# 6 Google Maps

Where would I be without Google Maps or Where is it? There have been times that I have had to travel around the Lismore Diocese and I check out Google Maps to find my destination. With the click of a mouse or a scroll in or out you feel like you are flying the route yourself. You can even zoom in to locate house numbers! Then, by using the street view option you can get an image of the destination which is fabulous for me as I am notoriously lost ALL the time. Recognising a street corner or shop in real time driving is very comforting for me.

I discovered this video tutorial and it gave me a great idea for planning our trip to Singapore with our two sister-in-laws and their families. A lot of emails have been whipping back and forth but some email responses become out of date very quickly. This would be fantastic to try:

Sharing a Google Map with Friends

Over the past few years I have worked with primary school classes to connect them with e-pals around the world. Google Maps has been such an incredible experience to zoom into the e-pal’s school location and ‘fly’ around the local district to put an image to the e-pal’s blog descriptions. It’s like visiting!

Recently a class was to go down to the local shopping centre for a maths ‘find a shape in the environment’ excursion. The teacher explained where they were going and so I popped up the Google Maps webpage onto the IWB and we cruised around the town to help us predict what shapes we would find. Of course Google updates their maps about every three years so the students were sure to find more shapes in the environment when they went for a walk snapping their class camera.

With Google Maps on my iPhone I can virtually walk or drive anywhere AND arrive on time!