Tuesday, June 16, 2009

Thing #25 Google Maps

The address 1445 K St. 68509 is the Nebraska State Capitol. Using satellite view you can indeed zoom in close enough to see the color of the cars parked around the capitol. Using the different features is relatively easy and lets you get a great view of a lot of different places especially when you use Street View because the picture is very clear.


I really like the get directions feature of being able to choose how you are getting there: by car, walking or public transportation. It’s pretty entertaining seeing just exactly how long it would take to walk to some places you would normally not walk to. I am the kind of navigator that gets lost very easily. I think the Street View option is the best because you can use buildings as landmarks which makes it harder to get lost.


I found my library by typing in the words, metro community college Elkhorn campus library. The marker for the library was placed correctly because it was edited by Kristen who also works here. In the information window I edited it to include the name of the library and the proper web site address so now it goes to the libraries web site instead of just Metros. There are three of us here taking part in Nebraska Learns 2.0 so I will let one of them claim the library.

Overall Google Maps was easy to use and would be a great tool to recommend to others. The feature I liked the best was Street View because I like to see what’s around before I drive somewhere. There are plenty of ideas that would be good for customized maps like how to actually get to the library and for any place that would need more publicity. I didn’t embed a map on the website because I don’t have access to change the website. I think the library could use Google Maps to promote itself more and for the patrons themselves for whatever maps or directions they need. I know if someone is looking for directions or maps I will recommend Google Maps because of all of the different options it has compared to other map or direction based sites.

1 comment:

  1. I’ve enjoyed playing with the walking distance also. For some wacky measurement options check out the Distance Measurement Tool that can be found in the My Maps area. Currently it’s under Featured Content. Using this tool I was able to learn that the distance between Westroads and Crossroads is 31.04 football fields or 68.1162 Olympic swimming pools.

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