Where’s Pauldo?

I previously mentioned the word cloud that students made using PollEverywhere on the first day of my class on Paul and the early church. Today, I asked them to play “Where’s Pauldo?” and click on a map which I had inserted into Poll Everywhere, indicating where they thought Paul had traveled to. It was a map without modern country information on it, and so that made it particularly challenging. Students knew Paul had been to Greece and to Rome in Italy. Turkey, Israel, and Syria did not get clicks, although when pressed, some students were aware that he had been to Turkey and to Jerusalem. No one suggested that he had been to Spain. (I think that the click on Slovakia was probably someone aiming for Macedonia and, without the specific modern country or ancient region names, missing the mark.)

I found this a useful activity. It helped me realize that students’ familiarity with the geography of the Roman empire and of Paul’s travels is limited, and to explain things accordingly.

I shared some of the maps that I previously posted on the blog with them in class, too.

Have you ever used a clickable image in a class, connected with PollEverywhere or some similar system?

By the way, my favorite map of Paul’s journeys (which I forgot to show the class, I’m ashamed to say) is the map done in the style of the London Underground maps.