How to use Google Maps in Education

Explore the world
with Google Maps

Pegman

- How to use Google Maps in the Classroom

There is nothing like an unexpected journey! Exploring new places and understanding new things is a key to motivation and creativity. Let the adventure take place in the classroom. Foreign places, new languages, different cities and environments. That's where learning and curiosity can begin.

Explore the World with Pegman

The best way to explore new places is to look at them in Street View. This will show you what the place looks like from the street. Google Maps is made from millions of pictures taken from Google cars and aeroplanes that will give you a detailed view of (almost) every corner of the world.
You can easily enter street view by clicking the small, yellow man at the right bottom of the screen. Did you know that that little guy actually has a name? He is called “Pegman” and he will be your companion on your trip!
If you click Pegman once you will see blue dots and lines appear on the map. The lines are streets that you can walk around on and the dots are 360° photos uploaded from users all over the world. Click a dot or a line to see the place in street view.
There is also a cuter way to get to street view! If you click Pegman and drag him across the map you can drop him at any place that you want to explore. He will show you anything you want!

How to use Google Maps

Move around in Street View

Once you have entered Street View you can move around on the map using the arrow pointer or the arrow keys on the keyboard. Zoom in or out on the object to walk by to see details better. If you can’t move around, it might be because you accidentally clicked or landed on an image instead of a road. Just use the web browsers back-arrow and try again – make sure to land on the road this time!

If you are walking around in a city you might see the “Google Art and Culture” sign on a house. This is great since it means that you may look inside! Just click the icon and enter the museum! The Sherlock Holmes museum in Baker Street in London is one out of many that you may look inside.

Google art and culture
Sherlock Holmes museum

Use Street View to practice directions

This is a tip that I got from Olle Linge who has a PhD in language studies at Uppsala University! Google Street view can be used to have the students practice directions in language studies. At the same time they can explore a city in the country they read about and get some digital skills at the same time!

Just look at the map in advance and write directions that the students should try to follow. You can set the city train station as the students start point and have them type the address to begin. Then you can share a document with directions that they will need to follow in order to get to their hotel.

The directions can be written like any directions since they will see everything they walk by. If the language the students are learning is English you can set the starting point to be Kings Cross station and the first directions to be:

  1. Walk straight ahead to the traffic lights.
  2. Take to the right and walk across the square.
  3. Walk straight ahead until you see the library on your right.
  4. etc. . . until they find the hotel! 🙂

 

More about Google Classroom

1 thought on “How to use Google Maps in Education”

  1. What you are spoken correspondence is thoroughly evident. I do realize that everybody should say a comparative factor, anyway I just expect that you essentially place it in an extremely strategy that everyone will see. I’m positive you may arrive at such a ton of people with what you\’ve to make reference to.

Comments are closed.