I'm Vanessa Bernstein, a substitute schoolteacher living in Orlando, Florida. To find jobs, I use the painfully primitive online system of a subcontractor of the Orange County Public Schools. My problem: I can only search all available substitute teaching jobs in Orange County and I was unable to narrow searches to nearby schools. Several job results show up at once, containing information like school and grade level but no map or address.
There are several hundred schools in Orange County and I needed to narrow searches to schools within 20 miles of my home because it's not worth it if I have to drive forty minutes to make $30 teaching for a half day pre-K. By the time I figured out the distances from my home to the jobs with Google Maps searches, the good jobs would be taken by one of the other substitute teachers searching this system.
I discussed the problem with my friend, he emailed it to his dad at Google, and a few days later I was emailed the URL to the app embedded below. All I have to say is WOW! This is exactly what I needed!
Now, I can just keep this application open and copy and paste the first two words of the school (and leave the words "school" and "Orlando, FL" all the time). I just accepted a job for next week. It took me only a few seconds. Thank you, Google!
Note from Google: This app uses the callbacks in GGoogleBarOptions, the new feature announced a few weeks ago, to call GDirections queries on every returned local search result.
