Making your own Google Map

1. Go to Google Maps, http://maps.google.com

2. Click on My Maps (There should be a tutorial, “Create and share your own maps,” here)

3. Click on “Create a New Map”

4. Sign into your Google account, if you haven’t already

5. Enter title and description of your map

6. Make the map “public” or “unlisted”

7. Click “Save” button when you’re finished

8. Now, you can create a map

a. Use the Line tool to draw a line, trace a route, or draw a shape or boundary

b. Add PlaceMarkers (the pointer icon) where needed

c. Click on a PlaceMarker icon to get a pop-up edit window. Here, you can add a title and text to associate with it, and/or hyperlinks and images. (Note: photos need to have their own URL, so load them Picasa or a similar site)

d. In the PlaceMarker edit window, if you click on the pointer icon in the upper right, you can select other icon designs (or, you can make your own custom icon, 64x64 pixels or less, and already located at a unique URL)

9. Later, to come back to your map, just sign in to Google, go to maps, then My Maps. Click on the Edit button to make any changes to the map

10. You can send a map (click on Send in the horizontal menu above the map) or link to the map (click on Link in the menu – it generates a URL you can paste in an email or IM, and it generates HTML code you can paste in a website, for a permanent link to the map)

EXAMPLE: See “College Hill, Cedar Falls, Iowa” map, [An interactive map of the businesses, Top 10 best and worst-looking houses, and the potholes of the College Hill neighborhood in Cedar Falls, Iowa, created by UNI’s Advanced Reporting class, March 2009. It now has about 3,200 views!]

EXAMPLE: This same map is also embedded in a blogger site,