How to Create Your Own Map-based Quizzes on Mission MapQuest

Mission MapQuest, developed by Russel Tarr at ClassTools.net, is a great tool for map-based quizzes and games. The concept behind it is simple, you create a series of clues that your students need to follow to identify places around the world. You can add as few or as many clues to your MapQuest as you like. When you're ready to have students try your MapQuest just give them the web address assigned to it. Watch the video embedded below to learn how to create your own map-based quizzes on Mission MapQuest.

Enable Automatic Grading of Quizzes With Flubaroo for Google Sheets

Flubaroo is a popular Google Sheets Add-on that enables teachers to grade all at once all of their students' responses to a quiz created in Google Forms. The latest update to Flubaroo enables automatic grading and emailing of grades.

The new autograde option in Flubaroo allows you to have students automatically receive their scores after submitting their responses to a quiz you created in Google Forms. The autograde feature will send students an email with their scores and the answer key (you can exclude the answer key). With autograding enabled students do not have to wait for you to run the grading process or wait for you to send emails.

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To use autograding in Flubaroo you still have to set an answer key and grade at least one submission before autograding will work. Click here for a complete set of directions on enabling autograding in Flubaroo.

Applications for Education
Using autograding in Flubaroo could be a great way to give students nearly instant feedback on practice quizzes that you give to them.

Preso.tv - Broadcast Your Slides to Everyone In the Room

Preso.tv is a neat service for sharing slideshow presentations. Through Preso.tv you can broadcast your slides to the laptops and iPads of everyone in the room with you. To broadcast your slides you must first upload them to Preso.tv. After uploading your slides Preso.tv will provide you with a link to share with your audience. When people use your Preso.tv link they will be able to follow your slides on their laptops or iPads. An alternative way for people to join your slideshow is to visit Preso.tv and allow Preso.tv to access their location after which they will see your slides. (Note, that feature only works when you're audience is in close proximity to you).

Applications for Education
Using Preso.tv could be a good way to keep your students on the same slide that you're projecting. Likewise, Preso.tv provides a good way for students to share with classmates. A chat feature is built into Preso.tv. Students could use the chat feature to ask clarifying questions about each slide that they see.

5 Ideas for Developing and Using Multiple Layer Maps in Your Classroom

As I have written in the past my favorite feature of Google's My Maps (now available to access from Google Drive) is the option to create multiple layers of placemarks in each of your custom maps. Here are five ideas for creating multiple layer maps in your classroom.

• Multiple layers can be used for showing data differences on a year over year or month over month basis. 
• You can display the same data with different base layers for comparison. 
• Students working collaboratively on a map can be responsible for editing their own layers on the same map. 
• If you’re using My Maps to have students create literature trips (look here for inspiration), they can create a different layer for each chapter of a book. 
• Students mapping the history of an event like the U.S. Civil War can create a different layer for each year of the war.

Click here for video tutorials on My Maps. 

How to Create Custom Maps From Your Google Drive Account

 Earlier this fall Google renamed Maps Engine Lite to My Maps. My Maps is Google's service for creating custom maps. Today, My Maps was integrated into Google Drive. Now in you can create a custom map from your Google Drive account. To do this just open the "new" menu in your Google Drive account and select "My Maps." See the screenshot below for directions. Below the screenshot you will find three video tutorials on using My Maps to create custom maps.

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