online atlas reviews

Who would have imagined that there would be so many sources for atlases. Yet it became evident that not all sources are of an acceptable quality or for children and youth. I have chosen two online sites in Riedling’s Webliography that seemed to me, less popular than others. Of these, I found not similarity to the atlases I used in grade school and high school. Times have definitely changed with the addition of “interactive zooming” and real time satellite images of locations. 

The Lonely Planet www.lonelyplanet.com

A first glance this site truly looked like a travel site and not an atlas site. Headings on the home page listed areas such as hostels/hotels, shop, and travel deals. There was a banner for advertisements, and I also notice after a short time, a set of scrolling images pan through one called, “Naked Places: best places to get undressed”. Highly unsuitable for a elementary web user. I was a bit turned off, and thought this would be my thumbs down site. 

But as I continued to explore, the site began to show its flavor; exciting and interesting information and facts on all types of places around the world. The home page was easy to read and navigate, with a clear map of the continents, that lead to galleries of pictures, top destinations, and copious amounts of detail about locations. The article linked to the “Naked Places” had some curious stories about places where nudism was used to generate an event or symbolize a belief. For example in Antarctica, “nudies dash – steaming and screaming – from the Amundsen-Scott South Pole Station to the geographic pole (which is marked with a pole, of course) and back.” The links to top destinations included links to fast facts like currency and population, things to do, when to go/weather, history, practical info, and a printable google maps link for roads.

Currency of the site seemed excellent. It included a travel advisory to people going to Jakarta because of volcanic ash that was spewing on the capital today. 

Excellent site as Riedling said. I think the reading level would be a bit high for elementary, but the intermediates would enjoy the fast facts and picture galleries.

The second site I chose was called Maps on Us at www.mapsonus.com

This would be my thumbs down site if I was looking for something to garner interest and excitement.  It began with a simple, mostly white home page. It seemed obvious that it was a map site, but mainly for acquiring directions. I thought this might turn students off, since most would not be looking for driving distances, and highway turnoffs. There was a large interactive world map, but it was very slow to load, and didn’t really ‘zoom’ as quickly as one would hope. I noticed about half way through my perusal that it said it provided directions for the US. Therefore, I shouldn’t have been surprised moments earlier when I typed “Nanaimo” into the search bar without success.  

I also found the tabs on the home page ineffective. The ariel view and “bird’s eye view” tabs provided exactly the same information, and the search bar at the top was not labelled as such. The topographical views looked much like you would find on Google Earth, but did not zoom nearly as much as Google Earth (to see the cars on your street). When I finally did get around to requesting a US location, it did not have the information on“Fargo, North Dakota”.  Seriously??  That’s pretty much when I gave up on it.