Final Reflection on 5391

I consider myself pretty familiar with digital technology and social media. I'm relatively young and I teach high school, so my students keep me young and familiar with growing technology trends. That being said, this course definitely opened my eyes to ALOT of applicable digital technologies that I would've never known to explore in the library and classroom had I not taken it. For me, it wasn't necessarily challenging but it was definitely eye-opening and I feel that I learned a lot that I can take back to my profession in education.

I really enjoyed creating infographics the most. This is something I've seen all around, but I've never had the opportunity to create my own. This was a very valuable skill and tool that I can utilize, and I think students respond to visuals like this really well. Furthermore, it's a fairly easy and eye-catching way to present useful information that will reach anyone who even just walks past it, and that's valuable!

I loved the idea of incorporating comics into our instruction because I think students and teachers alike would enjoy it and get a laugh out of it, which is a great way to break the ice. However, I found this one more difficult. It takes inspiration, creativity, and time to create a comic that doesn't look dated or amateur, and that's difficult overall. It's definitely something worth exploring and working on, though.

Screencasts are something that I have encountered in both my personal education and my career, but I never knew how to create one. I loved that we were given the tools to do that. It's not difficult, nor does it require any special equipment, it just takes a little preparation and time, and I loved that tool. I think this will be a huge benefit to myself as an educator and my students. Even in my current profession as a dance teacher, I'm realizing how I could utilize this for things like instruction on music cutting, music mapping, or YouTubing relevant skills.

QR codes are another useful and applicable tool that students will love. Anything that creates instant access is going to be popular in our current world. I always knew how to create QR codes, and I've used them for my students to reach surveys before, but I never thought about utilizing them to link useful resources to. I love this idea, and students will, too! Furthermore, YouTube is one of THE most popular avenues of social media that our students watch today. Creating YouTube videos and utilizing YouTube for video resources is too relevant to their lives for us to ignore. You could link QR codes to certain YouTube videos and give your students access that way. I'll definitely be taking this back to my classroom/library.

I love the idea of listening to your community, your classroom, and focusing on their need before you 'throw' a new technology in their faces just because you get carried away with the excitement, ease, or concept. As always, identifying the needs of your students should come first so that whatever you choose to utilize is relevant and meaningful to their educational needs. Technology is the most beneficial when it's used properly, at the right time, and in the right way. It's important to remember that what technology you choose shouldn't start with you, but with your classroom needs.

Overall, this was a busy, hands-on, and very applicable course. While some of these tasks were intimidating, it was valuable to jump in and create via different avenues of technology so that I can teach my students to do the same. It taught me that even if I have not tried it before, or even if I am intimidated by it, it could still be very useful and worth it in the end. I will pass this message onto my kids as they try new technology as well.

Podcasts with a purpose

Podcasts are certainly trending, and more and more often I have started listening to them myself. As a new mom, I love listening to parenting podcasts. I've also come across podcasts geared towards children- some promote good behavior, hygiene, or learning for children, too.  "A survery of 436 parents conducted by Kids Listen found that 74% of children take an action, such as initiating a conversation or researching a topic, after listening to a podcast" (Blatter, 2018). A few of my favorite podcasts are TEDtalks, Teachers Aid, and Messy Parenting. Finding a podcast that interests you is as simple as a search based on what you may be interested in. 

As a teacher, we could use podcasts to get messages out to parents or students, review books, or explain grading procedures and syllabus requirements at the beginning of the year. I personally use YouTube in a similar way to send out to my drill team booster club parents; I create videos for them to review where often I go over paperwork that I have handed out to their daughters, and then I send out the link. It would be just as simple to create a podcast and do the same for your classroom or library. The hard part is keeping it interesting and concise, because if you talk too long or monotone, people stop listening. Another challenge would be keeping it updated and often. I try to send out a YouTube to parents every 6 weeks or so, or anytime I pass out important handouts. As the year goes, it's hard to stay consistent. The easy part is that once you get going, it's really quite easy to record yourself; have the handout, book, or topic ready and in front of you so that you can stay on topic, and make sure to keep track of your time.

In exploring ways to create podcasts, I created free accounts with three different sites:

AudioBoom- 

It's quite easy to use AudioBoom to create your own podcast, but I had a hard time searching on AudioBoom for other podcasts and relevant content for me. The search features seemed limited. However, if you're looking for a way to create podcasts or help your students do the same, this site seemed easy enough!

