Books are Treasures: Thing 19

There were several things on the list that I found incredible. One of the ones that caught my attentiona and that I played with was Yahoo! Pipes. This is really a type of smash up. I loved the example that smashed the news of the day with a map. I thought this would be a great feature to add to the morning news. Not only would the kids be show a snippet of the new but they would be learning a bit of geography at the same time and in a fun, practical way.

I, of course, had to look at the items in the Books category. I was already familiar with Lulu as I have ordered books from there before. I think this is a wonderful site for self publishing items for say a class or even for the library. If you have authors week - take some of the best stories, add illustrations and make a new book for the library from your very own students. It could be bound just like a "real" book. I also liked Biblio as I found several old out of print books that I had been looking for and could not find on Amazon. But World Cat takes the cake for librarians. It offers cataloguing from over 10,000 libraries - that should really help us out.

I also looked at the maps section as that could be helpful in teaching Geography. Google Maps I already knew. But Live maps was awesome. I loved the picture collections of different places. I need to just spend some time - playing. Of course I already love Google Earth but Live maps might be just as great if not better - and that would really be something wonderful. The piece of Live Maps that I think will be so fun is the 3D item. I am downloading it and can't wait to get in and play.

This is one site that I am just going to have to take some time and puruse. Let my little fingers walk slowly through to find out what is possible.

Okay, the first thing I want you to see is the Capitol of Texas.