Even though I write a lot about Google Earth and Google Maps, there is more to digital mapping than just using those tools. In fact, there are some great digital mapping tools not made by Google that students can use to create things like historic map overlays, map and timeline combinations, and map-based stories.
In this Digital Mapping playlist you'll find 48 tutorial videos that I've made covering more than just Google Maps and Earth. In the playlist you'll find tutorials on things like NatGeo Mapmaker, Felt Maps, USGS map tools, making animated maps, and much more. Some highlights from the playlist are embedded below.
I recently came across an older Towards Data Sciencearticle about ten ways to represent data on maps. Reading the article reminded me of something that I've tried to share with social studies teachers and students over the years. That thing is that a great data set can tell you a lot. A great map can tell you a lot. Putting them together can tell you even more. To that end, here are three ways to quickly create a map of data contained in a spreadsheet.
Google's My Maps tool lets you import a Google Sheet and have the data from that sheet displayed as placemarks on an interactive map. Watch this video that I created to learn how you can create a map based on data in a Google Sheet.
Felt is a relatively new multimedia mapping tool. In your Felt account you can upload a CSV or Excel file and have the data within the spreadsheet distributed as placemarks and or polygons on a map. After the data is initially loaded you can then customize the design of your map by altering the color, size, and shape of the placemarks and polygons. You can also customize the size and color of the labels on your map after the spreadsheet data has been imported onto your map. Watch my video below to learn how to display your spreadsheet data on a Felt map.
Heat Map Tool is a tool for easily creating heat maps or incident maps from a CSV file. To create a heat map all you need to do is upload a CSV file then specify your desired display attributes like scale, colors, and opacity. You can edit the display attributes of your map whenever you like. If you're wondering how to create a CSV file you can do so by exporting from a spreadsheet in Google Documents or exporting from an Excel file. Click here for directions on exporting from Excel. The free version of Heat Map Tool allows you to have up to 100 data points on your map and up to 500 hits per day on your map.
Felt is a multimedia mapping tool that I started using late last year and it has quickly become one of my favorite mapping tools. With Felt you can create everything some simple directions maps to maps that have historic overlays to maps of animal migrations and much more. The latest update to Felt makes it easy to quickly create a map from a spreadsheet.
In your Felt account you can upload a CSV or Excel file and have the data within the spreadsheet distributed as placemarks and or polygons on a map. After the data is initially loaded you can then customize the design of your map by altering the color, size, and shape of the placemarks and polygons. You can also customize the size and color of the labels on your map after the spreadsheet data has been imported onto your map. Watch my video below to learn how to display your spreadsheet data on a Felt map.
Mapping spreadsheet data is a great way for students to see the distribution of people, animals, and plants in a state, province, country, or region. A tool like Google's Dataset Search is a good place to find spreadsheets that students can then import into Felt to create a map.
A few days ago I shared a neat map of gray whale migration patterns. That map was created on the Felt mapping platform. Felt was one of my favorite new tools of 2022 and is only getting better at the start of 2023.
The most recent update to Felt introduced an easier way to access the most frequently used features of Felt. Now you can simply right-click on your map to add notes, lines, labels, and more. Additionally, you can now right-click to view any location in Google Maps or Open Street Map. Watch my new tutorial that is embedded below to learn how to use the latest feature in Felt.
Felt is a multimedia mapping tool that I started using late last year. It has quickly become one of my preferred tools for creating multimedia maps. In fact, at this point I think I like more than Google's My Maps. The aesthetics of Felt are great and it has a great selection of easy-to-use features. Those features include the ability to upload and overlay just images, easily draw paths and routes, and add text directly on your maps. All three of those things were used in the creation of a map titled Most Gray Whales are Capricorns.
Most Gray Whales are Capricorns is a map created by a Felt user who goes by RJ. The map depicts the annual migration of gray whales from the coast of Alaska to the coast of Baja California. The creator of the map added some fun elements to it by making some comparisons to the travel of gray whales in December to the travel of Santa's reindeer in December. The creator of the map also included some links to additional information for readers.
Applications for Education
A map like Most Gray Whales are Capricorns is a nice example of what students can make with Felt. Felt has more ideas for educators right here and has an active Slack group for educators.
Felt was one of my favorite new tools in 2022. In fact, I liked it so much that I included it in my Best of the Web for 2022. Felt is a free multimedia mapping tool that I think is easier for first-time users to use than Google's My Maps or ESRI's mapping tools. Right at the end of the year Felt added some new features including new base maps and an updated image overlay feature which I demonstrate in this short video.
The image overlay feature on Felt can be used to overlay historic maps on current maps. You can adjust the transparency of the overlay to easily compare past and present views of roads, buildings, and landmarks. The updated version of Felt lets you use image files as well as PDFs as overlays. Watch the video that is embedded below to see how it works.
Felt is a new digital mapping tool that I've featured a few times in the last month because I think it is fantastic alternative to Google's My Maps and the web version of Google Earth for creating custom maps. In fact, I like it so much that I demonstrated it in my Best of the Web 2022 webinar. The next day Felt sent out an email announcing new base map options.
The new base map options on Felt.com include a set of default maps that you can pick from to apply to your custom map. You can customize those base maps by turning some of their features on or off. There's also a new option to customize the color scheme of your base map on Felt. All of the new base map options are demonstrated in my new video that is embedded below.
Applications for Education
One of the reasons that I like Felt is that it is far easier for students to use to create custom maps than Google's My Maps is to use for the same purpose. Felt includes more, easy-to-use customization tools than My Maps includes. For example, students can quickly customize a map on Felt by picking any of the data layers to have automatically applied and then use the drawing and highlighting tools to annotate their maps. Watch the videos that are embedded below to learn more about how to use Felt.
Google Earth and Google's My Maps are great tools for students to use to create multimedia maps. But Google isn't the only game in town when it comes to digital map creation tools. In fact, there are some good ones that are freely available to you and your students outside of what Google offers. Here's a summary of five good ones that are worth trying.
Scribble Maps is a tool that I've used and recommended for years. As the name implies, you can use it to draw on maps. You can also use it to create multimedia map markers. The best part is that you can use it without creating an account or enter any personal information. In this short video I provide an overview of how to create a multimedia map on Scribble Maps.
ArcGIS Story Maps is a free tool that you can use to create a variety of map-based stories. The basic ArcGIS Story Map lets you combine pictures and locations to playback as a series of slides. The learning curve is a bit steeper than the other tools in this list, but the finished product is quite slick. Here's a good example of an ArcGIS Story Map.
Padlet is one of the most versatile tools you can put in your digital toolbox. Creating multimedia maps is just one of the many things that you can do with Padlet. In the video that is embedded below I demonstrate creating a multimedia map by using Padlet's built-in maps. The video also covers how to share your Padlet maps, how to add collaborators to the map, and settings you need to know before inviting students to be collaborators on your Padlet maps.
Felt is a new mapping tool that I recently started using. So far I think it's great! Felt offers a lot of easy-to-use tools for creating custom maps. Some of those tools include drawing and highlighting on maps, annotating maps with notes, adding custom placemarks, and overlaying datasets on your maps. Watch this video for an introduction to using the basic tools offered by Felt.
StoryMap JS is a tool that I've been using and recommending for many years. StoryMap JS enables students to tell stories through a series of slides that appear on a map. Each slide is matched to locations that you choose on your map. Each slide in your story can include images, text, and hyperlinks. In this short video I demonstrate how to create a story map with StoryMap JS.