SoundCloud- 

This is a popular one, so I was excited to explore it more. SoundCloud is kind of like YouTube, but for audio files. Some people share podcasts, some share music. For me, I felt like it was geared towards more recreation and music than educational podcasts. However, I did find some podcasts via SoundCloud and uploading your own audio files would be simple as well. It seems to have more of a "social" presence than the others, so commenting, and sharing is a bigger part of the atmosphere on this site. You may like that, you may not. For me, this seems like it could be more risky to introduce in the classroom.

Podbean-

I had already created a podcast with Podbean last year, so this is the one that I used to create a new podcast. It's very simple to use, but it seems outdated, and it's just not very pretty. The good news is that it's extremely affordable, even the upgraded version. Listen below to my review of a children's picture book entitled Don't eat the baby by Amy Young created on Podbean:

Sources:

Blatter, L. C. (2018, June 07). Tooth-Brushing Tips and Less Screen Time: The Rise of Children's Podcasts. Retrieved July 16, 2018, from https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-rise-of-childrens-podcasts-1528382827

Cartoons and Comics

Three ways to explore/create your own comics for enjoyment or education:

Toondoo

I liked Toondoo in a lot of ways, and it was my favorite of the three sites/apps that I tried in regards to comics. It seemed to have a wide variety of images and backgrounds, and I liked that the categories of objects were searchable. It was pretty easy to use, and I think students would find it usable and fun. The only issue I had was that the "waiter" character that I found was just a torso, and I wanted him to have legs, but I couldn't figure out how to make that addition, so I just ended up positioning him in a way that it didn't matter. It also took me a really long time to figure out how to save my Toondoo, but I eventually did figure out how to save it to my gallery on Toondoo. Still, I couldn't figure out how to save the image to my computer so I just screenshot it and cropped it. One of the downsides of Toondoo is that it's a bit cluttered so it can seem overwhelming; there's a learning curve with this one, which is why I couldn't do anything too complicated.

Pixton

Pixton was okay, but the free version did not have many options for fonts, characters, and saving, so you would have to upgrade to appreciate those features. I liked the guided tutorial that it opened up with as it was helpful and concise. The characters seemed to all look the same as far as size and shape goes, which students would probably dislike, and I don't see them wanting to pay for an upgraded version of it. Overall, comic making is complicated and the free version of this site was just average for me.

I created this comic and I'm sure all of us librarians can get a chuckle out of this- kids these days just want to google everything and it's part of our responsibility to teach them information literacy in a digital age of overloading information!

MakeBeliefComix.com

"BABY STEPS"

While MakeBeliefsComix.com was functional enough, it seemed very dated. One of the options was "Save to disk," and I couldn't even get that command to work, so I had to screen shot the comic to crop and save it myself. It also didn't have a very large variety of characters, etc, and it was very difficult to manipulate objects. For instance, I couldn't get the font to change size or adjust to the size of the speech bubble it was in, which was very frustrating. Overall, it did the job, but I wouldn't use it again. However, I think the overall end product/look was more of what I was imagining than any of the other sites. Students would probably not like this site because it is so dated and not really that usable.

I created this comic because I'm currently pregnant with my second child, and us moms can always get a laugh out of our new found priorities! Ha!

As a teacher-librarian...

A great way to use your own comics around other teachers would be to use them as an ice breaker when opening up staff meetings, etc, and it would be a great way to then introduce them to any sites or apps that you could teach them to use. Open up the staff meeting with a humorous comic that you created, take them to the app or site, run them through a quick tutorial, and give them some ideas of how they could use them in their classrooms or curriculum as well! Send them off with a document, hard copy or on their google drive, of notes and steps for a refresher if they need it.

Videos and QR Codes in the Library

YOUTUBE

YouTube is such a great way to get information out to students, staff, and parents, and I think the best thing that we as librarians can use YouTube for is instructional videos for basic information and simple how-tos. Examples may be navigating the library website, the OPACs, or any online library resources. Other ways to use YouTube may be promoting library events, or simply keeping the library visible in the community by showcasing day to day events involving students and staff. Below I explored some library channels and picked the videos I thought would be most enjoyable for students as well as the most helpful:

From the NHS library channel:

1) The most enjoyable for students: 

2) The most helpful for students: 

From the Unquiet Library channel:

1) The most enjoyable for students: 

2) The most helpful for students: 

From the Pikesville HS Library:

1) The most enjoyable for students: 

2) The most helpful for students: 

From BBMS media channel:

1) The most enjoyable for students: 

2) The most helpful for students: 

ANIMOTO

I created a free account on Animoto and applied for the Educator upgrade, which allowed for longer videos. I love that we as librarians can easily use Animoto to create book trailers to promote reading, both for leisure and for school, to our students, staff, and parents.

"About three things I was absolutely positive.

First, Edward was a vampire.

