Alternatives to Google Tour Builder for the Chromebook
Recently, some educators that I work with, showed interested in having their students use Google Tour Builder to create a tour of locations from a historical time period. We could do this on desktops, but the teachers really want the students to be able to use their Chromebooks, which is not possible with Google Tour Builder since it uses the Google Earth download.
So I found two alternatives that will allow students to build a "tour" of locations on a map and also include text, images and even video.
Alternative 1:
With My Maps, students can add a marker, and then add an image to go with the marker. Students can also draw lines between different markers. One of the nice features of My Maps is that you can add layers. To display a "tour" the students can turn the layers on or off to show more or less at a time. For this tool, the students would use the extension, Screencastify to record a narrative to go with the "tour".
Alternative 2:
Tackk is a webpage design tool that allows the user to add titles, text, images, audio, video and Google maps. If you add more that one image, Tackk will play the images like a slideshow. For this project, the students could record audio using a site such as Vocaroo to incorporate audio to narrate the parts of their "tour".
If you are looking for a way for students to show a tour using a map and incorporating images, audio, video or text, I highly recommend My Maps or Tackk.
Comments