Episode 28: Using Google MyMaps for Techie Projects

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Google MyMaps allows you to customize a Google map. Start by going there and clicking on ‘Explore’. Here are 3 public maps you can view to give you an idea of the possibilities.

• Civil War
• Historic and Educational Tour of Boston
• European Exploration and Discovery

How to use Google MyMaps

Start by clicking on ‘Create a New Map’.

You can choose your base map – a typical map, one that shows the terrain, satellite, etc. Add a title and description for each pin. You can select a style for your pins – they can be different colors and icons. You can include photos and videos in the description. Layers allow you to differentiate between a set of pins ie different students working collaboratively could each be assigned a different layer so you can see who does what. You can select whether to view all layers simultaneously or isolate just one.

Ideas for projects using Google MyMaps

Ditch that Textbook has an excellent blog post with great ideas. Here are some you can use with your children:

1. Each child pitches their ideas for a road trip
2. Literature – plot locations of main scenes
3. Create a map using different layers to show where politicians have visited
4. History – plot battlefields over a few hundred years in an area with each war being a different layer
5. Use different color or style pins to show cities of different sizes
6. Science – show areas of different vegetation or animal life or soil types

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Episode 27: Homeschooling with Google Maps

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And visit our sponsor FundaFunda Academy to see the web-based unit studies and full semester classes they offer.

How to use Google Maps in your Homeschool

1. Let your children navigate using the app. It teaches them to give good instructions and learn how maps work

2. Let your children help with trip planning. They can work out how long you will take to get to places and good eating spots en-route.

3. Math – Your children can practice estimation and then right click (or double click on Macs) and select “Measure Distance”. Click where you want to measure to. You can keep doing this and keep adding to the distance. If you “close” the drawing it will also give you the area.

4. Streetview – Click the Peg Man at the bottom right and then click on the blue lines and blue circles. The circles give you 360 views and the blue lines allow you to walk around the streets. At the top left you may see a date and if you click on that you can get historical views of the area.

Two fun places to visit in Streetview

Diagon Alley at Harry Potter Studio Tour outside London. There is limited walking around.

Doctor Who fans, walk along Earls Court Road (also called the A3220) in London and near the Barkston Gardens intersection you will see the TARDIS! And you can go inside!! If you walk around and can’t find it, here is a direct link.

5. You can find a list of Google Treks here – they provide an enhanced experience to some special places like Petra in Jordan.

6. Click on “satellite” when you are in the regular map view for and turn the labels off and see if your children can identify what they are looking at. The click Control (or Command on a Mac) and drag the mouse around for a cool 3D view of places.

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Episode 7: Homeschooling with Google Slides

Google Slides offers all benefits of Google Drive apps like easy collaboration and access anywhere you have wifi. Listen to episode 2 on Google Drive for more info on all the Google Drive apps.

Some features of Google Slides

Google Drive does have fewer features than many of the slideshow programs available, but it should be able to do everything you and your children need it to do. Here are some features I often use:

• Import from other slideshow programs like Powerpoint and Keynote
• Download in powerpoint format or as a pdf
• Create animations
• Insert videos
• Instert shapes and lines
• Create transitions from one slide to the next

Start teaching your children to use it in a simple way when they are in elementary school.

It is easy to figure out how to use Google Slides, but if you would rather your children learn it as part of a course, FundaFunda Academy (the sponsors of this podcast) offers 2 classes that include a module on Google Slides.

They have a 4 module unit study web-based unit study on all the Google drive apps as well as a full year (1 credit) Computer Applications class, both which include a module on Google Slides.

When your children are ready to go further with Google Slides, here are some more ideas.

1. Turn the slides into a video

To do this add the voiceover extension and when you are done choose to “publish on the web”. Now you will have a video to share with others

2. Create graphic-heavy documents

Google Slides is ideal to make simple flyers and posters. First, change the document size (Go to “File” – “Page Setup” – “Custom” and then enter 8.5 X 11 or whatever size you need). When you are done, download the slide as a png, jpg, or vector file.

3. Produce Timelines

Select “Insert diagram” and then “Timeline”

4. Create comic strips

Make a table with the number of rows and columns you want. Then use callout shapes to make your comic strip.


5. Make Infographics

Find icons from places like the Noun Project

6. Write “Choose your own adventure stories”

You can do this really easily by creating links that go from one slide to another. And of course, it is easy to add graphics and videos so all students will enjoy a creative writing project like this. You can also use it instead of a more typical written project in any subject.

 
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Episode 6: Homeschooling with Google Forms

Google Forms is great for moms (and dads) to use it to create self-graded quizzes and for surveys. You could use it to collect responses to questions like “what field trip your homeschool group might most want to go on”, and “which date works best”.

But it is even more useful for your children to use.

It is easy to figure out how to use Google Forms, but if you would rather your children learn it as part of a course, FundaFunda Academy (the sponsors of this podcast) offers 2 classes that include a module on Google Forms.

They have a 4 module unit study web-based unit study on all the Google drive apps as well as a full year (1 credit) Computer Applications class, both which include a module on Google Forms.

How your children can use Google Forms

Google Forms are great for students to use for research projects. They allow students to learn how to

• design good questions without bias
• do data collection and analysis
• validate the data people enter
• decide on the population sample they will send it to

Although you want your high school students to be able to do all these things, you can start introducing your younger children to Google Forms and just use some of the features. Sit with your elementary age children and together create a simple survey to send to family and friends. This will help them learn what to do and as a result, they will be ready to do it on their own by high school.

Some of the features of Google Forms they should learn to use

• Design the form – There are some basic selections of colors, fonts etc
• Question type – What type of question will be most appropriate (multiple choice, checkbox, sliding scales, choose from a list, text or grid)
• Validation – Must the field be required? Is there a range that respondents should be limited to? A specific format of the answer should take?
• Branching dependent on previous answers – Google Forms allows one to specify different paths dependent on what has already been entered
• Summary of response – this provides all the answers to each question including graphs where appropriate
• Export to Google Sheets (click on green button on the response page) – In Google Sheets they can now manipulate the data to obtain statistics, more graphs and charts etc.

Be sure to incorporate Google Forms into your homeschool so that your children learn how to conduct online surveys. Help them send it out to an appropriate sample of people. And teach them how to interpret and manipulate the data they collect.

 
If you found this useful, please subscribe to the show wherever you get your podcasts.

Contact Meryl via email on meryl@mediaangels.com or connect with her on Pinterest, Instagram, and Facebook.

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