The 2015-16 school year has been an exciting time for me in my new position as a Library Media Specialist for HCISD. After 20 years in a classroom setting, my biggest regret is that I didn't do it sooner! I love learning and I have always loved books and my courses at Sam Houston State University have provided both and much, much more. As I finish the semester at SHSU, I reflect on what I have learned and accomplished, as well as what will be most beneficial to me and the students in the library.
In Digital Technology For the School Librarian, we were introduced to many social media tools. Several of these tools, I had used before, but what was new was that instead of using them for personal reasons, I looked at them envisioning how they could be used in the school library.
My favorite tools are YouTube, Screencasts, and Bloglovin'. YouTube has so many educational things that have been created by others that I don't need to recreate. I use it on a regular basis and this week I have been using it daily to show Bluebonnet Book trailers to my 3rd - 5th graders. Screencasts are beneficial to students and parents. I have already made a few screencasts and plan to introduce my teachers to it soon. Bloglovin' is a great site for tracking all the blogs that give us inspiration without going to multiple blog sites. These are all tools that I am using and plan to use much more in the future.
There are a couple of tools that I'm not really very crazy about and will most likely not use. A couple of them are due to technology issues or restrictions on our school filter. My least favorite app was Jing due to the frustration I had with technical difficulties. Another app that I felt was redundant was Vine. With all the other Social Media that I have available to me, I do not plan to use Vine.
The most useful apps for students are the podcasts, screencasts, and ToonDoo. The podcasts and screencasts are the most useful because students can use them to help them learn something new or review something they have learned. Their favorite app that I have introduced as the result of this course is TooDoo. Students absolutely love creating cartoons to present their learning.
As I continue in my career as a Library Media Specialist, I know that I will need to stay on top of the new and upcoming technologies that my students and teachers will benefit from. This course was very beneficial to me. Reading my classmate's blogs was very helpful, especially when I had difficulty with an app or website. It was nice to hear from others that had similar experiences or could share a better way to do things. It reinforced the importance of networking by following other professionals on blogs and social media such as Twitter, Vine, Instagram, and Tumblr.
“Have you ever dated, hooked up with or otherwise had a romantic relationship with another person?”Pew Research Center’s Teen Relationship Study asked teens ages 13-17 and their parents this question as well as others to determine how teens are using technology to develop romantic relationships.
A few of the facts:
64% of teens have never been in a romantic relationship. Of the 35% that have been in a relationship, only 8% have met their partner online with the majority meeting them on Facebook.
Social Media is widely used for flirting or "friending" crushes even among teens that did not meet their partner online.
25% of teens have unfriended someone that made them feel uncomfortable with their flirting. Girls are more likely to be the recipients of the uncomfortable flirting.
Social Media can help teens stay connected, but also fuels jealousy and instability in relationships.
Teen daters like to be able to publicly show their affection for their partner but dislike that too many people can comment on their relationship.
85% of dating teens expect to hear from their partner daily.
Most teens prefer in-person visiting, calling, and texting with their partner versus using social media.
Teens prefer to break-up in person versus via text message.
Very few teenagers are controlling or digitally stalk their partners or ex-partners.
54% of teens prefer to ask a person out in person. Only 24% would ask them out via text.
Girls are more likely to block or unfriend ex-partners in Social Media platforms.
After reading this report, I have to admit that I'm a little surprised that more teens are not meeting their partners online. In the world of ever changing technology where teenagers sit in the same room to text each other (read as pet peeve! LOL!), it is nice to see that teenagers still appreciate the personal face-to-face contact and interactions that we enjoyed when we were their age. (77 pages)
I have looked at several social media apps and sites over the last three months - Facebook, Twitter, Tumbler, and even YouTube. This week I have been playing with two more - Instagram and Vine. I am familiar with the apps but have never really considered their use in the classroom or in the School Library until now.
Here are a few ways to use these apps in education:
Share classroom and field trip memories
Take photos of students' artwork and projects to share with families
Allow students to moderate the classroom account to share what's important to them.
Post photos from the viewpoint of a famous or historical figure or a book character
Record science experiments, steps, or directions for later reference
Document student progress
Use photos as a writing prompt
Make announcements to students and parents
Post reminders of upcoming events or due dates
Design book trailers or promote books
Model steps in a problem
Think-Pair-Share virtually
Advertise upcoming events
Instagram is a photo sharing app that is available for iOS and Android. After you download the app, you can register with an email address or Facebook. The app allows you to use pictures that you have previously taken and load them from your photo library or you can take pictures from within Instagram. Editing abilities include being able to move and scale the image, add filters, and then share your photo. If you would like to be able to further edit your image, you should take the image with your device's camera and use a photo editing program like PhotoCollage to add text, backgrounds, stickers, and yes - even create collages that will post as 1 photo when you upload them via the Instagram app. Instagram also allows you to record and share videos. They can be three to fifteen seconds long and can be recorded at one time or in short bursts. These short bursts can be deleted to be able to quickly fix a section without re-filming the whole video. Filtering options are available as well. Like most social media sites, you can follow other users and they can follow you. You have the ability to like, comment, and send Instagram photos to your followers or to share to Facebook and Twitter. One unique option is that you can link several social media sites together to make it easy to cross post your photos. These include Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Flickr. Instagram also has a website - www.instagram.com where you can view posts and edit your profile, but you can not post photos from the website. You can also retrieve an embed code to place in blogs and websites - a feature that is not available in the app. A word of caution on the embedding - you will have to go into the code to change the size of the post in your blog. Here are a couple of Instagram posts that I created for my school library. The first one I re-sized and the second I did not.
Vine is a video capturing app that allows users to record up to six seconds of video digitally. Vine is a product of Twitter and when you create your account, you have the option of logging in with your e-mail or by using your Twitter account. Vine offers many of the same features as Twitter - revining (retweeting), following, commenting, liking, and sharing. You can film videos using the app or you can load videos from your device's video library. Videos can be recorded continuously or in short bursts like Instagram. You simply click on the camera button and your device will record as long as you hold your finger down up to six seconds or you may also choose to tap the screen and film short bursts. You can edit the clip, add music, and share via Twitter, Facebook, and Tumbler. Like Instagram, there is also a website - www.vine.co where you can view vines, edit your profile, and retrieve embed codes but you can not upload vines. Here are two vines I created for my school library.
After using the two apps, I feel that Instagram is the more useful of the two apps because it has more options for editing, can make longer videos, and can post photos and videos. I also like that it can streamline my social media accounts by posting to them as well. I really don't see the need to use both apps for the same purpose. In talking to the teenagers in my life, it seems like Vine isn't being used as much as Instagram these days. On another note - I was unable to use either app using the WiFi at school due to the child safety filter so you may have to turn off the WiFi on your device to use these apps which could make it difficult to use with students.
Screencasts provide students, teachers, and community members with learning experiences in the classroom as well as via the Internet. They allow teachers to digitally record any activity that is performed on a computer, narrate the activity or directions, and use them as learning resources, tasks, and to support anyone who needs to see a visual presentation on how something is done on the computer. While I had viewed screencasts before and found them very helpful, I had not created one myself. I looked at four different web tools to determine which one would work best for me.
The first site that I visited was Screencast-o-matic. This was the only web-based tool that I could use at my school because our Internet filter blocks other sites due to file hosting or adult content. Screencast-o-matic offers a free version or a Pro account for $15 per year. The Pro account offers longer videos, the ability to edit your recordings, records from screen and webcam at the same time, and helps your to manage your videos. The free account works fine for most people and you can sign up easily by using your e-mail address. The first thing that I noticed was that because it is java based, it does not play well with Chrome which is my browser of choice. Chrome will actually launch the site using a downloaded recorder which worked well. There is a video tutorial to teach how to use the recording interface. It also offers a resizeable recording window, one click recording of audio and video, and the ability to upload to YouTube. Overall, it was very easy to use. It would be nice to be able to edit the video, but I prefer not to pay for the video tool if I don't need to. I easily loaded my video to my YouTube channel so I can embed it in blogs and webpages without any issues. One thing I did notice was that after I loaded it to YouTube, it looked rather grainy and I had to change the setting to make it a higher resolution video.
The second tool that I looked at was Screenr. Unfortunately, I was unable to use Screenr because it was retired as of November 11th because it is Java-based. Google Chrome can not run Screenr because it doesn't run Java.
