Thing 12: Media Skills

For Thing 12, I looked at several different sites, and was already familiar with many of them. Working as part of the Automation Team at Capital Region BOCES' SLS, I frequently use the Snipping Tool to insert screenshots to emails and how-to guides.

 

I have used Picasa frequently for years now and do like it. The desktop application has pretty thorough editing capabilities for a free program.

 

New tools that I liked: Make a Gif was a fun tool to play around with. I made a (very slow) Gif of my son from Christmas Day. I didn't get quite the animation sequence I was hoping for, but with more practice - and more sequential pictures - I think I could. My Make a Gif. I also really liked looking at the Mashable "Educational Gifs" - how interesting to see how a key works in a lock, how a baby's face is formed in utero, how a lightbulb blows out. I think there are potentially a lot of educational applications for this tool.

 

Another tool I played with a bit and enjoyed was Quozio. I liked how easy it was to use - just enter the quote of your choice and its author, then choose a background, and you have a nice-looking quote. This would be useful for presentations, posters, and so on.

 

 

Thing 21: Productivity Tools (2014)

I have tried (and failed) to use several of these productivity tools in the past, but I did get sucked into the vortex that is the Lifehacker "How We Work" series - they were fascinating and fun to read. Contributor Walter Glenns sums up my feelings on many of these "productivity tools" in his post:

 

"I've tried just about every electronic to-do manager around. And I really tried to make them work. But I finally came to the realization that paper works best for me. I can write new things wherever I want, check things off, circle things, draw big looping arrows, and color things in with my pencils. And for those with a keen eye, yes that is a legend of codes and colors on the bottom right. What can I say?

 Finally making the decision to give up on digital to-do lists was liberating, but whatever method you use, my advice is to quit looking for the perfect solution. Pick something and make a habit out of using it. Oh, wait. Maybe that's my best time-saving trick."

Now, unlike Glenns I have not tried "just about every" tool there is, but I've tried Evernote, To DoIst, and LastPass, and couldn't get into using them faithfully. I do love DropBox, but pretty much only use it to automatically sync and store photos I take to the storage they provide. I love the ease with which I can share photos with others and that it transfers from device to device. But I use this for pictures of my son and that's about it.

To stay organized and productive, I use a good, old-fashioned combination of pen and paper "to-do" lists (I love the satisfaction of checking things off) and just keeping a running list in my head. Luckily for me, though my memory isn't always the best, I do seem to remember to do important things that need to be done. And I remember things much better when I've written them down by putting pen to paper (says the woman who always takes copious notes and never re-reads them).

I think it's wonderful that there are so many digital ways to stay organized and if you think one will work for you, it's worth a shot.  

Thing 11: Coding (2014)

I tried out a couple of the coding tools. While in grad school, I had to take a course that introduced me to the basics of HTML and Java Script, so this type of language wasn't totally foreign to me, and I enjoyed the bits of coding I'd done in the past.

 

My favorite tool that I tried was "Animate Your Name", in which I got to play with coding/Java Script and alter the code to change the color, shape, and animation of my name. You can see my finished product here.

 

I also played with the Mozilla Thimble Maker and the "Keep Calm" posters. I can think of lots of fun ways to use this :)

 

I think it never hurts to know a little code. I like having the knowledge of figuring out why a website isn't displaying properly, and understanding the basics of code is really helpful, especially if you're in a position where you aren't just the librarian, but the tech person, too (my job at BOCES combines many facets, including lots of technology applications).

 

Thing 7: Podcasting and Screensharing/Thing 8: Collaborating, Connecting, Sharing

For this activity, I used Quick Screen Share, which my coworker, Tia, tipped me off to. Being part of Capital Region BOCES' School Library System's Automation team, I frequently provide technical support to our users and help to answer questions they have about using our library catalog.

I like Quick Screen Share because you don't need to download any software, it is quick, easy, free, and enables either sharer or share-ee to control the screen being shared. You just need the person's email address in order to share.

I did not try any of the podcasting sites because I don't currently have a microphone on this computer, but I can foresee using Quick Screen Share often in the future. Just today I had a librarian who was having trouble figuring out how to get a report run that we had built for her. Using Quick Screen Share, I can show her exactly how things look on my screen, showing her where to click and walking her through the steps of running the report. If she had further difficulties, she could then share her screen with me, showing me where exactly her problem was, and it would be easier to resolve.

