Thursday, June 30, 2011

Q & A: How Do I Share an Online Map within my Blog?

I recently met a great group of teachers in the Dallas area.  We spent the afternoon together talking about geospatial technology.  They were excited about online maps and were intrigued about the possibilities.  One teacher was going on some world adventures this summer and wanted to document the journey so that she could revisit it with her students.

Question: She said, "How do I share an online map within my blog?"

Answer: (PDF of these instructions)

Go to http://www.ArcGIS.com  (Be sure you have an account for the site so that you can save your map.)
Click on Make a Map.
Click Add. Select Create Editable Layers.
In the Add Features box, choose what you want to add to the map, a point, line or polygon.
Click the type of feature you want to add.
Click on the map where want to put the feature on the map.
Now edit the feature (give it a title, add a description, put a link to a picture online, a pertinent website, etc.) Click on the item on the map to get this box.

Once you’ve added all the details to your map, save the map your online arcgis.com folder.
Now you’re ready to share your map.  Click the Share link.

Turn on the Share with everyone (public) so that the Embed in Website button is active.
Click embed in website and you’ll get the embed code to copy and paste into your blog entry.

As you have more points, lines or polygons to add to your map, you’ll just login and edit the original map, save…adding the new stuff each time.  The embed code will not change.