Next, I tried Jing. Jing is a program that must be downloaded to your computer. It was not difficult to record video with Jing, but after that I ran into a couple of issues. My biggest issue was that after I recorded the video, it was very slow to process and upload to the Screencast.com site where it is stored. Your other option is to save it to your computer. Neither one worked well. I received error messages after waiting 20 minutes for my video to upload. Then when I saved it to my hard drive to upload to YouTube instead, it saved it as a .swf file which none of my video editors could read and YouTube couldn't find anything but audio in the file. I never could get the video from the TechSmith Screencast.com website and was unable to convert it to a usable format. This tool was not convenient at all and I will not be using it again.
I looked at several reviews to find a screencasting tool that would work best for me. I decided to give Microsoft Expression Encoder 4 a try. What was appealing to me is that it is a free downloadable program from Microsoft that allows you to edit your video with Microsoft Movie Maker. I do on occasion use Movie Maker and I really like the idea of being able to add transition slides to the beginning, banners, and background music to make a professional looking screencast. Expression was just as easy to use as the other programs and was encoded into a Mp4 with the simple click of a button. This is the tool that I plan on using in the future.
Overall, the screencasting tools were simple to use - except for my issues with Jing. I was really surprised out how easy screencasting can be. You should check out these screencasting tools and see what you think.
When I was a kid, I couldn't wait to get the Sunday paper to read the comics. This often meant getting to them before one of my siblings did. They were better on Sunday that any other day because they were in color and they were longer. Even as an adult, I enjoy reading the comics when I have a chance. What are the benefits of students reading comics? Reading graphic novels and comics can be attractive to reluctant readers. They engage students that are visual learners and encourage an appreciation for different genres and artistic styles. Many comics encourage teamwork and teach positive character traits such as helping others - think about all the superheroes that are out to save the world. Comics also help students to broaden their imagination and become better storytellers. Comprehension is also improved because they see a picture to help with their understanding of the text. Reading graphic novels and comics is not the only way that students can benefit. They can also create their own comics to work on storytelling, sequencing, emotions, spatial reasoning, language and vocabulary, as well as character development, logic, and strategy. Assignments or activities in which students create their own graphic novel or comic strip can be an excellent culminating activity to show learning and it can also encourage teamwork.
I recently looked at several Web 2.0 tools and apps that help the user to create comics.
This cartoon was created using Toondoo. It is a web-based program that uses a standard set of characters and background templates. You can also create your own charactersuse your own photos in the comics. Signing up was easy and free. Toondoo is basically a drag and drop site. You can choose how many boxes your comic will consist of as well as the design of the comic strip. You are able to position the characters but the choices are limited. The hardest part for me was trying to figure out how to change the speech bubbles and shrink the text to make it fit in the box. After you have created your Toon, you can save it, reopen it for editing, print it, or share it. While this is a great free source for your students, you will need to be careful because this is not a strictly educational site and there are cartoons that they can see that are not appropriate.
MakeBeliefsComix is a free comic strip creation tool that provides students with a variety of characters, templates and prompts for building their own comics. It is web 2.0 tool and is also available as an app. The biggest downfall of this tool is that you can't save your Comix, you must print or e-mail them to yourself. This also keeps you from being able to edit them if you make a mistake or just want to change something. If you are using the app, you can save them to your camera roll as well. Most of the pictures are black and white. There are a few that are color, but you can not change the color on any of the pictures. You can create Comix that are 2, 3, or 4 blocks long. You can also edit the size of the characters and speech bubbles and bring elements forward or back. I personally found that it was easier to use the app then the web version. I could save the Comix as a picture and load it directly into Blogger. A couple of things that are helpful in this tool - teachers resources and writing prompts for students that are having difficulty getting started.
Pixton is definitely the easiest of the three tools to use. It is available as an app and as a web based version. It is entirely drag and drop and has easy controls to be able to change the body positions of the characters, facial expressions, and more. I like that it has two modes - beginner and advanced. Beginner is easy enough for just about any student to be able to use. I can even see my kinder students being able to work this one together. Sharing your creations is easy - Facebook, Twitter, download, embed, or print. However, it is not free. I don't have it in my budget to be able to use it at this time.
