Rick Steve's Google Map Walking Tour of Ancient Pompeii.

Ok, so the project started out as an experiment based off a very simple idea--take a virtual walking tour of Pompeii.  My Latin classes had taken the tour before, but I was dissatisfied with the static nature of the project.  I acted as the tour operator, clicking through powerpoint pictures that I had chosen in advance.  In a dark room, it beckoned tired students to sleep.  In the best case scenario, most of the kids simply sat around and yawned.  I don't think that they're going to be yawning on this one because I've finally figured out how to tweak this project, big time.

So now, the project revolves around Google Maps and, in particular, the street view feature.  I had seen the street view before, but again it had been simple, static pictures.  It appears that somewhere within the past year, they've done a MAJOR upgrade to the street level view, where now you can actually 'walk' the street and move around.  The interface is good, but it does take a bit of practice to negotiate the controls.  It's easy to get tunnel vision and forget to look around you in the scene.

As I was playing around, I immediately recognized another opportunity.  Maybe I could find an audio guide to the sites of Pompeii?  I needed something that kids would actually be interested in listening to and discovered travel guru Rick Steves' audio guides.  So playing the audio guide, I was able to literally walk the streets of Pompeii as Rick Steves and his partner narrated the tour.  Super-cool!

Now, there are some drawbacks, but these are pretty easy to accommodate for.  First off, Google Maps will not let you 'walk' all of the streets.  There are moments where you have to move the little yellow humanoid placemarker over pictures in order to continue the tour as they have it on the audio guide.  But generally, because so many tourists have visited a place like Pompeii, there will be pictures for the kids to click on that will continue the tour for them.  This is good.  Sure, there are some sites that I want the kids to go into, and so here is where I plan on supplementing the tour with videos from Youtube and other educational sites.

In reality, all of this is just primer for the real project.  I want them to learn how to use all of these tools in one or two days, to get really comfortable with them, so that they can create their own walking tour of Pompeii, based upon the sites that they are interested in taking their family members or friends to go see. Pretty cool, right?  I hoping that the experience will be immersive for the kids.

This is what I'm trying to do with Google Maps.  Anyone else out there giving it shot?  What projects have you created with this application?