Friday, April 29, 2011

Flat Stanley Goes High-Tech with Google Custom Maps


Flat Stanley is a beloved children’s book written by Jeff Brown in 1964. In 1994, a third grade teacher from Canada, Dale Hubbert, started the Flat Stanley Project and invited other teachers and students from all over the globe participate in this engaging and collaborative activity that promotes global connections through letter writing. In recent years, Flat Stanley has become more tech savvy. Students can upload multimedia and blog posts onto the Flat Stanley website. There is even a Flat Stanley app that allows students to instantly create photos and upload them directly to the website or share them via email. Second graders in Mrs. Maiolo’s class are using the Google Custom Maps tool to track Flat Stanley as he makes his journey around the world. As they learn the places that Stanley visits, they create a place-marker on their google map, upload a corresponding photo, and write a paragraph describing the kind of community that Stanley has visited. Join Mrs. Maiolo’s class as they learn about different communities from all over the world by viewing their Google Custom Map.

View Flat Stanley in a larger map