Call me strange but when I was a student I loved looking and learning from maps. Perhaps in my young mind it was the potential of the world experiences that the maps offered me. I grew up in a small town and most of the travel I experienced as a young child was in the province that I grew up in. Looking at maps during geography lessons was fascinating as I would plan out the adventures that I would have when I was older. Maps that were used for teaching purpose when I was a student in school were print materials. I remember the topographical maps that teachers would share were a series of overheads. They were very advanced at that time!
In my current school I teach at we don't have a class set of atlases. I have seen a few copies of atlases lying around the school, but sadly they are the same atlases I used as a student 20 years ago. Hasn't our world changed significantly in 20 years?
As I am realizing through out this course many of the resources used today in school are found online. The resources online are generally up to date and offer students experiences with maps that print maps can not provide.
However as many of my classmates brought up technology can fail, which makes it impossible to rely solely on online teaching resources. I liked the idea that several of my classmates mentioned. Instead of buying a class set, buy a half set. Students can share the atlases and the cost is cut in half. The exorbitant cost is one of the main reasons why atlases are not replaced, Several people also mentioned using a document camera when using atlases. Currently the school I work in a fortunate enough to have one. Personally I have not used the document camera (I know if I did I would not want to share it) but I can see how you could in fact use the document camera with only one atlas for the entire class.
Some of my favorite mapping sites are:
http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/kids/maps/default.asp.
http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/ (Thanks Ann for pointing this site out)
http://www.reachtheworld.org/games/geogames/GeoGames-Teachers-Tools.html
(Thanks Lisa)
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