Google Maps as a Transformational Learning Tool in the Study Abroad Experience

Abstract

This article examines the role that spatial orientation and location can play on a study abroad program. Jessica Stephenson and M. Todd Harper paired a Google Maps project with autoethnography in order to help students understand their own experience of space abroad as well as how they themselves shaped that space. Students were asked to create a personalized Google Map of the sites that they visited in Rome, Orvieto, Florence, and Montepulciano, Italy. Students then added facts about the sites as well as their own photos and personal experience. They were then asked to use their personalized Google Maps as a heuristic for longer autoethnographic papers relating to the themes of pilgrimage and journey. In so doing, students realized that space is alive, constantly changing and evolving.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 3 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.