Google released their Mapplets application today. So, what, right? Well, this is a pretty cool little tool for homeschool or for anyone who uses Google Maps. It makes mashups easy for students! What does that mean? Well, if you click your way around the internet even a little you’ve seen sites like Google Earth or Flickr that put images on maps or Wikipedia entries on charts or diagrams and so on. Those are mashups and one has to be pretty geekish and a fluent coder to make one of those.

Well, Mapplets make it easy for your child to add stuff to a map and make a personal mashup. Have a geography or history project or report on a trip? A student can create visuals to go with a map using Google Earth or Flickr or Wikipedia. A little creativity can go a long way in using this type of application in home education. Here’s a list of the Mapplets available to add to a map. More are on the way now that this app has been released.

And here’s a short video on how it works:

[youtube dSSyacL8Cm4]

Google Earth Blog has instructions on how to add Google Earth sites to your personal map. It’s a little trickier.

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