With today's academic and scheduling demands, actual field trips aren't always possible. Luckily for today's teacher, virtual field trip opportunities are abundant! A quick and easy "go to" tool is typically Google Earth, as you can zoom in, "stand" on the roads, and turn in a complete circle to see everything around you.
Until recently, I didn't know that the default Apple Maps app has virtual field trip opportunities, as well -- in the form of "tours."
Although there is not a tour for every city [yet, anyway!], the tours that are offered provide plenty of classroom fun.
How to access city tours in Apple Maps:
1. Launch the default Maps app, whose icon looks like this:
2. Navigate the map to a large city of your choice by sliding your finger across the screen. {In honor of being in Austin, Texas this week for the TCEA conference, the examples in this post are all about Austin!}
Any city that has a little black and white bubble next to it that says "3D" has a tour available. For instance, when I look at Texas, I see the "3D" bubble next to Austin, Houston, and San Antonio. If you tap a bubble that says "3D," you should see the name of the city on the right and a blue box that says "Tour" on the left, as shown below:
As soon as you click "Tour," the map zooms in to the city, and you start an up-close flyover. Captions at the bottom show you what you're looking at. The tours I saw took you through the city and showed off local landmarks. Here are a few screenshots from my Austin, Texas tour {click any of the pictures to enlarge them}:
Pros
- Free.
- The app comes pre-downloaded onto iPhones and iPads, so you're ready to tour right out of the box.
- If you mirror your device to your laptop, you can then display the tour on your Promethean board for all students to see.
- The tours take just a minute or two, so students get a good look at the city without taking up lots of precious instructional time.
Cons
- The flyover goes fairly quickly, so it's easy to miss things if you're not watching carefully every second!
- The only way I could figure out to pause the tour is just to tap the screen {which can be annoying for long periods of time}. I couldn't find a way to rewind or fast-forward at all.
- Tours aren't available for every city.
Assuming a 3D tour is available for the particular location you need, I could see this feature being used during reading {to help students understand the setting of the book}, social studies {to make geography come to life}, and science {to show land forms and examples of scientific concepts}.
If you're interested in more virtual field trip opportunities, consider visiting this Pinterest board:
