Thing 16: Mapping & Geolocation

I worked on this "thing" about three separate times, so this time I'm going to finally wrap it up and  write down my thoughts. I played with a lot of the listed tools for fun, but haven't gotten to into the curricular aspects of them. I can see how they would be a really interesting way to delve deeper into a topic, learn more about the background information of a book's setting for an English class, or as a good way to tie English and Social Studies together.

In particular, I liked What Was There. It was a lot of fun to see the old photos, see what modern cities looked like years ago (I especially like the more recent past, as so much has changed in the past few decades). I also loved the collaborative Google map. That might be a fun back to school activity to replace the old, "What did you do over summer vacation?" Even if you didn't leave home, you could still place a marker and post a little description of where/what you did.

Thing 15: Digital Tattoo & Digital Citizenship

This was an interesting Thing. I don't deal directly with students, generally, so I am not employing Digital Citizenship lessons, but some issues I'd been wondering about personally were addressed.

 

One thing that has sat uncomfortable with me in the past several years is employers (and schools, it would seem) use of social media as a means of vetting or investigating potential employees. Yes, it is foolish to put anything terribly objectionable or offensive online; you should always be careful about what you put online. But more in the interest of being a good "digital citizen" than because you're afraid you won't get a job. This article addresses many of my concerns and I agree with its author that rather than strictly warning students to beware what they post online, we should be letting employers and schools know that this is an invasion of privacy and we are not ok with it. What is personal should remain so, but I'm firmly in favor of separating personal and business.

 

On a different note, the Digital Leadership Continuum chart by George Couros is a valuable piece of self-reflection for educators and administrators, with an emphasis on the latter. I think it's doing students a disservice to block all social media and not inform them of how to use such sites wisely, kindly, thoughtfully.

 

Lastly, I'd like to mention that I really appreciated the link to the article from Computer World about how to remove your personal information from data mining sites. When I do a Google search on myself, not much comes up at all. I have my Facebook profile fairly locked down and the fact that I use a nickname sometimes and my full name sometimes, helps, too. (And I wonder if the fact that my last name doesn't sound like it looks, to English-speakers, anyway, helps?) I plan to use the provided opt-out forms from the above linked article to remove the bits of information I did find on myself using the pipl search that was also listed in the Thing 15 resources.

Thing 14: App-palooza!

I have an Android phone that I use for pretty much everything, so that's what I used for this "Thing." I really liked Shannon McClintock Miller's idea of the "Library in Your Pocket" and created an "SLS" folder on my phone for work/library-related apps so they'd all be in one place. Included in my "pocket" are the following apps: OverDrive, Follett Destiny, Nook, QR Code Reader, YALSA's Teen Book Finder, Wonderopolis, EasyBib, Oxford Dictionary of English, Questia, and Office Mobile. Some of these were apps I already had on my phone, but others I downloaded specifically after reading through Thing 14.

In my position at Capital Region BOCES, I sometimes travel to schools to help librarians and their staff with various library-related problems. The OverDrive app is really nice because you can add more than one library to it and store your log-ins. For example, I have a BOCES OverDrive account and an Upper Hudson Library System OverDrive account. It's nice and streamlined to be able to just access one app for either library catalog. The Follett Destiny app is good to have for teachers and other library staff members for those times when they might not have or want to do traditional checkout at a circulation desk (library on a cart, teaching from the computer lab, etc.)

Prior to reading through this Thing, I didn't realize there were so many free reference books available through the Google Play Store, probably because I primarily use my phone for personal business. Through the "reference" search in the Play Store, I found Oxford Dictionary and many other free and useful apps, though I did not download them all -- topics including MS Office product tutorials, coding apps, and math guides. If I was still a student, this would be really a great resource for homework and research help. Many of the reference guide apps were free.

Thing 13: School Library Web Presence

Forgive me for going really easy on myself for this "thing;" my job involves using several of the tools on a fairly regular basis, and one of the examples, the Capital Region SLS LibGuide, is a site I helped create. I also regularly contribute to our eNewsletter, have helped edit/modify the BOCES SLS website using Microsoft Expression, and we as a department have just recently purchased a subscription to Smore, which I focused on for this exercise.

 

We are hoping to boost usage of our Instructional Media (IM) resources, and one way we're trying to achieve this is through "advertising" through Smore flyers. The sample I made is pretty basic, but it's still a work-in-progress. One of the teaching tools we have in our IM collection are literature boxes; these sets compile classroom sets of a single title, a collection of various works by an author, or a collection of titles united by a common theme. One of the most recently gathered literature boxes focuses on contemporary realistic YA fiction that focuses on various "difficult discussions," so I created a Smore for this box. While all of this information will be available through SNAP, and  teachers will still have to request materials through SNAP, this is a more user-friendly, visually appealing format than the very basic and somewhat austere format of SNAP. Though my sample flyer is not graphics-heavy, one of the nice things about Smore is the ability to add images, link out to other websites, include biographical information, and embed music and videos. There are a variety of typefaces, styles, and background images to choose from, and you can upload a custom background, too.

 

Smore does have limitations in the formatting of the text boxes, which is somewhat frustrating. It has a pretty low character limit for titles and subtitles, and the sizing and alignment of text cannot be changed, nor can text color. Still, it has a reasonable subscription cost for educators and is hopefully going to be a useful tool for us.

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).