Thing 33 Travel 2.0

Most of these sites seem to be something I'll look at more when I retire and actually have time to travel! By then, I'm sure there will be something even better--I have a long ways to go!
I love to travel, but with two little ones most of the traveling is to see grandparents in the Dakotas. We hope to go to Disney within the next year though.

One site I found through one of the links was Don't Forget Your Toothbrush. It's a really fun site that has pre-made checklists ready and you simply click on things you want. There are a ton of options and it breaks things down by weeks and days before you leave. There were things I wouldn't have thought of that are included. It's super easy to use too.

I also really liked Mapness which uses Google Maps and lets users log where and what they're doing. I think it would be great fun to do if students were taking a road trip. When I was in high school, our choir took a tour of our state and it would have been fun to create a map and journal of our performances and stories from the road. I think other students and parents would have fun following the trip.

Another way I could see schools using these travel 2.0 tools is for planning and getting information about trips abroad with the world language classes. Geography students could use the sites too for assignments where they need to create itineraries for visiting other countries. Even our work experience coordinator could use these sites as his students do a unit where they plan and budget for a vacation too.

Google Maps--Thing 32

I had so much fun playing around with Google Maps. I made a map of things to do around Elk River with children.


View Fun Places for Toddlers & Preschoolers in a larger map

As a high school media specialist, I'm thinking this could really be fun for some teachers to incorporate in their classes. For geography, students could make maps of the countries they are studying. They could make a virtual field trip of the country or city. World language students could do the same. It would also be fun to plot different events from history or literature. I know Google Lit Trips has a wonderful Grapes of Wrath site. Students could make their own. Student travel groups could map their trips and add pictures, videos & other info. With all of the different sites from 100+ there are a ton of possibilities for a wide variety of classes.