3D Map Tours with Apple Maps

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:

       Follow Candice's board Virtual Field Trips on Pinterest.    

Epic Reading

Have you heard of Epic? In a nutshell, it's like Netflix for [children's] books, and it's free if you're an educator!

Here's a little more detail:

Features

• Access on the web and via mobile app {iOS / Android}
• 100% free for teachers and school librarians{Parents get 1 month free then pay $5/month}
• Access over 10,000 books for kids age 12 and under
• Register up to 36 students under your name
• Track reading progress of each student, including which books students read and how long they read
• Students can read the book independently or have it read to them
• Students can read an unlimited number of books each month
• Students earn badges to encourage more reading
• No ads or in-app purchases
• Pinch your fingers on any book to zoom in

Tour

The first time I logged in to the app, I was immediately directed toward a "Guest" profile {after I logged in as a teacher}, which I suppose is technically a student. Exploring this student profile, here's what I found:

Hold your device in portrait mode to see one page of the book at a time:

Holding the device in landscape mode allows the reader to see a two-page spread:

Regardless of the view, readers can always see how many pages they have left in the book by viewing the count in the bottom, center of the screen.

Need to leave the app but haven't finished the book yet? No problem. Just stick a virtual bookmark in your spot:

 

You can even bookmark multiple pages, as seen on the top of the screen below with the multiple red dots:

If the child swipes through the book too quickly, he/she gets a notification saying s/he needs to read a little longer. I was worried at first about what this would do for really fast readers, but I swiped through in probably less than a minute when I received the screen on the bottom left... Waiting just an extra minute or so allowed me to move on to the screen on the bottom right and press "finish book!"

 

When the student marks the book as "officially" complete, there's a time stamp of how long it took for the student to read it cover to cover {this information also appears in each child's reading log so the teacher can view it at a later time}.

After finishing the book, the student earn points toward his/her current level and sees suggestions for his/her next read:

Reading also earns the student rewards, such as new avatars {seen below}. The student can choose to add the book to his/her favorites, share the book with others, or rate the book on a 5-star system.

Students also see the total time it took to read the book cover to cover {this information is also displayed on each child's reading log for teachers to review at a later time}.

Finishing books allows the reader to "level up" and work toward earning more badges.

Use the "switch profile" option to switch to another student profile or the teacher's {the teacher profile can only be accessed if the teacher enters his/her password again}. View a student profile to get more information on the child's reading habits and time in Epic. Here's a student profile page:

 

From the app, the teacher can click on each individual student to quickly see how much total time each student has spent reading {and narrow that reading log down to a specific week, month, or year}, as well as which books s/he read along the way:

 

...or the teacher can view all information from the teacher dashboard on the web:

Clicking on a student's profile from the web gives more details about the time spent reading and the number of pages finished:

Finally, Epic provides free teacher resources, which include postcards, ready-made parent flyers, and an introduction video as well as a robust FAQ section that will answer all remaining Epic questions.

Do you use Epic with your students? If so, tell me what details I missed sharing! What do you like or dislike about the tool?

Chrome Extension for the Extension Junkie

Now that you've learned about all kinds of great Chrome extensions, you've probably installed several. In fact, you may have installed so many that your browser is starting to run slowly {because there is such a thing as too many extensions. Strange, I know. It's kind-of like the concept of "too much ice cream"}. Fortunately, there's an extension for that.

I know it seems counter-intuitive to install an extension to control your extensions, but can you expect anything less from a Chrome extension junkie? {How many times can I say "extension" in one sentence? Also: read this article if you're a browser tabaholic.} 

With Extensity, you can disable extensions {instead of uninstalling them completely} until you're ready to use them. I find it much faster to enable an extension than to go to the Google web store, remember the name of/search for the extension I want, and install it!

Install the Extension

Click here to view the Extensity Chrome extension page. To install it, click the blue "add to Chrome" button in the top, right corner of the pop-up box.

To Use

Click the Extensity icon to reveal all the extensions you currently have installed:

The ones that appear grayed out are ones that I disabled. I can enable or disable an extension by clicking on its name in the drop-down list. I can also turn all my enabled extensions off by clicking the light bulb at the very top of the drop down menu.

That's really all there is to it!

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