your information to the community maps. This is a great review of MapSkip from TeachersFirst.com that includes ideas for use in the classroom. Other ideas can be found on the MapSkip blog.
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The best thing that I love about this tool is that it is a Google Application. Google is offered in many different languages; so having a common ground (well in this case a common search engine) is always a plus! The way that I could implement this tool in a potential teaching situation would be to have students make an “Around the World in 80 Days” story. They will have to use sounds and show images of famous people that are from those places.
Mapskip is a great collaborative online free tool for any school age student or adult. Mapskip uses an interactive Google map to share stories, pictures, and experiences from other people's adventures in the world. Mapskip can be used as a resource for a research project to see the different cities and countries around the world. This site allows students to see the different cultures and lifestyles.
I teach 10th grade English, which has a concentration in World Literature. Students can learn more about the author who wrote the story that they are reading, if the author is well-known. If the author is not well-known, then students can still learn about the country that the story came from. This could be a spectacular enrichment tool. I also like that MapSkip has the option for a teacher account.
MapSkip is a great tool for integrating Social Studies and Language Arts into lessons. You can have students find a place on the map, have them research the place, find stories and information using MapSkip about places they would like to visit. They can read stories left by others to learn about the place. They also can write their own stories about other places that they might have visited.
Mapskip is a great way to view other cultures as well as our own. The ability to post our stories is awesome. College freshmen could use this tool to post first semester experiences and connect with other freshmen from a variety of states and foreign countries. Part of the group project assigned is to develop a presentation chronicling the first impressions of university life and this tool would complete the requirements.
One of the features of this tool I really liked is that you can create student accounts that are only visible to you.
I could see myself using this for a project of calculating the cost of a road trip. Students could use MapSkip to mark stops along their way to their final destination. Then they could explain why they chose to stop there on the "story". Students could then take these stops and calcuate a more accurate estimate of mileage. Using that data, students could then use the MPG of their car, along with the national average for fuel, to calculate the cost of traveling to their destination in their automobile.
Mapskip would be a wonderful way for the children of military families to share some of their experiences in travel and living in various locations around the world. When teaching in a Department of Defense School, all children have at least one parent in the service. These kids definitely make very adult sacrifices, but also gain priceless world experiences. Many of these students go and see places world leaders haven't seen, and that most people only read about. How exciting for the children to be able to post actual photgraphs of the various locations they have been as well as capture their vivid impressions and memories through stories to share with all.
I can see many uses for MapSkip in a Social Studies class or to encourage students to write about some faraway land in an ELA class. MapSkip would be very user friendly and easy for students and teachers alike. An example of a possible curriculum focus would be to use MapSkip to explore the European countries involved in WWII. Students learn so much more from actually seeing things than they do from a textbook.
I loved the idea of people from all over the world sharing stories and pictures from their lives. This would be a great way to teach students about different cultures as well learning more about different countries. This site could also be use by foreign language classes to practice their language skills by reading those posts that are not in English. A geography class could assign students particular areas such as SOuth AMerica and they would have to find one story from each country. This site has lots of possibilities!
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