A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words - so what about a video?!?

This week we are exploring the world of images and video. Teachers and Librarians need to be aware of the apps that are available to record and publish pictures and videos with social media because that is where are kids are and where they are having fun. To capitalize on this interest we need to go where they are!

The first products I investigated were Adobe Spark and Screencast-o-matic. Adobe Spark is a very cool website where you can create videos/slideshows with tons of examples in an inspiration gallery. I was able to create an account AND have a finished product (that I have already posted on my school’s website and Facebook accounts) in less than an hour! I LOVE the video I created! The pictures I put in my finished piece were stock photos that Adobe has available for use under Creative Commons. They automatically add the credits at the end of the video for you so there is no copyright infringement as far as those photos are concerned. The templates that are available are so easy to use and have great questions that lead you right along to an awesome presentation.

My Spark Video 

Screencast-o-matic is a product that helps you create how-to videos. This product is one that I have seen used many times by my university professors. It takes a video screenshot and records audio as the computer operator goes through the process of a task on the computer. If I had not been exposed to these videos already I’m not sure if I would have thought this was as easy as I found it to be. There are several tutorials available and those were of course made with Screencast-o-matic. The tutorial I was interested in, scripted recordings, but apparently that is only available with a paid account – I couldn’t find any of the screens that were shown on the tutorials. That aside, the program is easy enough to use without much instruction and I am quite pleased with my finished product. With these two products I think I will use both of them but for very different purposes. I’m not sure what I would use Screencast-o-matic for anything other than computer based instruction, which I’m sure is what its intended use is. Spark I can see many uses – promotion of events, slideshows, and others. The finished products from both of these companies can be posted to Facebook, Twitter, embed in a blog or on a website, or a direct link can be shared to get it to the kids, parents, and even other educators!

My Screencast 

Instagram is an app I have had on my phone for a few years now although I have never used it for anything other than seeing what other people are posting. I could use Instagram to review content, send notifications, share funnies, share books, encourage and motivate. Here is my account and one and only post:

Instagram 

Vine is an app I have been terrified of since I first heard of it. I never even attempted to download it! I AM NOT THAT CREATIVE! 6 seconds to get a point across – HELLO! – have you seen my posts?!? It takes me 6 seconds to blink twice – how would I ever manage?!? Well, once I figured out that I could edit a video outside of the program and then upload and post it, I was fine – until I couldn’t get it to post no matter what I tried! It has finally shown up as looping on my phone, but my profile still shows 0 posts! I still don’t like this, but now it is because I can’t make this app work! I give up, but here is the video I made and it is half way on Vine I guess – you can check my Vine account just in case I get it to work @madavis18

References

Adobe Spark | Videos, images and stories made in minutes. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2016, from https://spark.adobe.com/

Dunn, K. (2015, August 4). 10 Ways to use Instagram in the classroom [Web log post]. Retrieved October 20, 2016, from http://dailygenius.com/instagram/

Instagram. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2016, from https://www.instagram.com/

Jonas, B. (2013, May 29). 8 Ways You Can Use Vine to Teach Reading Comprehension. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from http://www.readinghorizons.com/blog/8-ways-to-use-vine-for-reading-instruction-in-classroom

Nerdy, Nerdy, Nerdy!: Using Instagram as a Classroom Tool. (2014, June 25). Retrieved October 20, 2016, from http://www.nerdynerdynerdy.com/2014/06/using-instagram-as-classroom-tool.html

Screencast-O-Matic. (n.d.). Retrieved October 20, 2016, from http://screencast-o-matic.com/

Trot, A. (2016, March 1). 4 Ways to Use Vine Videos in the Classroom - teachercast.net. Retrieved October 23, 2016, from https://www.teachercast.net/2016/03/01/vine-in-the-classroom/

Vine. (n.d.). Retrieved October 23, 2016, from https://vine.co/

APA formatting by BibMe.org.

