14 DAY TRIAL // Sowmya Subramanian, an Engineering Manager at Google Maps came across a very, no, extremely interesting application of the mapping tool provided by the Mountain View based company.
Google Maps for literature? You might ask if you're still hooked on the title and intrigued as I was when I saw the Google Lat Long Blog post where this was reported. I actually thought it wouldn't go back to its original position if I strained to do it and I'd have to go on the rest of my life looking either intrigued or try to get the second on the same level and have people think that I'm not growing bald but that I'm really optimistic. Ok, enough small talk! How did the teacher manage to use it? He mapped a novel's plot points.
Paul Fleischman's "Whirligig" was the best possible for this, as the main character, Brent, travels to the four corners of the U.S. on a Greyhound bus. His entire rout was plotted, with highlights on the key placements. All the students followed this showing a lot of interest and I wish I'd been there too. The raised eyebrow reason. I anxiously await for the Joules Vern "20000 Leagues Under the Sea" version or the youth's all time favorite "Gulliver's travels" version.
I think you would have eventually considered the possibility to use Google Maps in schools for Geography classes?but literature? And what about Physics? You got it right, somebody taught his 9th grade pupils about speed, velocity and displacement using the mapping service from Google. The teacher had them pair up and plot out different bus routes in the area. Each route was labeled with the average time needed for a bus to make a complete loop and the average speed of the bus.
I say that when they get to use it for genetics they should withdraw it from the Internet. It might get dangerous from that point on.