ORBIS is, in essence, Google Maps of the ancient world. If you've ever wondered how long it (and expensive) it would be to get from Gades in Lusitania to Constantinople in Thrace, this is the resource for you! The interface is fairly basic, but takes a bit of time to familiarize oneself with. But after that brief learning period is done, you can get a very good idea of travel in the ancient world. You are not limited to the quickest route; you can also choose the shortest and cheapest (and fast does not necessarily equal shortest, as I discovered with my example above).
As far as I can tell, any student who can work MapQuest or a similar program can work the basics of ORBIS. It is very school friendly, although I cannot say if web filters would find something to block it for.
Now, in bullet form:
Pro's
- Free to use
- No sign in necessary
- Little adult supervision
- Fairly straight-forward interface
- Good tie-in with geography
- Potential cross-curricular with economics
- Surprisingly deatiled information about travel
Con's
- Site is easy to learn, but takes a bit of familiarization to truly master
- Servers have gone down and stayed down for a few days in the past
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