Videos and QR codes in the library

YouTube

    Youtube can be a teacher's best friend! The resources available there and the ease of use make it a valuable asset for educators. Having students make their own videos for Youtube is taking it to a whole new level. For older students taking technology or production classes, I can see that these would be a great way for students to demonstrate understanding of the movie making process. On the Youtube channels we explored, I really liked the science experiment videos where students shot multiple phases of the experiment. When a problem occurred, they corrected the problem and tried again. Many of them had great editing, music and transitions that other student would enjoy watching while also learning about the science experiment.
     I think the mini-lessons are a great way for students to access and revisit pertinent information about research. I can see how this would be crucial for high school students who are expected to independently research and cite their sources.

Animoto

     I was looking forward to working with Animoto because I've heard about librarians using this with students who want to make book trailers. Unfortunately, it was an exercise in frustration for me. I have used several movie making programs including iMovie so I came into Animoto with expectations about customization. There was little opportunity for customizing the text placement, picture sizing and zoom, and there was little rhyme or reason to how any of it was displayed. My book trailer turned out only ok, but the perfectionist in me wished I could have had more control over the final product.
     For my book trailer, I chose The Terrible Two by Jory John and Mac Barnett. It is a bluebonnet book this year and is probably the first book my son has voluntarily read from cover to cover.

When master prankster Miles Murphy moves to sleepy Yawnee Valley, he challenges the local mystery prankster in an epic battle of tricks, but soon the two join forces to pull off the biggest prank ever seen.

QR Codes

I've seen QR codes used as way to send students exploring around the library on a scavenger hunt. Students used an iPad to read about the sections of the library and watch book trailers. I like the idea of using QR codes as a walking exhibit, having students move around the library or school to search for codes and utilize technology to learn in a unique way.

Linking students to online resources and e-book websites is also a great way to use QR codes in a practical way. Promoting those resources on bookmarks and posters is also great idea! Of course, all of this relies on users having access to a device to read these codes. Librarians would have to be intentional is their utilization of this technology making sure it matches up with the school's resources.


Sources:

Amazon. The Terrible Two (2015). Retrieved from https://www.amazon.com/Terrible-Two-Mac-Barnett/dp/1419714910/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1477876760&sr=8-1&keywords=terrible+two

Cornell, Kevin. (2015). Images retrieved from http://terribletwo.com

BBSMedia (2016, Sept. 23). Caroline's Director Video.         https://www.youtube.com/user/bbmsmedia/videos

Animoto.com

Instagram, Vine and Screencasts

Instagram

      I have had a personal Instagram account for several years and as far as social media is concerned, it is probably my favorite. Unlike Facebook, following someone on Instagram is not mutual (which is great!) I enjoy following several celebrities, athletes and musicians who allow a small glimpse into their lives. Since I work with elementary students, the use of Instagram for school has never crossed my mind. In one of the articles we read, it mentions that teachers can create class accounts and allow students (and/or parents) to participate. For younger students, I feel the ClassDojo app accomplishes this without encouraging students to use an app they are technically too young to download. But for the sake of this conversation, I found one of my Instagram posts that is relevant to the world of literature and libraries.

A little censorship of Dr. Seuss done by my daughter when she was 7.   

She didn't appreciate the nudity in Wacky Wednesday and took matters 

into her own hands. I found it about 6 years later and we had quite a laugh 

at her creative way to fulfill her need for modesty. 

Vine

      My feelings for the use of vines in the classroom are not that different than Instagram. I work in a district where the use of Twitter is highly encouraged, even rewarded! So for me, I envision vines as a  way to show off or brag about the great things students are doing in our classrooms or libraries. Last school year, our school librarian and I were playing with a makeymakey and I figured out how to play Jingle Bells with playdoh. She posted this short video and this is how I would use vines, especially to showcase cool makerspace activities.

Jingle bells with play dough #makeymakey #brillbroncos pic.twitter.com/XK1C3GAF4q

— Julie Artman (@BrillLibrary) December 14, 2015

 Screencasts

      I have to admit, I was excited about the opportunity to do my first screencast. I'm relieved to see it was easier to use than I thought and I love the idea of making these short videos to explain library activities and procedures. I used Screencast-o-matic and its free account offers plenty of options to fit my needs. For my first video, I took this opportunity to show my students how to locate and complete the bluebonnet quizzes I am implementing this year through Google forms. 