Tellagami is an app that is available for apple products. It is very easy to use and you can record your voice in a 30 second animated video. You can customize your avatar, but your options are very limited with the free version. This would be a great tool to have students create their own book talks or book reviews.
Comic book! is another app for apple products. I was lucky to get it free when it was advertised on Apps Gone Free last fall. You can take photos and use the app to create a comic book style picture or even create a comic book. It is very easy to use and everything I have used so far has been free. There are extra stickers that you can purchase separately, but I have not found a need to do so.
It can be very hard to decide which app to use. I would choose Toondoo as my favorite web-based tool because it was the easiest to use, had the best options for saving it, and it was free. I love both Tellagami and ComicBook! and I am looking forward to using them with my students on our iPads.
Over the past week, I have been looking at different online book communities. An online book community is a website that readers can use to create and organize book lists. It is also a social media site where you can connect with other readers to see what they are reading and read their reviews on books. In the past I have used Goodreads which I feel is a great site, but what else is available? The other communities that I looked at were LibraryThing, Shelfari, Booklikes, and Biblionasium. Let me tell you a little about each of these sites.
Goodreads is a very easy to use online book community. Then interface is plain but user friendly. You can create virtual shelves on which to place books and you can name the shelf to help you identify it. You can mark books that you want to read, as well as review and rate books you've read. The site also has the option to see other people's lists and read what other people have said about books.
You can start an online book discussion or look at the lists that books have been placed on to find similar titles or to see what others are reading. Goodreads also provides links so you can easily get a copy from online book retailers. My favorite feature is that it recommends books for you based on the titles you have place on your shelf and books that you've rated. You can also explore popular books, enter giveaways, search by genre, title, author, or ISBN number. Signing up for an account is free and can be done via Facebook, Twitter, Google, or Amazon. It is a social network where you can connect with friends and coworkers to share thoughts about your reading. Is it appropriate for classroom use? Probably not - there is not a way to block inappropriate materials from students so it would definitely have to be used with teacher/parent guidance. It is great for personal or professional book lists.
The first thing I noticed about Librarything is that you can sign in with Facebook or Twitter. Even though I used Facebook to sign in successfully, I had issues connecting with retrieving my friends list and connecting to others. It was fairly easy to create a virtual shelf and add books to it. I like that you can edit the book information by changing the text or the picture or adding tags to make them easier to find. It also provides links to purchase books. Users can review books, rate books, join groups, and talk about books with others. LibraryThing also has a feature to create a widget of you shelf to place on a webpage or a blog. This site has free book giveaways that you can sign up for and you can share your lists on a newsfeed. Two unique things about LibraryThing are that it has an app for iPhone and it has an introduction tutorial. Again - it may show books that are not appropriate for students.
Shelfari is hosted by Amazon so you can use your Amazon account to login. I love Amazon so I was excited to try this site. It has social media capabilities and users can follow people on Facebook, Twitter, Gmail, and Yahoo. Like the other book communities, you create virtual shelves to hold your books. You can mark your books as those you plan to read, those you are reading now, and books you've read. You can set reading goals, see reading statistics and join groups. You can also embed your shelf on your blog. It sounds like a great idea, but after following directions it did not actually embed into my blog, but rather just placed a link to my shelf -
Shelfari: Book reviews on your book blog. I like the way you can link your Amazon purchases to your shelves, I think that it is very handy. I really wanted to like Amazon Shelfari because I really like Amazon, but it just wasn't as user friendly as some of the other sites.
I found Booklikes to be more focused on blogs about books that creating lists. Like the others, you can login with Facebook. Signup was not as easy as the other because they provided a long difficult verification code to type in. It provides you with a virtual shelf, a reading timeline, reviews, book publishing information, and book giveaways. This was the site I felt gave me the least information about books that I placed on my list. It does however provide a feature to include photos, videos, or web links in your blogs and reviews.
