Google Map versus Google Earth

For the past few years with our study of The Odyssey and Into the Wild, I have had my students use Google Earth to trace their own personal learning journey along with the characters in the literary works we are reading. This assignment has evolved over time to now work with tracing Christopher McCandless' journey in Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild.  At the suggestion of Dana Levesque, I switched from solely using Google Earth to this year using Google Maps.  The advantages were great.

Google Maps allowed for the kids to store everything online versus having to save folders and KMZ files with their Google Earth work. Additionally, they could collaborate on their maps with others. I didn't use this feature this year, but am thinking of adding it to the maps next year in order to foster collaboration with classmates.  This will also help them connect with one another and discuss McCandless's choices. We do each entry differently with some as formulated paragraphs, but others are images, quotes, and reactions.  Google Earth and Google Map allows for the entries to change and adapt to the individuality of the student. Here is the rubric I use for the Into the Wild Google Map/ Google Earth project.

Google Map examples:

Chase

Jack

Tyler

Google Earth example: 2012

Austin

Google Earth examples: old