Review of Tool: Google Maps

I was really excited to see Google Maps as a tool this week. Just recently, I had learned about all the amazing things Google Maps can do outside of navigation. Someone in our program has been working to use Google Maps to pinpoint the location of our program alumni across the global (pinpointing their current institution of employment). This tool will be so helpful for current students to find alumni who work in their area of interest, help the program see where their graduates are collectively, and many other fun assessments to do with this dynamic Web 2.0 platform. With the link shared in class this week, I also learned about a lot of other fascinating ways to use maps, like the classroom that tracked black bears. While I think there are countless interesting ways to use this in the classroom, I am also thinking about all the fascinating ways this could be used for research. This could be a fascinating data visualization to show where data was collected from in multi-institutional studies, show where the participants were from (if the population is large enough to not be identifiable), or track where influential scholarship is coming from on certain subjects. As we are at the time of annual reporting, I also think about how interesting it would be to show all the places we disseminated scholarship this last year on Google Maps (pins for all conferences, keynotes, invited lectures, etc.). This is an app I use weekly and I did not realize its infinite potential! What a great resource to continue learning more about!