Whirligig MyMap Evolution Continues

So I’ve added a lot more to the Whirligig map since last time. It turned out to be an awesome choice for this project. Talk about a project that requires a close reading! I spent more time with this short book than I care to admit to.

Almost everything in the Whirligig was accurate. It’s worth checking out the San Diego area for pure insanely psychotic detail and there’s some fun links scattered throughout as well as some great CC photos from Flickr. I crammed the map in below using MyMapsPlus which allows you to put the maps you create on other sites. It’s better in the larger view here.

The interesting thing I mentioned to kids was that all the photos were from the actual places. I briefly presented the file to students in three classes and tried to stress that this was all real and it seemed to add an some additional dimension to the novel (I’m hoping next year they make their own files). The students seemed to like what this added to the book and it led to some good questions and some wasted time. Some of the kids couldn’t handle the blood alcohol calculator I linked to. There was also a decent amount of students looking up their houses. I don’t have a problem with that but it’s worth keeping in mind that the kids are going to want to play some. I’d suggest letting them play with it before any project and get that stuff out of their system.

I did it all in the My Maps online feature which was interesting. I like the interface better than Google Earth in some ways. It’s easier to edit the lines in my opinion.

What I’d like added to My Maps is the ability to join lines together. I didn’t realize initially that I could continue lines after stopping the editing so I made a bunch of lines. It’s no real disaster but if you have too many items on one page in My Maps it’ll require two pages and the items on the second page don’t show up until you go to that page (and then you loose the items on page one). It’d be nice if I could have corrected my mistakes by shift clicking two lines and selecting merge or something like that. (Did that make any sense?)

I’d also like to be able to upload additional pushpin icons rather than having to just use those provided by Google.

So I’m going to take what I’ve done here and start polishing it in Google Earth. I’ll change the pushpins to some things that are more interesting, add a few pictures and continue my fruitless search for Beale Beach, Florida.

If you’ve got any advice, spot typos or anything else, I’d appreciate a heads up.