Bonus Buzz: A Web Tool Book to Check Out

Hello All,

Queen B here giving you some bonus buzz. Storms came and went, but that's Texas. While I waited for the weather to clear, I read by flashlight- a quick read called No One Cares What You Had for Lunch: 100 Ideas for Your Blog by Margaret Mason. You could follow the Amazon link, but many public libraries have this title (World Cat says 193 libraries worldwide have this title physically in their library and over 200 have an electronic version available ). What I found interesting about this book is the blogging ideas are divided by the amount of time you may have to dedicate to your blog. The first chapter is called "Fifteen Minutes of Fame". The other chapters cover Thirty minutes, one hour and long term blogs.

The one of the ideas I found interesting was "29-Place Yourself". Using the website Platial, you can create a Google map mashup of anything you like. For instance, the summer reading program for our district is "Books that Bite". Librarians or students can do literature maps like "Places That Bite" (a Google map mashup of the settings of vampire stories, shark , reptile or bug related stories). I going to explore this site and let you know how it goes. Until then, keep buzzing.

Queen B

Thing 4: Mashup

Hello,

I spent a lot of time on the various mashup links for thing 4. Maybe TOO much time. The Spell with Flickr site reminded me of the Caldecott Honor book Alphabet City by Stephen T. Johnson. His book has illustrations of city objects that look like the letters of the alphabet. Johnson also created a sequel using numbers called City by Numbers. Check them out, they are more than your standard counting and alphabet books. Until then, keep buzzing.