Finding your way in the world

Today we've been doing atlases with the year three, four and five classes.
And it got me thinking. When I was a kid, I loved looking at atlases. They had all kinds of interesting places, with exotic names. Most of them I'd never heard of.
New Zealand is pretty far away, being situated at the bottom of the world as it is. Anything other than Australia, Samoa, Fiji or the Cook Islands sounded amazing to me.
That was my local area (not that I'd been to those places...)

Now we have so many options. There are still atlases, but Google maps have revolutionised the way we look at the world. Having such a fantastic tool makes everything that much more accessible. In some ways, it's a little creepy. We can see images and maps of the whole world with the click of a mouse. Satellites float above every city, continent and town on earth, constantly capturing images. Everything from a mountain range to someone hanging out their washing.
If it wasn't used properly it could be a bit creepy.
But since it's usually used for good and is so useful, I'm all for Google maps.
How many times has it saved me from getting lost? Especially now I have an android phone. That thing is a life saver.

There is also a whole lot of other digital mapping technology. TomToms and other navigation devices are really popular now, and you can get so many different electronic and online sources to help you find your way. An electronic map can be updated way faster and cheaper than a paper map can be.

I hope that atlases survive this digital revolution. There's something nice about holding a thick volume in your hand and flicking through the pages till you find a place you want to visit or a place name that you've never heard of but just love.

Even though the new technology is awesome, finding places in an atlas is a different kind of skill. It's useful to be able to use both kinds of resources, digital and paper. For now at least, Google maps and atlases happily exsist side by side.