Last fall Google renamed their Maps Engine Lite tool to My Maps. My Maps makes it easy to create simple custom maps with up to three layers on them. For example, check out this post to see how I made a biking route map in My Maps.

Today, Google announced that My Maps is now fully integrated into Google Drive for Google Apps for Education users. This was previously the case for Gmail users who used My Maps. Google Apps administrators can enable or disable My Maps for their users. With My Maps enabled in Google Apps for Education students and teachers will be able to create, save, and edit maps from their Google Drive dashboards.

Applications for Education
As I have written in the past, there are quite a few good uses of creating maps with multiple layers.

• Multiple layers can be used for showing data differences on a year over year or month over month basis. 
• You can display the same data with different base layers for comparison. 
• Students working collaboratively on a map can be responsible for editing their own layers on the same map. 
• If you’re using My Maps to have students create literature trips (look here for inspiration), they can create a different layer for each chapter of a book. 
• Students mapping the history of an event like the U.S. Civil War can create a different layer for each year of the war.