I love Google maps. I am not sure of the accuracy of there direction because I have not use them all that much. But what I am impressed with is the capability of this program. Yes, you are able to get direction and find various businesses. But that is only the tip of the iceberg. When you first pull up Google maps there is a search bar that pops up. When you type in an address before you hit the second or third letter it is giving you pretty accurate possibly of addresses. Then you click on the one you want and you see its location. Then you have the option to choose to see the actual street where that particular location resides. Once you get the street view you are able to pan around and see the surrounding area. My wife and I are looking for houses to rent and before we actually went to those locations, I checked them out on Google maps. I checked the distance from that house to Dollywood and from there to various colleges. If you need direction from point A to point B you are able to modify them by determining things like whether or not you wanted to go on toll roads or not. You can even look at the terrain of a particular place to see if you can miss the rollacoster roads for those who get car sick like some in my family do. If a particular business is your final destination you can look up info about it like customer reviews. You could even write one yourself. Last with respect to personal applications you are even able to create your own personal directions for someone else to use when visiting a specific location.
Know for the teacher side of life. A teacher could use this program to create activity or even a whole lesson around Google maps. The expert on this program showed how she used Google maps to do a discovery activity on a particular volcano. She even did a activity on a virtual tour, which I thought both of those would engage the student as well as teach them various aspects of Google maps. The lesson plan I looked at was on the earth, sun, and moon. This lesson plan had starter questions about the Earth, sun, and moon. They also had various aspects that was desired to be covered. What I thought was vary useful and helpful was the thumbtacks and images on the map itself. The student could click on one or the other and get important info of general inquiry. They could get specific information about that place. One of the images talked about moon illusions. Another one talked about the moon race. This site is definitely broad and specific in its capability. Way to help us map things out Google.
Thank you! :-)
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