*I realized I sort of jumped ahead during Thing 7 into an activity for Thing 8, so consider this a combining of the two :)

Thing 6: Curation Tools

For this activity, I am looking at Pinterest. I have had a Pinterest account for several years now, but previously hadn't really considered its uses for my professional life. I have created boards that group recipes, craft ideas, nursery ideas when I was pregnant, and home organization ideas. I like that you can create secret boards (perfect when planning a surprise party) and you can follow as many or few boards of your friends as you'd like.

I started following Polly's SLS Cool Tools board and it has inspired me to think more deeply about what sort of Pinterest board would be useful for me in my current position. I have created  a very minimally pinned (for now) "Library Things" board to compile ideas, links, and resources as I stumble across them. I appreciate how easy it is to share ideas and tools using Pinterest, and its graphics-heavy interface is ideal for visual learners.

For use in a school library setting, not only is this helpful for the above-mentioned visual learners, but because pretty much anything can be pinned to a board, it provides a good opportunity to emphasize to students the need to be thoughtful about resources used when doing research and also that not all information found online is to be trusted.

Thing 5: Digital Storytelling

I am going to keep this post short and sweet. A few years back, when I was working as a SLMS in the Schodack school district, I participated in an afterschool workshop with Polly during which she presented us with new tools to use in our libraries. I believe the workshop was called "Web 2.0." Many of the tools I learned were part of Thing 5, so I bypassed Animoto, Prezi, and Glogster, which I have tried before, and went to Toondoo, where I played with and created a cute little cartoon. It is unrelated to anything academic, but it was fun to make. And it's based on a true story ;)

I can see this being a really wonderful tool to use in classrooms to work on narration and sequence, and I also like the idea of using it in non-fiction applications, such as the given example of a life-cycle. For students who are really into graphic novels and comics, this gives them a chance to play with making their own. It was easy to create an account and the free version has lots of features. You can share your toondoo creations on Facebook, make your 'toons private, share only with friends, or add to the public gallery (I did this one). You can invite feedback and allow for editing, or opt not to.

Thing 4: RSS Feeds

I am beginning to feel like a broken record; I was skeptical of RSS feeds - it wasn't so much that I didn't trust them, just that I didn't see the need for them. They were explained to me as a place to keep all of your sites that you frequently check so that you don't need to go check them individually.

But I have bookmarks and favorites lists in my web browsers. And I only work part-time - I've got time to check my favorite sites. But then I started using Netvibes, and now I can't stop adding widgets. It's fun. And it is convenient to see so many sites I normally read anyway all at once.

I have several categories of widgets that I added -- news: global and national; weather; cooking blogs; entertainment blogs; library publications and sites; and miscellaneous other sites. I added these in various ways. Some, I simply visited the site and looked for the feed icon. Some I searched within Netvibes itself. I found that some of the feeds I subscribed to had the option of linking right to Netvibes and others went into a feeds folder in Internet Explorer, but I did figure out how to export these feeds as an OPML file and then they appeared with the rest of my feeds on my Netvibes page.

I clicked on some of my headlines in my RSS feeds and had the option of having reader view or webpage view. Generally, I preferred the more graphics-heavy webpage view. I added several library organization and news feeds, and I can see how this would be useful professionally. First of all, I have access to many sources for book reviews as soon as they're published online and can see them all simply by visiting my Netvibes Dashboard. From there, it is easy to make decisions about which books to purchase, as selecting audiobooks from Overdrive for the Capital Region BOCES Union Catalog is one of my job duties.

Because my job also entails training and technical support for our users within Destiny Follett, I can see adding resources and how-to's from the web to a specialized dashboard that is more job-focused than the personal dashboard I created for this activity. I could also see sharing links to resources with other librarians on specific topics that they are working on with their students.

I was hoping to add an RSS feed from my local public library, but there didn't seem to be a feed available. I did manage to add an RSS widget to this blog (I think! Hopefully it is working right!) and then subscribed to the feed, which will be added to my Netvibes dashboard soon.

Thing 3: Photo Sharing

I already have accounts with many photo hosting and sharing sites that I use for personal photos of myself, my family, and other events in my life - special and everyday. I have used, at various times, Photobucket, Snapfish, Shutterfly, Picasa, Dropbox, Facebook, and Pinterest. When I want to edit photos - crop them, resize, change the color or filter on an image - I generally turn to Photobucket or Picasa, which has easy tools to use for these purposes.

