Map Making - Take One

Miguel Helft's article in the New York times July 2007, talks about creating interactive maps on the , web that are similar to Wikipedia in that everyone can update the map.  As he talks about tracking graffiti, I think of how wonderful this would be to track potholes in Michigan.  I also pause to realize how out of touch I am with all of the technological advances:  this article was published in 2007!  So, in front of an audience of strangers I will make my first attempt at creating an interactive map.  The first decision is do I use my map to tell a story or simply as an exercise to demonstrate I can add pictures, locations, text, etc?

If I was in a science class, I could use the interactive map during an orienteering lesson.  If in a math classroom, it could be a launch on how to graph ordered pairs.  I've used the math example very low tech before, with chalk and a chalkboard, so I am curious how it will morph into a high tech activity.  The low tech activity was for students to take three minutes to write down directions from the school to their home.  They would try to fish out details with clarifying questions like "do you want north & south, or left and right" and I would simply respond describe it as best you can.  From there we would have someone read their description and I would draw their journey on the board.  After several were posted on the board, and simply because I ran out of room, I asked what we should do.  Of course they started with "erase the first one" and I always said, but we might need it later.  That led them to the idea of layering the maps and they discovered the need for a point of origin.  In this example, the school made sense, because that is where we started.  As we progressed, the need for direction came into play and they had to decide if they wanted to use North, South, East and West, or Left, Right, Up and Down.  Sooner or later "laziness is a virtue" kicked in and they didn't want to write all that, so they decided to use signs:  + for right or up and - for left or down. I could still launch with the students writing their story, then pairing the students to use only the written word to create a map.  This would challenge their writing skills, direction skills and their map making skills.

Mattawan Fire Fighter

Antwerp Sunshine Library, Mattawan

Mattawan Marching Band, Mattawan High School Football Field

Mattawan Little League, Mattawan, MI

So, now for the experiment.  Creating an account for Google Maps was easy!  There was a link to upload pictures, which was one of the tasks, so I clicked on it.  That took me to the Panoramio site. I uploaded pictures and added them to the map.  Now the dilemma:  how do I get these on MY map?   I only posted four locations to start, just in case it did not work.   I posted them here for your review.  As for the map assignment, I obviously did not read the directions in their entirety, so back I go. 
Trial Two can be found on GoogleMaps - Edington Take Two.  While I could not use the four pictures as I had hoped, if you click on the red line you will see an image for the fire house and if you click on the blue line you will link to a Youtube video of the marching band.  It was very clunky to do this, so I think I need more practice.  Thank you for your patience with me as I learn all of these new technological tricks!  For my final trick of the evening I am going to try to embed the map directly into this post:
View Edington Map - Take Two in a larger map