Neighborhood Map Machine is a highly interactive program reinforcing skills and concepts related to geography. This program is a tool used for creating, exploring, presenting, and printing maps. Students also have the opportunity to design and solve geography mysteries. Through this program, students are able to create maps of real or imaginary places, learn about direction, symbols, scales, and other geography skills and travel around neighborhoods and towns. Neighborhood Map Machine, based on the National Geography Standards, includes activities that allow children to gather, organize, and analyze geographic information. The program includes three modes: Create, Explore, and Mystery, as well as several other ready made activities. In Create, students are able to draw roads, add buildings, landmarks, lakes, parks, trees, people, and other objects to create maps of real or imaginary places. If additional equipment is available to students (including a QuickCam, digitizer, or soundcard), students can attach real pictures or sounds from their community to their maps. They can also copy and paste pictures of objects from another source and paste them to the map. In Explore, students click on a compass to travel around their own maps, a peer’s map, or maps provided by the program. They are able to get close up views of the map, highlight their routes, and add comments in this mode. In Mystery mode, students have two options. They can uncover clues given and complete mystery challenges or write clues to design their own mystery challenges for their peers. What is particularly worth noting is the flexibility of this program. Students decide just how many modes of operation they want to become involved in and how simple or complex they want this experience to be.

 Accuracy of Content

The content of this software is accurate. However, in order for a user of any age to be completely clear on how to use this program they must read the manual. Every aspect of the program is explained clearly and concisely in the manual but, without it, the program becomes unclear and difficult to understand and use. Although there are several parts to this software, each is worth reading about and learning. Once the user reads the directions and explores all parts of the program, it becomes challenging and fun. The manual recommends this program to students from grades 1-5. Unless the students are working one on one with a teacher or adult, I would disagree with this recommendation. Both learning to use and using this program are too difficult for younger students, even with a teacher explaining each of the parts. It would be better suited for students who can refer to and read the manual with ease and even these students should be given a demonstration of the program by their teacher. As a certified elementary education teacher, grades 1-6, I would recommend this program to students in grades 3-7. This program would be a great addition to any classroom curriculum. Although it focuses on geography, it also addresses aspects of the math, language arts, science, and social studies curriculum. It is free of bias and shows characters of all gender and race. Although the directions in the manual are very clear, a positive addition to this program would be spoken directions. This would make learning the program easier for any user, especially younger students and those at a lower reading level.

In order to use this software to the fullest extent, the user would have to have quite a bit of computer experience. For example, some options on this program involve cutting, copying, pasting, saving files, browsing, and several other skills. These skills are not, however, necessary to use the program because all modes can be used at an easy, moderate, or difficult level, depending on how much of the program the student decides to explore. This is why the software is appropriate for a wide range of students. This software is very easy to install. After inserting the disk, the user simply clicks the "OK" button to begin the program. As mentioned above, most of the navigation systems involved in this program are easy to use as long as the user refers to the manual. Once read, all of the basic graphics, menus, links and options needed to create or explore a map become extremely easy to use. More difficult options would, of course, require more computer skills. It is important for the teacher to explore and become very familiar with the program before teaching the class how to use it. If the teacher is not clear, the program will appear much more difficult than it actually is. The graphics, sound, and animation are excellent! The colors are bright, the sound is cheerful and clear, and the characters represent the multicultural world in which children live. These features all add to the quality of the program and do not distract the user from focusing on what they are creating or exploring. They are not used in excess and are especially valuable in creating maps that look colorful, realistic, and detailed. Graphics are extremely important in a program like this one, where the user takes what is available to create a product of their own. This program offers the tools students need to use their imaginations, think up ideas and bring them alive.