Of the sites I've used I like Picasa's editing features and Dropbox's sharing features best. I wouldn't necessarily have thought to lump Pinterest in with other photo sharing sites, as I have never posted my own photos there - I mostly think of it as a link sharing site. But one of its distinguishing features is all of the photos, tempting its users into making recipes or convincing users that, 'yes, you too can do this craft in a weekend' - never mind that it will turn out nothing like the gorgeous original. But the photos must come from somewhere, so I suppose it really is a photo sharing site at heart.

Because I have used so many of these sites for basic purposes, I thought for this activity I would branch out into a different site I haven't tried before. I was not actually familiar with Photopin, but I've bookmarked the page as it seems like a really good resource to find photographs that are okay to use freely. I also decided to play with Big Huge Labs, which was also new to me.

Since my son was born, my husband and I have used Dropbox to take and share photos of Benjamin. One feature I like is that you can easily share albums with other people and it's also easy to sort photos into albums and change the privacy settings on specific albums. My smartphone is set up to automatically send any photos I take using the phone directly to my Dropbox account. Below is a picture I took of my son and husband recently.

My son, Benjamin, laughing at the fish in the pond at the Crossings park, Colonie, NY.


Using the "Hockney style" collage maker at Big Huge Labs, I took the above picture and made it into this:

And then, using the "Pop Art" setting at Big Huge Labs, I made my son into a Warhol-esque image:

 

Those are just a few of the fun things I was able to do at that site; there are many more I didn't even explore, but I've bookmarked the site to explore more in the future.

There are so many potential uses for photo sharing in schools and school libraries. I am not currently at a school, working for the School Library System department of Capital Region BOCES, but when we have events, workshops, and conferences, there are definitely instances when photos will be taken/shared.

I think I've only barely scratched the surface of what can be doing with photo hosting and sharing sites, but this module was really useful to me.

 

Thing 2: Online Communities & Personal Learning Networks

I confess: I prejudged Twitter. This activity forced me to explore Twitter beyond simply being annoyed by its prevalence well, everywhere, and by people peppering their conversations with "hashtag" before phrases.

I am not ready to jump into Twitter; I did not sign up for an account. However, I can see the advantages to following some of the professional channels or posters. It is a way to stay really up-to-date on news, particularly relating to school libraries and education. I like that one can virtually attend a meeting by following Tweets; it also seems useful for timely live updates (ie, when this year's book award winners were announced - Twitter had it first!). I did find some fun and interesting links to articles by searching #tlchat that I may not have stumbled onto otherwise.

That being said, I do find it overwhelming and a bit annoying to wade through the many posts that are silly or stupid or just not what I'm interested in. Perhaps with more practice using Twitter, this would get easier. I just don't know that I'm interested enough to find out. It seems it could maybe one day replace other news/community linking sources like listservs.

I have had a Facebook account for years and while the site can be problematic to use in schools due to filters, I do think the idea of having a discussion group via Facebook could be a really great way to foster critical thinking - it could help solve the age-old problem of group projects, too. You no longer necessarily need to meet in person if you can have a group chat going on Facebook. While Facebook surely has its issues, I think lots of them can be worked around by being selective about the audience with whom information is shared - and Facebook does allow users to "lock down" their information fairly tightly - and by thoughtfully choosing the content which is shared on Facebook.

Thing 1: Blogging

I am joining the Cool Tools for School activity - a little late - and am excited to learn about new resources to use in the classroom and in school media centers and libraries. I am currently working at Capital Region BOCES in the School Library Services Department. As part of my job, I work with librarians and staff of the school libraries we service.

As I go through each "thing" or module of this project, I will write a blog post about my experience and what I have learned. Regarding blogging, I have played a bit with blogs in the past, but never was very good about keeping it up-to-date. I have never used one in a professional capacity but can see the many possibilities they might have, particularly in encouraging discussion among students. It also takes away some of the doldrums from writing for those who are reluctant to do so and allows students more freedom over what they write and the format in which they are writing. The linked blog posts by Paul Wagner highlight the many benefits to using blogs in the classroom; I appreciate that he also emphasizes the need for internet safety and stresses teaching students how to blog safely and productively.

I've chosen to use blogger for this blog because it has a clear, easy-to-use interface yet is still fairly customizable. Because I already have a Google account, logging in and getting started with this blog was really simple.