Book Mapping

[Joy Rosario]

Hi there from the Pretoria in South Africa! I am manager of the Thutong education portal and one of my tasks is to write articles for the Teacher newspaper - previous articles can be found in the ICT space on the portal http://www.thutong.org.za. The next article will be about using mapping tools on the Net to promote reading (am an ex teacher librarian) heavily influenced by a great presentation i saw on the Internet@Schools East 2008 program by Terence Cavanaugh (will be mailing him). I just wondered whether any of you had used mapping tools to do the same - maybe promote travel books? Imagine mapping Bill Bryson and his wonderful titles like Neither Here nor There or Down Under. Anyway, all ideas and input most welcome and I would of course give you credit in the article - it goes to 28000 schools.
Best wishes
JoyRosario
Deputy Director National Department of Education South Africa
work [e-mail] or home [e-mail]

[Colleen Williams]

Joy,

You may know about these sites which are related to your idea:
http://www.googlelittrips.org/
http://www.thinkingmaps.com/ (These are used for reading and writing promotion/activities.)

Also, you may enjoy this site which uses a map to promote Catherine Jinks' YA novel "TH1RTEEN R3ASONS":
http://www.thirteenreasonswhy.com/

Many of our states in America have sites with literacy maps of local or regional authors, for example:
http://www.georgiacenterforthebook.org/Georgia-Literary-Map/index.php

These are a few links found on our school's media center wiki to promote reading: http://ahsmedia.barrow.wikispaces.net.

Please feel free to email if you'd like me to send links to more specific examples of the use of "Thinking Maps" for reading activities.

Colleen Williams
[e-mail]

[Colleen Williams]

Regrets! Please note this correction: Jay Asher is the author of "TH1RTEEN R3ASONS."

[Joy Rosario]

Hi Colleen
These links are super and I am thinking about moving the article into a broader dimension as a result - more around titles on travel/exploration/expeditions - this means that we can also encompass books on contemporary African history as a result.

Thanks for your help, much appreciated.

Joy