Earlier today a reader emailed me with a great question about Google Maps. She wanted to map a set of addresses and then quickly determine the shortest route between all of those places. My suggestion was to put all of the addresses into a Google Sheet, import that Google Sheet into Google’s My Maps tool, and then use the directions function to connect all of the addresses with the shortest possible routing. In the following video I demonstrate how that whole process can be done.

Applications for Education
Students can use this process to quickly create a simple tour of landmarks that they studied in a geography lesson. It could also be used to create tours based on books. You can turn these into collaborative projects by having students share a Google Sheet and contribute to it.