These are two very interesting maps.
World as seen by US travellers
Learners can be challenged to make a map of their own like this using any picture editing software. They can make a map of world as they see it, according to physical features (mountains, deserts etc), accroding to Muslim population etc. A great warm up activity for world map study.
Review: Maps tools For Adventure is a joint venture by National Geographic and The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. This is actually a travelling exhibit but apart from the exhibit the site alone is the best I have come across on the topic of maps. Teaching about key math concepts can feel dry but not with Maps Tools Of Adventure where maps are presented as “tools of adventure” . There are six excellent games to play and a wealth of ideas in the educators’ section. As the kids work their through games they are introduced to topics such as map keys and legends, Layers of information on a map, GIS (Global Information System), different kinds of maps etc at the same time learning about how maps are used in everyday life, how to follow directions, reading skills, endangered animals and Egyptian Pyramids etc. In the official unit study on mapping skills you will find tips on introducing mapping skills to younger children and working your way through to more complex skills. For bigger kids try engaging lessons and activities like Spice World, Geography of Pizza, Mapping the human journey etc. Check out the related links for additional goodies. Overall a great resource which in itself can be enough when teaching maps and geography.
Suitable for ages: 5-15
Adventures of Amelia the Pigeon
Review: Adventures of Amelia the Pigeon is a great interactive site by NASA Science. The site tells the adventures of a pigeon who, equipped with a pigeon camera, goes around places in New York city. In a fun and interactive way kids are introduced to aerial photography, satellites and how these things may help us. When you are starting to teach mapping skills to young children, this site can be a great place to start. Children will learn how things seem different when seen from the top and this is a crucial skill in map study. The site is in the form of a story, divided in five chapters. The narrative is in the form of audio as well as written text. One drawback is that slides can not be paused and so if your learner is eager to read the story by him/her self, the transition may be quite speedy for him/her. There is also music at the transition of chapters and some in between so you will need to keep your hand ready on the speakers. Otherwise a very good site. There are also some lesson plans and related worksheets available in the Teacher’s guide.
Suitable for ages: 5-10
While we have been busy oohing and aahing over Google Earth/Maps, the Bing people have been working hard.
Check out the video below to discover the new wonders of Bing Maps.
Have Fun Teaching has a large collection of teaching aids, including worksheets, display items, flash cards, songs, coloring pages, videos, activities, graphic organizers and other teaching tools like lesson plans and reward sheets etc. Along with worksheets for regular subjects like math, science and English grammar, it has got some unusual worksheets like worksheet for mapping skills, comic strips, writing prompts etc. All resources are categorized according to grade and also according to subject so finding a resource is really easy. You can even create your own worksheets if you can not find one that suits your learner’s need. Over all a vast bank of resources for the teachers and teaching parents.
Worksheetworks is another site where you can find free worksheets to print. What makes this site different though is that you can customize the worksheet to suit your students age and ability and the site will generate a worksheet for you which you can download as a PDF. The worksheets found on this site are also of higher quality and are not (much) boring like the average worksheet. For example take a look at this Addition maze or Addition Problem Search where students have to find addition problems like a word search. All worksheets are provided with an answer key. There are also worksheets for grammar and literacy, puzzles, maps and some other misc worksheets.
Review: Sizing up the universe is an amazing interactive. Many of the discoveries of physical science can seem incomprehensible to students because they involve phenomena on scales far removed from their experiences but this interactive solves the problem by letting students use familiar objects such as golf balls and basketballs and placing them in familiar contexts to explain the correct scale of universe. First you need to choose an object for planet Earth, you can choose between a beach ball, a basket ball and a brussels sprout. Then you will decide the size of the moon if your earth was as big as one of the above object. Using Google maps this interactive will explain to you how far the moon would be if earth the size of, say, a beach ball is placed in your backyard. Then the interactive will let you visualize how big would be the sun for a beach ball sized earth and if the sun is kept in your back yard, where exactly would be the earth. My kids really liked it as they could see familiar neighborhood features to explain them the distance between objects. The interactive then goes on to explain solar system, Milky way, other galaxies and the distance between sun and the nearest star. A true gem for any space project and space enthusiast. We had fun imagining the proportion of objects for example if our solar system is as large as a fried egg, the milky way would be as big as continent Asia. So we tried to imagine how many fried eggs would be needed to fill up the entire continent of Asia. It was real fun. There are also some videos to watch but videos contain music so better keep the speakers off. There is music also at the beginning of the interactive.
