Many of us are familiar with the most basic capabilities of Google Maps: finding a street, getting driving directions, and switching to “Satellite” view to see our homes and other favorite places from above.

In this week’s Teaching with Technology Tuesdays presentation, Sandy Isenstadt, Assistant Professor in History of Art, shared two examples of activities he conducted with his students that made use of Google’s tools for creating custom maps.

First, Sandy showed his class blog for BRST440, Modern British Architecture, from summer 2007. The blog linked to a custom Google Map of London, which showed the locations of building students had chosen for their final projects: studying and writing about buildings on which no secondary literature was available. Locations on the map can link to notes and other information about the buildings.

This spring, students in the course HSAR462, Shops and Shopping, are using Google Maps to organize their study of the histories of New Haven retail establishments. As he planned the course, Sandy knew he wanted to impress upon students that where things occur in space matters to their histories. Google Maps met his need for a visualization tool–a way to help students become accustomed to thinking in urban terms. Students used a variety of sources found online and in Yale’s own collections (such as directories, athletic programs, and student publications) to conduct a spacial and temporal study of New Haven shops. The class’s Google Map shows retail locations and their movements over time, and links to detailed write-ups submitted by students.

( A portion of the custom map created by the students in the Shops and Shopping course.)

Sandy suggested that next steps for the project might include opening the site up to other scholars at Yale who are interested in the study of New Haven history–some of whom might even contribute to the map’s content. Sandy plans to seek his students’ permission to share their work with others outside the class.

The presentation continued with Ken Panko, Manager of the Instructional Technology Group, and Stace Maples, GIS Assistant in the Library, who demonstrated some features of Google Maps. Ken showed how to create and edit a custom map, including how to add a “pushpin” to pinpoint a location and add shading to define an area. Stace described some more advanced features, including Spreadsheet Mapper 2.0, a Google tool for important map data (such as location information and coordinates) directly into a Google Map.

Ken showed some examples of publicly available custom maps (found–when logged into Google Maps with a Google account–by clicking on the “My Maps” tab and browsing the directory). One example was a map that showed census data (more info at maps.webfoot.com). A point was raised about the importance of teaching students to verify accuracy of sources when incorporating others’ map data into their scholarly work.

Finally, everyone logged into Google Maps and tried out the map editing tools, adding points and polygons, notes and descriptions, and (in the case of some of the more advanced users) even images. Since we were all editing the same map, we could view each others’ changes immediately on our own screens. Though, another way to have a large group work on a single map is to have each person work on a separate map and overlay them later; this ensures collaborators don’t change or overwrite each others’ work. The activity wrapped up with several attendees asking questions and sharing some ideas about how they might use Google Maps in their own classes in the future.