This particular software, Neighborhood Map Machine, makes excellent use of technology and definitely would not be as successful, or achieve its goal, in other ways. Mapping skills can be extremely abstract to children. It is a concept they often need repeated exposure to before grasping it completely. Bringing these concepts alive through technology is an excellent way to help reinforce these skills. One great aspect of this program is its flexibility. The level of technology skills needed to use this program range from simple to complex. Because of this, students not only strengthen their mapping skills but their computer skills as well. This program incorporates so many different skills and skill levels that it could be used to teach technology as well as geography. Another quality of this program worth noting is the variety of learning objectives it teaches. Different parts of the program teach location, place, movement, interaction, and region, all important geography skills. The way it teaches a map scale is particularly noteworthy. Students create their own scale! By doing this, they see feet, yards and miles in relation to one another and represented by inches on a grid. They are in control of how many inches represent each of these measurements. In turn, they can see how many miles a road is or how far apart two houses are, for example. It is this option, along with others, that motivate the user and promote non-linear thinking while using this program. The tools provided to create a map are incredible! Students can add and name roads, create bodies of water, add street signs and people and create forests. It is these tools, as well as others, that allow students to create an imaginary map or make a replica of a community or neighborhood they already know. If sound is available to them, the students can even add sound to the people and objects on the map. It only takes the imagination of the student to create an incredible product! Teachers can, however, pace their students’ learning so the students are not overwhelmed and truly understand how to use each tool. The program allows students to save any work they create. This allows teachers to manage students’ turns with the program and assess what each student has learned at any given time.

Students are extremely empowered by this software. The choices the user can make are unlimited, allowing them to decide where to go and what to do. After learning about the software from the manual or their teacher, they can work independently, in pairs, in small groups, or as a whole class. They have complete control over what they create, explore, and solve. All modes of this program empower students, either through making a map, using a compass, deciding distance, constructing scales, learning about grid coordinates, creating or solving mysteries, or adding photographs, clipart and narration to their creations. This program could be used throughout a geography unit and, once students have learned how to run the program, as an assessment of their learning. The products they create will tell a lot about what they have learned. Students could even challenge their classmates to solve their map mysteries individually or in groups. This would be a wonderful way to promote group interactions and cooperative learning in the classroom. The products students create will undoubtedly give them a sense of pride.

The most important role the teacher has in the use of this software is introducing it to the students and assuring they are clear each time a new part of the program is taught. Introducing the software in a computer laboratory would be most effective. The teacher could demonstrate using a projector and the students could all follow along on their own computers. Teachers must then be sure each student is provided with their fair share of time using the program. If the whole class is involved in the software, the teacher must come up with a way to monitor each of the students’ understanding and progress. With this software, it is obvious that students with strong reading and computer skills will need little monitoring. This program could supplement and enhance a unit on geography but also be used as a tool for teaching computer skills. Before introducing the software, however, students should be given an opportunity to see, discuss, and explore real maps. The software should not be used as a replacement to this. However, there are dozens of activities and lesson plans included with this software. These lessons are grouped according to nine different themes: symbols, direction, scale and distance, grid coordinates, perspective, place, movement, interaction, and economics. The grade level varies for each lesson. Also included are classroom tips on creative ways to teach geography, math, social studies, and science using maps, an annotated bibliography, and reproducible masters to supplement the lessons. There is a gold mine of information for any teacher looking to teach maps in a creative and fun way.

 Students should be given access to this software on an individual, paired up, and group basis. The options are so extensive that this would help students to make the most out of what is available to them. The students can create a map for their own individual project, work in pairs to solve one another's mystery or work in groups to solve the program’s mysteries. The learning is unlimited! The teacher in the classroom would, however, need to decide how this software fits into the class curriculum. Whether it be used to reinforce geography skills, compliment the entire curriculum, or to help students learn the tools of a computer, it is sure to fit into any curriculum. Children learn by doing and this software will certainly help to make map skill less abstract for students.

 Neighborhood Map Machine, an incredibly interactive tool, is designed for the explorer in every child. It will take time and patience for the teacher and students to learn all of the different options available. This time will, however, be worth it as students will be able to create what they imagine. The program’s graphics, color, and sound are wonderful and the variety and level of skills taught are endless. A teacher considering this software should, however, keep in mind that the time it will take to teach this program to students may be consuming. Students should be taught the program little by little, as to prevent frustration and impatience. Once learned, the opportunities to use this program in the classroom are unlimited and the products created are sure to be outstanding.

 Overall Rating (on a scale of 1 to 10) 8

 This program is an incredibly mapping tool that would compliment any geography unit. I gave the program an 8 because of the time it takes to fully understand all that is involved in the program. Teachers have an enormous amount of material to cover in their curriculum and they may not be willing to take the time to accurately teach this program. However, if they do, they will opening a creative and imaginative door for their students. They will not only allow them to create, explore, and solve but will also teach them the fundamental skills of geography and technology.

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 Last revised: January 15, 2001