Infographics

       When I first started looking around at infographics, I thought 'cool, but how can I use this in my library?' But the more I explored and read about the use of infographics in education, the more I recognized the potential of this unique, user-friendly medium for representing information. One of my first thoughts was for the GT students in my district who are required each year to do a project. These students are often sent to the library for help with their project and this might be a fresh new way for these students to demonstrate understanding of their given topic.
       I also love the idea of making a cool graphic to represent data for students. If I wanted a creative way to show students how to do self-checkout, I can see that an infographic would be better than a standard list (that they will ignore anyway). As I started considering what my first infographic would be, I remembered a list sent to all librarians in my district about reminding teachers what we can do for them. I decided to take this list and create an infographic with that same information.

      I took the information from the list made by our Information Services department and added some of the educational technology resources our district has available. Teachers often forget about some of the e-book programs we use and I felt this would make for a great reminder. 

     

Easel.ly

I really wanted to like Easel.ly because I liked the themes it had available and after spending about an hour using it, I wanted to come away from it with a usable product. Unfortunately, I found it to be slightly cumbersome and after getting frustrated with resizing and moving objects around, I gave up. I did like the tools that Easel.ly offered and the layout of it's site, but it wasn't perfect. I tend to be a bit of a perfectionist, wanting everything to be centered and I found that the formatting didn't always allow for that. 

Infogr.am
I did not spend a large amount of time playing around on Infogr.am because it honestly did not make a great impression on me. I watched several videos on YouTube for each of the three sites we were asked to review and they all seem to have the same functionality. Infogr.am's templates were all line graphs and since that was not how I wanted my information represented, I decided this was not the site for me.

Piktochart
After playing around on Easel.ly and struggling with some of the formatting, I was relieved to find the functionality of piktochart to be so user friendly. The tools are quite intuitive and I was impressed with how easy all of the features are. There are many templates to choose from and the huge amount of images, shapes and graphics available is ultimately what won me over. The entire site worked logically and would be great to use with students.

Blogs to follow

I chose the Blog Reader feedly to track ten library and education centered blogs. Historically I have not been one to follow blogs, but many of the blogs I came across are tied to Twitter accounts that I already follow or have found through Pinterest. I like the simple format of feedly and multiple viewing options. In the "title only" mode, the blog posts are listed to resemble an email inbox while the "pictures" mode, resembles Pinterest. I like the default "magazine" mode that shows a horizontal list of the most popular blog posts, followed by a vertical listing of posts by date. Each option allows you to hide posts so they disappear from view or save the posts so it can be easily accessed in the future.

Blogs I chose to follow:

http://librarymakerspace.blogspot.com 

This blog is managed by a public library in Massachusetts that offers programming for adults, teen, and children. Their posts focus specifically on the maker movement, highlighting the activities they have featured in their library. Many of the posts revolve around 3D printing, which is not in the budget for my elementary campus but is interesting none the less.

http://frizzleblog.scholastic.com

Edu@Scholastic is a blog hosted by Scholastic Inc. that features articles on the issues and trends relating to literacy, teaching, early learning, family & learning, community and equity. The blog is specifically written for educators and school leaders.

http://lisnews.org

Library and Information Service News offers a link to wide variety of articles and blog posts relating to literacy and libraries. In the most recent listing, subscribers can find stories from national news outlets like CNN.com, regional newspapers like the Houston Chronicle, and college papers like the Stanford Social Innovation Review. The purpose of the blog is to offer a one stop shop for current news relating to libraries.

http://awfullibrarybooks.net

This blog is quite entertaining! It is designed for librarians to share the outdated and sometime ridiculous books they come across in their collection. The blog is managed by two librarians who have authored a book about the holistic approach to collection development. Librarians can submit a photo and description of the books they find in their collection and the two authors have a very witty way to feature each book.

https://www.nypl.org/voices/blogs/blog-channels/childrens-literature

The NY Public Library's blog offers book lists that are seasonally relevant, character features, book recommendations, author quotes. For anyone who loves children's literature, it is a great resource for what is current and relevant amongst young readers.

Others I chose to follow:

http://www.edudemic.com

http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com

http://ilearntechnology.com/wordpress/

http://www.edudemic.com