MapWing.com is a free tool that makes it easy to build, share, and explore virtual tours. Students can take pictures of important or interesting sites in their community and create a virtual tour and share it with others around the world. Many virtual tours are available on the site for browsing, such as this medieval village in the south of France (although it might be a good idea to keep Google Translate open in another window).
Suggested by Lynette Taylor
9 comments:
After exploring MapWing I realized what this type of tool could really benefit real estate and car dealer websites. There are so many possibilities for this tool to be used I kind of wish I had thought of it first. As far as teaching possibilities I could see MapWing being used to explore historical buildings or art sculptures. A virtual tour of the Roman Coliseum is just one example that I think students would really be captivated by.
The initial thoughts I had with this site and tool is that it would be perfect for teaching /touring students through sites and places they would never see. It has at a minimum excellent potential for georaphy and history teaching.
In History the teacher could have two versions of a location shown and have the points of each zone that relates to events. THis way students would be able to see what happened in a place and then relate it to how it looks today.
For geography I could see it being implemented to enhance discussions / lessons on different areas. It could also be designed in a way that students could tour the areas being taught by themselves outside of the classroom setting.
This site is a great teaching tool for the visual learner. This could be useful prior to a field trip to show students things to be aware of and notice while attending.
This could be used as an online "show and tell". I think it would be interesting for students to use this at the beginning of school after returning for summer break and share some pictures of summer vacation or even pictures just from their time at home.
I can see this being used to have students create something like a travel brochure, sort of a descriptive writing exercise with photos. They could write about places they've been and post their own photos, or could find photos of places they would like to go, and post them.
After browsing MapWing,I saw numerous of ways to use this website in my classroom. First, we can take virtual field trips to museums around the world. The students get to travel to places that most of them will never get to go. Students will also get to write research papers and learn a great deal about the culture in which they live.
This is a very cool application. I have always been a fan of using virtual tours and experiences to show students areas in a virtual environment that they would see only in a book otherwise. This would be great for a geography or history class. I can see using this to teach world history and see some of the wonders of the world.
There are several of my students who travel internationally with the school art program, with their family, or with the Spring Break travel group, and I would love to use the MapWing.com tool as a way to integrate technology and provide a way for students to share more about their travels. Additionally, I think MapWing.com is a great visual aid to supplement my lesson plans. I would use it to show pictures I have taken of American and British authors' homes and of cities that are included in the literature I teach.
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