I recently presented at the national ISTE conference, and this collaborative map activity was one of the crowd favorites. It allows you to gather data via a Google Form/Spreadsheet and then easily map the results using the BatchGeo tool!
Resources / Things you’ll need:
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•A Google account for the teacher (students will NOT need accounts)
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•A Google form/spreadsheet to gather the data
http://docs.google.com -
•The BatchGeo tool to map the data
http://www.batchgeo.com
Instructions
Creating the Form:
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1.Go to http://docs.google.com
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2.Pull down the “Create New” button and choose “Form.”
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3.Add a title and some questions similar to these:
- Name
- City
- State or Country
- Interesting Fact
Note - You could find out: where students were born; the farthest they’ve ever traveled; their favorite vacation spot; if they could live anywhere in the world; etc.
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4.Send students to the blue URL at the bottom of the form-creation page.
Note - You can use TinyUrl.com to shorten the address! -
5.Give students time to fill out the form.
Copying the Data:
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1.Go to the spreadsheet that collected the form data.
- From the form-editor window, pull down the “See Responses” button and choose “Spreadsheet.”
OR
- Go to the Google Docs homepage (docs.google.com) and click the link with the title of your form. -
2.Click and drag to select the data (including the column headers).
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3.Copy the selected data.
- Control + C (Win)
- Command + C (Mac)
Creating the Map:
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1.Go to BatchGeo.
http://www.batchgeo.com -
2.Paste the data into the provided area.
- Control + V (Win)
- Command + V (Mac)
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3.Click the “Map Now” button.
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4.Click a placemark on the map to reveal the student’s name and interesting fact.
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5.Click the Save & Continue button. (Optional)
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6.Enter a name for your map and enter your email address. (Optional)
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7.You will receive an email that contains a URL and embed code for your map. Then you can easily share it with others! (Optional)
