Co-created Google Map: Sites of Significance to Students
At the opening meeting of History 671 on August 21, 2013, as a way to get acquainted through doing a bit of digital public history, our class jointly created a Google Map depicting sites of historical significance to each class member.
This was an exercise that I, the instructor, devised on the fly just hours before class met for the first time. After sharing the idea on Facebook, friends asked that I flesh out the description. So here is a more complete set of instructions. I am also adding in red some suggestions for improvements to this assignment offered by the students in History 671.
Instructor Preparations in Advance
Log in to your Google account.
Go to Google Maps–>My Places, and click “Create Map.” Give your new map a name, and save in My Maps. Set your sharing preferences for the map so that “anyone with the link” can “edit.” By whatever means is available to you, put a link to the map in a spot where the students will be able to access it during class via their own computers.
Note: There seem to be some differences in functionalities available in traditional Google Maps and Google Maps Engine Lite (including in the ability to post images to “pins” you place), so the instructions below are somewhat general and the actual experience in class may include some futzing to figure out what works best.
Here is a good tutorial for how this works in traditional Google Maps, which is what we used.
In Class
Students should be able to access the map via the link. If they have Google accounts, there may be some advantage to logging in before they start, so that Google registers who is editing. Indeed, it appeared from my students’ experience (8/28/2013) that–despite the Google setting that “anyone” with a link could edit–they could not actually edit the map unless they were logged in.
Here are the instructions for the class members:
Imagine that someone is going to post a historic marker at one location that has been significant in your personal or family history. Add a “pin” or marker to the location you choose (if you don’t know how to do this, check the tutorial above, or just Google around for help; there’s lots out there). (Students also suggested that the instructions could be to add a pin for the “most historic place” you’ve ever been, and why it’s significant to you.)
After adding your marker, customize the “pin” with an icon that is more appropriately representative of what the significance of that location is to you. In the box associated with the marker, write a short (approximately 50 words or less) interpretive statement including your initials, what the place is, and why it is important TO YOU. (Students suggested that we might actually try to write these in the style/form/word limits of an actual roadside historic marker; it would be easy to put in a sample of one of those and work from that.) Finally, add an image if you can (you do this by finding an image on the web, right-clicking, and grabbing the “image URL”). (Again, the above tutorial will show how to do this in traditional Google Maps.)
Once everyone gets their markers up, project the co-created map on the screen at the front of the room, and go around the room, zoom to each pin, and have each student talk about the site they chose and why.
Here is our map–tweaked a bit after the in-class work to make sure everyone was comfortable sharing.
View History 671 Sites in a larger map
