The online suite of multi-media and historical maps located at www.geoamericas.com provides teachers an unparalleled opportunity for teachers to merge their student's love for the Internet with innovative curriculum objectives.

1. Media Lab Work: During media lab periods, students should be encouraged to find, explore, and research maps related to the time periods of the current period of American history under study.

2. Study Groups: Students should be encouraged to form small study group units to research and develop innovative trends that are evident from active use of the historical mapping systems of GeoAmericas.

3. Special Projects: Students researching GeoAmericas maps either individually or in groups will be able to understand visually interesting subjects such as the causes for close or landslide elections; turning points in the campaigns of the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, and the Civil War, and other issues.

4. Student Classroom Presentations: Based upon original research work using the historical maps, students either individually, or in teams, will be asked to make presentations of their research topics that they have uncovered in the use of their maps. For example, a student team might correlate the growth of slavery with the trends in political elections. Settlement of the West might be correlated with demographic population trends. Military strategies might be compared for the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812.

5. Audio-Visual Presentations: Students might use the media labs and classroom's audio-visual projection tools to make audio-visual presentations of their project topics to their class. Students can bring up the specific maps and layers, underscore topics they wish to develop, and make powerful presentations using audio-visual and public speaking skills.

6. Democratic Classroom Discussions: Teachers can engage democratic classroom discussions on topics developed from use of the maps. In this situation, the teacher does not have to be the technology leader, but rather becomes a moderator of classroom discussions.

7. Student-Led Classroom Discussions: In this case, the teachers select one or several students who have demonstrated expertise in technology, and thorough knowledge of American history, to become the class discussion leader. Discussions can be conducted in classrooms, media labs, and also in school auditoriums.

8. Special Learning Projects: For students with learning disabilities, these visual historical mapping tools leapfrog the reading/comprehension learning blocks inherent in textbook learning. Often students with some form of learning disabilities have offsetting compensatory skills in computer technology and graphics. These students may become the stars in understanding the historical trends that are easily uncovered from an active use of the GeoAmericas historical mapping systems.

9. Distance Learning Projects: These visual mapping systems provide an ideal forum for robust classroom exchanges via distance learning. A distance learning event might hook up multiple classrooms throughout a school district, or in remote geographic locations. Since each classroom can access the same historical mapping systems through their browsers, there will be a commonality of the discussions. Both teachers and students can be the moderators of debates on trends in American History.

10. Curriculum Tools: These maps can form the nucleus of new curriculum being developed by individual teachers, teacher groups, and school districts, in order to bridge the gap between textbook learning and online resources. Teachers can embed reference to appropriate maps for periods of history under study, and develop their own course of study, question and answers, as well as suggested broad research topics, and student presentations.

11. Research Tools: These maps have been used by teachers and graduate students to provide graphic illustration and visual documentation of political, sociological, military trends in American history. These maps are particularly valuable for understanding the broad cross currents of American history. The more time spent on these maps, the more enlightening they become to users.

12. Trend Spotting: One of the best recurring uses of these maps is the spotting of broad trends in American history. These maps put complex developments in a very simple and appealing graphic framework. As a result they have the broadest appeal from students with learning disabilities to educational researchers developing innovative curriculum.