 

Infographics

This week we are exploring the world of infomaniacs, I mean Infographics! I felt like an infomaniac when I foolishly decided to open every link (at the same time) that I was given in order to research this topic. That was very silly of me, I became overwhelmed and under motivated! There is so much information available on the topic about how and what to create with infographics! I have included a list of all of the places I visited and read up about this topic – my suggestion to you is - don’t over do it, and maybe read the rest of this blog post – I might just narrow it down for you depending on what type of information you want to present.

The first thing you really should do is decide what you want to share and who are you sharing it with, otherwise you are just afloat on a sea of possibilities with no shore in sight! While this might be fun for a while, it is a real time-waster if you are a busy teacher or librarian (or anyone else who might actually want to live a non-virtual life).

Once you have your focus, consider the following websites that will give you the ability to produce an awesome infographic you can easily share with your audience.

Infogr.am – This is a very clean, streamlined website. For me it was a bit too streamlined. I can imagine that as someone with a spreadsheet full of data needing to be shared in a friendlier format this would be the place for you. They start you on a page where you choose from three icons – Infographic/Report; Chart/Graph; or Map. Of these choices I went with Infographics and at that point was taken to a large choice of themes where the only difference I could discern was a different color scheme on each choice. They all have a large line graph at the top and a place for text at the bottom. I admit I was a bit intimidated by this and stopped there. These were not the types of examples I was expecting – no fun graphics or interesting page shapes or backgrounds.

Easel.ly – This one is a good place to go to get started and if you are interested in upgrading from your free version, it only costs $3 per month and that adds a lot of value to your account. The toolbars are easy to use and there are many free templates available, many made by other users and made public when they are saved at easel.ly. All of their examples are what most of us would think of as an infographic, lots of great graphics and layouts leading the eye here and there across the page. It isn’t difficult to change text and graphics to suit your needs. I created an entire infographic there, but by the time I was finished I had changed so much that it looked very unprofessional. I started again with another template and quickly realized that it was not a great match for the information I was trying to share.

 

Piktochart – I then found myself on Piktochart. Here I found some awesome templates that I didn’t have to pay extra for. They are a lot more pricey than Easel.ly – Piktochart charges either $15 or $29 per month versus $3, although they do offer a 65% discount on that price after you save your first file. I chose a great looking template and got started. To be fair, the process probably went much faster because I had already done a lot of revamping of what I wanted to do with my info while I was on Easel.ly, but that being said the templates on Piktochart have the added benefit of including coaching in every block you build. They give recommendations for what to leave alone and what to change on the template. They even offer suggestions about what type of information to put into each type of block and where the optimum places are to place graphics. It is a template and tutorial all in one convenient place. I created my infographic in less than an hour and was very pleased with the results. This is my top choice of the three for ease of use and finished looks.

Here is my end product. We are having a Literacy Night at my school in a few weeks and we need a graphic to help promote the event on our website. With a few more tweaks this is hopefully what we will be using.

 Click here for a presentation view of this same graphic

 

Another type of infographic I tried was a word cloud - I created this on Tagxedo with the text from the Infographic above - I thought it turned out nicely!:

 

Sources

Bailey, J. (2013). Using Infogr.am to create infographics. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_uV7ii6V0Q

Bramschreiber, T. (2013). Using Easel.ly to create an infographic. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7ouQczeu0o

Easel.ly. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2016, from https://www.easel.ly/

Education Infographics | Search Results | Daily Infographic. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://www.dailyinfographic.com/category/education-2

Fryrear, A. (n.d.). How to Make Your Infographics Info-Tastic: 4 Key Elements to Successful Infographic Design. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://www.marketergizmo.com/make-infographics-info-tastic-4-key-elements-successful-infographic-design/#InfographicTool

Infogr.am. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2016, from https://infogr.am/

Infographics- What? Why? How? (2010). Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http://langwitches.org/blog/2010/06/16/infographics-what-why-how/

Krum, R. (2010, April 24). 10 Tips for Designing Infographics. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from https://digitalnewsgathering.wordpress.com/2010/04/24/10-tips-for-designing-infographics/

