This blog is maintained by the Wenatchee School District's Instructional Technology Department to keep staff updated on tips and techniques for navigating the digital world. The content on this website in no way represents the opinions or beliefs of WSD.
One thing I've made a point of doing this year is using images in my blog and presentations that are free to use, with no copyright issues. In my new role I need to practice what I preach to students and teachers instead of just taking the quickest route and using Google. You can use Google's Advanced Search to narrow things down or with a few clicks you can find images that are free to use.
Yesterday on Twitter I came across this post by Dustin Senos that lists a ton of great places that have free stock photos. Even better are all of the comments where other people have listed free image sites. The more I use sites like this the easier it becomes to find images and I don't have the angel and the devil on my shoulder prodding me one way or another.
I think Google Maps is often overlooked when it comes to Google's amazing suite of tools, but I keep finding great uses for it besides just looking at locations. Last week I presented at a conference and showed off the Mapping Sheets extension that allows you to make a sheet with locations, (or get data from a Google Form) and, with a few clicks of your mouse, plot those locations on a Google Map.
Today I read on FreeTech4Teachers about how Google already has that capability baked in. Simply create a sheet with a column called 'Location', in Google Drive go to New > More > Google My Maps to create your map. On the left sidebar under the first layer you can import your Google Sheet and the locations will appear. You have to point it to the Google Sheet with the data and tell it which column has the locations.
In a social studies class you could use this to plot where all of our stuff comes from by looking at labels and tags. It's quite eye-opening. In an ELA class you could also plot a character's movements around the globe, complete with additional information that shows up on the map. It's worth checking out and then letting your students figure out stuff to map on it.