Biblionasium is a reading community for kids. Of the online reading communities that I tried this week, this is the appropriate one for your students. Teachers register their students and recommend or require books for students to read by placing them on virtual shelves. Students can also log their reading and parents can create an account that links to the child's account to see what their child is reading. It also provides resources for classroom use including a parent letter to help parents get started. It is very user-friendly and it provides you with guidance to set help you set up student accounts and get started using the website. Students can create their own lists and see what their classmates are reading. I think this would be very helpful in encouraging some of our reluctant readers and in finding a good fit book for students that have difficulty finding something to read.
For my personal use, I will continue to use Goodreads. I like the way that it provides suggested readings and I already know how to use it. In my Information Literacy Center, I can't wait to get started by adding students. I have already placed the Bluebonnet Nominees on a shelf that is ready to share.
On a side note - I used a free software called Skitch to create and edit screenshots. It is very easy to use and has great results. If you would like to try it out, go to https://evernote.com/skitch/ to download it.
I am fairly new to the world of Podcasting. Podcasting is a method of sharing information that involves recording a digital audio file and sharing it on the internet. What makes a podcast different from an MP3 file is that you don't have to go to a site to download it. Like a blog, you can subscribe to a podcast series or an RSS feed and your computer will automatically download it for you until you are ready to listen to it or you can go to a podcast site and download it yourself. There a two main ways to use a podcast - to create and share information or to listen to podcasts that are created by others. Here are a few ways to use podcasts in the library:
To promote the library through booktalks, read-alouds, book reviews, announcing students achievements, and explaining library programs or policies.
To share information by allowing students to create their own podcast as a culminating activity - interviews, reading passages, explaining the processes they used , or sharing about a book that they read.
To share school library news about upcoming activities and events and increase community involvement.
To present professional development including tutorials, book reviews, discussion guides, policies, or an overview of library policies.
My previous podcasts were made using Audacity - a free software that allows you to record an audio file and edit it. I used Podbean to host my podcast. This time, I looked at three different free audio hosting sites - Soundcloud, audioBoom, PodOmatic.
Soundcloud allows you to upload, record, promote, and share your original audio files. The uploads can be in any format and you can follow audio blogs and connect with musicians and podcasters around the world. Users can share their files with Twitter and Facebook share buttons. Audio files can be distributed through widgets and apps. Listeners can post comments on individual parts of tracks and it used by a lot of musicians. I uploaded an audio file and it sounded great. I also recorded a file and it was just as clear as the Audacity recording. However, there is not a way to edit any recording you make on the website. Overall it has a simple interface and is easy to use, but feels more geared toward music than podcasts.
In audioBoom, users can select categories to follow or they can search for content manually. With this one web 2.0 tool you can create, broadcast, and listen to podcasts. It is geared toward the spoken word and not music which makes it better for education purposes. You can also imbed playlists on your websites and apps. AudioBoom is pretty easy to use although it took me a couple of minutes to figure out how to record and I wasn't happy with the recording quality. You can upload a file you have already created or you can record a file directly to audioBoom. Files that I uploaded to audioBoom were nice and clear, but audio that I recorded directly to the site were distorted and hard to hear. It also did not give me any options to edit my audio other than to set stop and start times.
Using podOmatic, you can upload audio files, share your recordings through Facebook and Twitter, and follow others. Right away, I saw the button on the task bar for creating a podcast. It is easy to upload files but there is not an option to record files. When you upload a file, you can choose quality option based on content - talk, music, or original (requires a PRO account). You can add an image to go with the podcast if you choose so you can customize it some. It took longer to upload an audio file than audioBoom did. You can also create a slideshow from photos called a "minicast" which I thought was a nice bonus. It is also available as an app.
Podbean is still my podcast hosting site of choice. I really like the interface and you can change the theme to fit your style. Like the others, you can upload files, share them on social media, embed them in blogs and websites, and follow podcast series that you like. You can not record audio on the site or edit audio files. That's okay with me because I like Audacity and I like being able to have more control over my recording and edit things I don't like.
Recently, I chose to create a podcast to celebrate student success. At my school, we have a Millionaires Club that students join when they have read a million words. We are celebrating our first member of the school year by honoring him with his own day. He will be treated like royalty on his special day and get to be first at all of his activities for the day. We also placed his picture in a million dollar bill that we have placed on the wall. He recorded the following podcast to tell others how he reached goal, what he enjoys reading, and why he thinks reading is important.
Enjoy!
-Lisa
