Map: Batchgeo Part 2

Recap & Summary

            Yesterday, I collaborated with colleagues to compile a list of our locations and emails in a spreadsheet in order to prepare for creating a Batchgeo map of our learning community. We shared a Google spreadsheet in Google Docs which could be added to and edited at any time by any number of people. This was much more efficient than emailing the document and copying and pasting the data into an Excel document saved onto our individual hard drives.

Today, I created a publicly accessable map that has all of our locations tagged. By going to the URL here and clicking on the tags, you can access our addresses and links to our emails. You can also zoom in to better identify our relative locations. While we are a community of Shenandoah University students, we are also members of a virtual learning community. Many of my colleagues I have never met before. Being graduate students at a school with two campuses, we live throughout an expansive area of Virginia. Creating such a map allows us to feel a greater sense of classroom community as it helps us to learn more about the experiences of others.

What I Did

            Batchgeo let you create a map right from its home page. I selected all of the data from the class’s spreadsheet, copied it, and pasted it into a box on the website. After that, I clicked the “map now” button and Voila a screen appeared with my map! The site gave me the option to double check the locations of the tags and to edit the map if need be. In fact, after clicking the “Save and Continue” button, giving my map a title and description, and the most important part, submitting my email address, I am able to go back to edit my map any time.

What I Learned

            While I feel that I am a proficient computer user and knowledgeable regarding using the internet as resource, I am coming to realize how much more I can get out of these technologies by being more of an active than a passive user. I grew up learning that the internet was for surfing; I have had many years to perfect using my mouse to scroll through pages and pages worth of status updates, pictures, videos, and text. It is about time that I started to use the internet for purposes of creating and sharing objects to be used as resources by others.

How I Would Use It

            Until recently, I worked at a private middle/high school that promotes experiential, community based learning. Throughout the year (Jan-Dec) the school sets aside several days and a few weeks for students to organize and/or be involved in off campus learning experiences (traveling, community service, etc.). Faculty and staff arrange many experiences for which students must choose one or have an independent activity approved. For instance, the school is closed for one week in the spring during which teachers and administrators lead small groups on local, national, and international trips, each with a unique theme that corresponds to the school’s curriculum. When all return to school, students and faculty are encouraged to share their experiences. If students were taught to use Batchgeo, they could create maps detailing their travels for their peers, parents, and teachers as evidence of their learning. 

Standards Reflection

            Using Batchgeo in the classroom aligns with ISTE-NETS-T’s standard 2, parts “a,” and d.” Students are using authentic data and information with a contemporary tool to create an artifact to be shared collaboratively in an effort to augment students’ combined knowledge and to be formatively assessed as evidence of learning.

View EDU 585 Learning Community in a full screen map