Google Maps as a creative teaching tool.

If you want to try a different and technological activity with your students, here I let you some ways to do it with the Google Maps website or application.

Nowadays everyone knows about the Google Maps application for the mobile phone, but we use to focus on the most characteristic function, the GPS. However, there are more options in the website, and, some of them can be interesting and stimulating for the english classroom.

First of all, we can use the most common option too for the classroom. the maps borrow concepts from many different disciplines, such us math, geography, art and language. At this point, we can measure distances, create routes for group trips, explore historical or far away places... For the students is really stimulating to explore and know new places, they can take contact with other cultures, even they can only visit in a digital way.

The second option is Earth Picker. It is a game which place you in randon places around the world. The children guees where are they in the map. They have to pay attention to the signs, the language, the type of buildings and other clues. This option can teach our students the importance of the culture in the society, a english student must understand the importance of the culture in the language and the world society.

If the last function of the Google Maps website is too easy for your children, here I let you one option for older students: MyMaps. MyMaps page is a powerful tool for the english classroom if we want to work with extracurricular links, such as geography or maths. Thanks to this application the children can create their own map using Google´s interface: They will be able to edit the base map, include markers and icons, make directions and different areas, they can even plan a trip... In conclusion, it can really be applied in the english classroom if we want to give them the opportunity to be creative and learn more about the cultures and how the world works.

For finish. I would like to mention too the Smarty Pins as one of the Google Maps tools. Smarty Pins is a web- game created by Google which include a Quiz with art. culture. science, history, sports and current events questions, they are scored depending on how far is the answer is in relation with their physical position in the map. For that I think that it can be also a good tool if we want to assess our students knowledge in a  creative way.