Wednesday, September 28, 2005

Howe Sound and Google Maps API

I was wanting to learn more about the AJAX programming model so I figured why not hack google maps. The nice thing about it was that google has published an API for how to utilize their maps and customize them for your use. What I wanted to do is create a map which would describe Howe Sound, it’s islands, navigational aides, flora and fauna, inter-tidal zone, etc. I want to create a rich media learning experience. So I set out to use google maps as the starting place for this learning experience. It was relatively easy. Within half a day I had positioned a number of markers on the map, giving textual descriptions of the islands and providing hyperlinks to pages which would eventually give deeper descriptions of the islands. As you can imagine, I deepened my understanding of a number of things to get this done. I now know more about longitude and latitude, JavaScript, CSS, XML and each island itself. Yes, this project is a work in progress… Check back later and see how it improves…