Malamed, C. (2013, August 31). ELC 010: How To Design Real (Not Fake) Information Graphics [Audio blog post]. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://theelearningcoach.com/podcasts/10/

Ojalvo, H. E. (2010, August 26). Teaching With Infographics | Language Arts, Fine Arts and Entertainment [Web log post]. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/26/teaching-with-infographics-language-arts-fine-arts-and-entertainment/

Ojalvo, H. E. (2010, August 25). Teaching With Infographics | Science and Health [Web log post]. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/25/teaching-with-infographics-science-and-health/

Ojalvo, H. E., & Doyne, S. (2010, August 24). Teaching With Infographics | Social Studies, History, Economics [Web log post]. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/24/teaching-with-infographics-social-studies-history-economics/

Perrin, A. (2016, September 01). Book Reading 2016. Retrieved October 16, 2016, from http://www.pewinternet.org/2016/09/01/book-reading-2016/

Pew Research Center: Internet, Science & Tech. (2016). Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://www.pewinternet.org/

Piktochart. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2016, from https://magic.piktochart.com/

Schulten, K. (2010, August 27). Teaching With Infographics a Student Project Model [Web log post]. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/teaching-with-infographics-a-student-project-model/

Schulten, K. (2010, August 23). Teaching With Infographics | Places to Start [Web log post]. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/23/teaching-with-infographics-places-to-start/?_r=2

Smallwood, L. (2012). How to use Piktochart. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lbyUbXkc8KE

Tagxedo. (n.d.). Retrieved October 15, 2016, from http://www.tagxedo.com/
Wright, R. (2013). Easel.ly tutorial. Retrieved October 15, 2016, from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XN-JDeCPca8

APA formatting by BibMe.org.

Blogs, blogs, blogs....

Feedly is a blog reader that helps the reader keep up with all of the blogs and websites they love to read in one place rather than having to visit each individual website. I chose to use Feedly because it has a Firefox extension and I use Firefox as my browser. This makes it very easy to use Feedly in my browser; also it has over 63,000 users with over 3,000 5-star reviews.

Some of the great blogs that I follow with Feedly and or Tumblr are below. Check them out, you will probably want to follow them too!

https://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/  This is a blog written by a librarian/writing teacher in Alabama. She has great articles about her teaching experiences and she shares resources with her readers. I chose to follow her blog because I recognized her name from Twitter where I also follow her.

http://stephenslighthouse.com/  This is a blog written by a librarian and executive director of the Federation of Ontario Public Libraries. He writes articles about how to market a library to the public by using infographics, user-created content, and many other strategies. I think these ideas may apply more strongly to public libraries but our school libraries also need to communicate to our users what is going on in our buildings and why they should come see for themselves.

http://100scopenotes.com/  This blog is a branch of the School Library Journal. It is a page that offers news and reviews about children’s literature. Their articles include lists of great new books for kids, articles about popular authors, and much more fun stuff like books on film. This is a great place to get the latest news in children’s literature.

http://www.edutopia.org  This is a blog I have been following for several years now. This blog has articles that give educators great ideas and strategies for 21^st century learning. This is a great place for teachers and librarians.

http://booksandhotchocolate.tumblr.com/ I decided to follow this blog ‘cause it is fun!! The writer of this Tumblr blog loves the same books that I love! There really isn’t an educational reason I chose to follow except that we all need a break sometimes to enjoy what we really love – words and books!!

I started my own Tumblr account, which I have never had before. It is a fun place where you can find many libraries and librarians posting many cool pictures and memes for the most part. I also saw several posting longer texts and quotes reviewing novels or explaining their activities. You can find my Tumblr here:

My New Tumblr Account

Resources

Cassidy, V. (2015, September 22). The 10 best feed reader apps for RSS, news, and more. 

          [Web log].  Retrieved from https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/

Facebook VS Twitter - is one really better than the other?