Suitable for ages: 5-15 years old.
“Google Earth lets you fly anywhere on Earth to view satellite imagery, maps, terrain, 3D buildings, from galaxies in outer space to the canyons of the ocean. You can explore rich geographical content, save your toured places……”
(Baitullah in Makkah, visible through Google Earth)
I know Google Earth doesn’t need a introduction. This trend setting application from Google is known by almost everyone. Its usage and interface is also very simple. The reason I want to share this tool again with you is to remind you again about the versatility of this tool and the great number of resources I have on hand about using this tool to make learning fun, engaging and challenging for our kids, Insha Allaah.
Tutorials: For those who are not very familiar with this application, here and here are some tutorials from Google.
For All ages: Some great ideas to use Google Earth in Tom Barrette’s presentation below
For Younger Students: Do some scavenger hunts from here and here
For Older Students: Use these ready made resources to study different concepts like World Oil consumption, Hurricane Katrina, World wide panoramas, rising sea level animation etc.
Games for Learning: Want to fly in an F-16, or take a boat trip? Try one of these games using Google Earth
Some More: Browse through these 50 exciting ideas to use Google Earth in education. My personal favourites are Real World Maths and Google Earth Ocean.
Google Lit Trips: Looking for ways to combine digital literacy skills, research, literary study, reading and writing for the web, and more? All you need is Google Lit Trips! This one tool can provide cross-curricular connections, literary exploration, and 21st century literacy skills. 
You can even use make your own trips following the journeys of Ambiyaa, Sahabah and other important people in Islaam or study the important battles in Islaam etc. Imagination is the limit.
Exemplary Uses:
We recently found this skeleton of a blue whale in Google Earth as a part of our Whale study.
In a way Scribble Maps is not a new tool, its an extension of my last post about Google Maps. It is a version of Google Maps that lets you add shapes, doodles, text or other annotations. Rest of the things like sharing, embedding, satellite or hybrid views are same. You can save your map, print it etc just like Google maps. I discovered this tool after we made our map on Whale migration, where we used Google maps line tool to show our whale’s migration which was inconvenient and technically speaking, not the proper use for line tool. Scribble map is just the right tool for purposes like this.
Google Maps, as the name tells, is all about maps. It allows you to see maps in “maps” mode, “satellite” mode and “terrain” mode. One may ask whats so special about a program that lets you see maps? Well for one thing its a free service. Secondly maps are fully interactive and zoom level is up to the street level. However there are a few extensions that make it a very very powerful tool.
First is the “street view” extension. The street view lets you view any given place from the eye level of a person standing at that place, unlike Google Earth which gives an aerial view. This powerful tool takes the usage of Google Maps to a whole new level. You can explore places in a 3D environment, go on virtual field trips, let your imagination go wild with this neat tool. One drawback though, the street view is only available (yet) for North America, Europe and some other areas. Google’s LatLong blog announced yesterday the addition of Hong Kong and Macau in the list. So lets hope that the list will grow and cover the whole globe. For ideas on how to use the street view in your education visit this site about Media Infusion or visit Street View Gallery. Using it is simple, just open Google Maps and for the areas where Street View is available, you will see a small orange person near the zoom controls. Click and drag this little fellow on the areas you wish to see and there you go. All the other functions like directions etc are also accessible in the street view mode.
The other extension is My Maps, which allows you to make personalized maps complete with photos and videos which can be shared on a blog or website. Making maps is easy and quick. Just sign in with your Google account, click on Maps and then click on My Maps. For some quick tutorials on making your own maps click here and for general help on Google Maps click here.
Exemplary Uses:
Check out Ah’s map on whale migration in South Africa.
