Take an Automatically Guided Google Street View Trip

Over the short vacation that I took last week the Google Maps Streetview Player received high marks in reviews by Larry Ferlazzo and Keir Clarke so I had to try it for myself. The Google Maps Streetview Player was developed by Brian Folts. The purpose of the player is to allow you to plan a route on Google Maps and watch it carried out in Street View without having to click along the route. To use the Google Maps Streetview Player just enter a starting point and an ending point then press play. When you press play the Streetview Player will take you along the route. You can pause, rewind, and fast-forward at any time. There is also an experimental option to download a video of the route as it is played out.

Applications for Education
Use your school as the starting point and ask your students to pick interesting destinations. Then have your students guess which landmarks might be spotted along a route that you choose as a class. To see if their guesses were correct or not play the tour in the Google Maps Streetview Player. This could be a review activity in an elementary school or middle school geography lesson.

The Google Maps Streetview Player could also be helpful to students who may have difficulty clicking through a Street View route using a mouse.