     This is a question I have been asked in more than one graduate class. My answer would be: It depends! The choice of platforms for a social connection depends on several things. 1) Are you looking for friends and family connections? Are you looking to connect with others in your same profession? 2) Do you know who you are looking for (names specifically) or do you just have a general idea (a broad term like "librarian")? 3) Do you want to know what others are doing day-to-day, or are you looking for advice on how to do a great lesson in your library? Depending on your answers to these and other questions, one platform will probably emerge to be your "go-to" place. That being said, both platforms are actually more similar than they may first appear.

    In terms of school librarians both Facebook and Twitter have large numbers of users. On Twitter, when you put "school library" into the search box, not only libraries and librarians are returned but also other entities that have a vested interest in school libraries, such as publishing companies and associations created to support school libraries. Whereas putting the same criteria in the Facebook search box, the results are hundreds (or more - I got tired of waiting for Facebook to "Load more results") of actual school libraries and not so much of the other entities. That isn't to say that YALSA, AASL, and the big publishing companies are not on Facebook, they are, you just have to look for them by name.

     The information and ideas that filter through either platform entirely depends on who you follow and are friends with. If you only follow authors, libraries, and other professional entities the tweets that come to your account will be what you need to help you in your library endeavors. If you are friends with your faculty, staff, parents, and students, you will be sharing information they want and need. These aims are completely up to you. If your account is a mixture of your private life and your school life and you share with parents and students - you really need to rethink your account and make one personal and one professional.

     As far as what most accounts and pages tweet/post for the world to see, this is what I found: On Facebook the pages I selected are sharing what is going on in the library. I saw many Book Fairs being promoted, happy kids using maker spaces, and announcements of other events either in the library or on campus that parents and students would be interested in. On Twitter when I clicked on actual library accounts I saw much the same thing, sharing day-to-day activities that the stakeholders of their library would be interested in seeing. What I found on Twitter that isn't as apparent on Facebook, are the many individual librarians who have accounts where they share their experience with other librarians and educators. Again, many of these folks are also on Facebook, you just have to know who to look for. Buffy Hamilton will show up in a search for librarians in Twitter, but you have to know that she is "TheUnquietLibrarian" to find her on Facebook. She and many others post basically the same awesome information on both platforms, so then it just leaves the end user to decide which format they prefer.

     What we, as librarians ourselves, must remember is that even though we may feel as though we are the end user most times, we aren't. We have students, parents, and faculty needing to hear and see what is happening in the library. They need book recommendations. They need to know what is going on elsewhere on campus. They need help with finding resources for great lessons. We need to meet them where they are most comfortable, just like a classroom teacher with their students. Self-proclaimed professionals may be more comfortable looking for library information on Twitter because of the two, it seems to be dominated by the people viewed as "experts". Facebook seems to be viewed more like the Wikipedia of social media on the internet - written by everyday people and not always to be trusted because the authors don't always know what they are talking about. On Twitter, you rarely see what the comments are in regards to a tweet because, unless you follow both parties involved you are unable to view them. On Facebook, of course, you can see all 5k comments if you are interested in that many opinions, the beauty of that is you can look or not, it is your choice. At my school we have a library Facebook page where our librarian shares the day-to-day happenings in the library. It works well to keep parents informed and kids excited to see their pictures on the internet! Search for Magnolia School Library or click here: Magnolia School Library
    
     My recommendation to librarians (and others) is this: Have a presence in both! You may even need to have more that one account or page in each place - one where you are the expert, sharing with others and one where you are the learner, asking questions.  One caveat: We need to remember that in the near future this question will be completely moot because we will have other platforms that we have moved to for communication. We need to stay aware of what is going on around us and be flexible enough to change with the times - Instagram is already the platform of choice for most of my students, and parents are bound to follow in order to keep an eye on their babies!

This is a tweet that was retweeted by Mr. ©olby Sharp (@colbysharp) that I thought was especially poignant today:

"Reading is humanity, and after 9/11 we need all the humanity we can get." - @noraraleighB https://t.co/VqzY7jtybA

— Mr. ©olby Sharp (@colbysharp) September 8, 2016