Mult.dev - A New Way to Quickly Make an Animated Map

Mult.dev is a new mapping tool that I recently learned about through Maps Mania. Mult.dev does just one thing but does it very well. That thing is create animated maps illustrating the connections and travel distance between two or more places. 

To create an animated map on Mult.dev you do not need an account. You can simply head to the site and start creating your map. To create your map just delete the placeholder cities and replace them with your own. You add cities to your map by using the search box then clicking on the name of the city that you want to have appear on the map. Your animation updates instantly when you add a new city to the map.

There are some limited customization options available on Mult.dev. You can choose from a list of nine icons to represent the mode of travel between the cities on your map. You can also choose from a handful of base map colors. 

All animated maps that you create on Mult.dev can be downloaded as MP4 videos. Alternatively, you can share your maps by linking to them or by using the embed codes provided by Mult.dev. Here's the demonstration map that I made. 

Applications for Education
As Keir Clarke pointed out on Maps Mania, Mult.dev probably isn't a great option for mapping short journeys or connections between cities that are relatively close together. Rather, it's a good tool for showing students distances between cities that are far apart like Boston and San Francisco or San Francisco and Sydney.

A feature of Mult.dev that I'd like to see in the future is an option to adjust the speed of animation based on the distances between cities. For example, I'd like to have the animation slow down when showing the distance between Sydney and San Francisco then speed up when showing the distance between San Francisco and Boston.

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web.

Combine Canva and TeacherMade to Create Online Activities

Canva offers nearly two thousand worksheet templates for teachers to copy and modify. All of the templates can be downloaded as PDFs. You could print them and give them to your students to complete. But who wants another thing to have to print and keep track of? So instead of printing worksheets made with Canva's templates, download the PDF and then upload it to TeacherMade where you can quickly turn that PDF into an online activity. 

With TeacherMade you can upload a PDF then add to it fillable text boxes, lines for matching activities, multiple choice questions, and interactive hotspots to highlight specific points in the PDF. You can also use TeacherMade to add audio to an uploaded PDF. Depending upon the type of questions that you select, TeacherMade will automatically score assignments for you. 

Watch my latest video to see how you can use Canva and TeacherMade together to create online worksheets for your students. The video also shows how a student can access the online activities that you create with TeacherMade. 

You can learn more about using TeacherMade in this video and in this video. I also have nearly two dozen Canva tutorials listed here. 

Applications for Education
I'm always apprehensive to write about worksheets because a lot of people hear or read "worksheet" and think that it's just a time-filler for rote practice. Canva offers worksheet templates that aren't just rote practice activities. For example, in the video above I used a worksheet template for evaluating writing. When you browse through Canva's worksheet templates gallery you'll find lots of templates that have a similar goal of providing guidance for an activity rather than rote practice of skills or facts.

The thing that I've always appreciated about Canva is that it enables people like me who don't have a natural knack for graphic design to create good-looking graphics, presentations, and PDFs. Looking through Canva's worksheet templates I found plenty of templates that I would snap-up if I was teaching social studies or language arts today. Unfortunately, I didn't see any good templates for computer science so I guess I'll have to make my own.

Developing online formative assessments is one of the topics covered in the Practical Ed Tech Virtual Summer Camp. Early bird discounts are still available. Register here.  

This post originally appeared on FreeTech4Teachers.com. If you see it elsewhere, it has been used without permission. Sites that steal my (Richard Byrne's) work include CloudComputin, TodayHeadline, and 711Web. Featured graphic created by Richard Byrne.