Second, there was a part of him—and I didn't know how dominant that part might be—that thirsted for my blood.

And third, I was unconditionally and irrevocably in love with him."
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/41865.Twilight) 


Below is a book trailer I made with Animoto for the first book in the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer.


I also created a QR code that can be used to access my book trailer. QR codes are be a fun, easy, and interactive way to "spread" these book trailers throughout the school; create a trailer and corresponding QR code, and make promotional posters for the library and surrounding hallways that include the QR code and a quick synopsis for intrigue. Check it out:

Instagram, Flipagram, and Screencast-O-Matic

Instagram 
I love Instagram, and I use it both personally and professionally. Below is a post from April when we were promoting our Spring Show, and it's a great way to reach a lot of people with a fun visual promoting an event. You could use Instagram in the same way to promote any event going on in your school, your library, or your community!

Flipagram/Vigo Video
I had never used Flipagram before, so I created one by downloading the free app to my iPhone. I decided to make a slideshow of one of our most recent events, Officer Camp, which is where I took a our leaders from our drill team to camp for 4 days. I enjoyed how easily I could create a fun, animated slideshow of moving pictures. I had a hard time moving the slides from place to place to switch up the order of the slideshow, so I need to figure out my user error there. It was also extremely slow for me, I only uploaded about 10 pictures to create my slideshow with, and it took forever for it to "prepare" the data and create the slideshow. I'm not sure if it was slow because of my memory space, or the app itself, but I had great service at the time and it was pretty frustrating to have to wait so long for it to create the product.

Then, I realized that the Flipagram I had downloaded was not a public/social media platform. I continued to look in the app store and I had a hard time deciphering which app was the correct one, as it seems Flipagram and Vigo Video are one in the same (?). I tried Flipagram (with the movie reel and coffee cup icon), and it didn't seem to be conducive to public social media, so then I downloaded Vigo Video. 

I easily created an account through Google for Vigo Video. I actually used the video I created in Flipagram to upload to my Vigo Video: Officer Camp 2018

Here is my profile, feel free to follow me @taliaalyssa11

To be honest, this was my least favorite of the three and I couldn't really even imagine how I would use this in an educational way. Even adding hashtags was difficult, as it seemed to only allow me to add one at a time? This was just a confusing platform for me all around. I don't really see myself using it.

Screencast-O-Matic
I am familiar with Screencast but I had never used it myself, and it's definitely something that takes practice! My presentation was a little choppy and rusty, and if I were to use it to actually present something real, I would need some practice. It was easy to create an account, watch the tutorial, and start recording. Here was my attempt at introducing Prezi using a screencast:

Overall Recommendation
I think it's super important to be familiar with Screencasts for educational and teaching purposes, but overall I feel that Instagram is the best choice for many reasons. It's extremely user-friendly, popular, and easy to upload both pictures and videos to. The kids use it constantly so it's the most visible for them. Depending on what you need, though, Screencast-O-Matic or Instagram may be your best option. I am not a fan of flipagram and I still can't really understand what it's useful for. It seems dated and unpopular as well.

Infographics, and tools to create them

I love the idea of presenting information in infographic form, and I know our students do, too. As someone who is very visual, looking at information presented in graphic form is both comprehensive, informative, and appealing. I've been playing around with three different sites that offer templates and tutorials of how to make impressive and interactive infographics. I'll give you my thoughts on Easel.ly, Piktochart, Infogr.am:

Easel.ly is a simple way for students and educators to create infographics. There is both a free version and an unpgraded version that costs only $3.00/month, so if you are thinking of using something worth subscribing too, this is extremely affordable. With the paid version, there are dozens of templates, and countless fonts and images. Still, the free version provides a range of free images and fonts to utilize as you create an infographic. In the end, I really like Easel.ly and am considering paying $3.00 a month for it. I love the sample templates it had; they seemed colorful, unique, and fun, and they stood out compared to the other two sites' sample templates. Easel.ly is also available in many different languages which, as an educator, is a highly notable quality. 

I moved on to Piktochart, and I loved that it immediately opened with a YouTube preview of how to use it. It was pretty easy and self explanatory, but I did wish the “Free” options were most vast, as the graphics and backgrounds seemed to be a little boring. The subscription for Piktochart is more expensive, at $12.50/month for the Lite version, or $24.17/month for the Pro version. It seemed that the free version did not offer NEAR as many option for images, templates, and fonts as the paid version. I did end up using Piktochart to create the below infographics. Because the instructional YouTube video immediately popped up, it pulled me in and I started creating an infographic right away.

I thought I was going to like Infogr.am right way, as from the beginning it seemed the most self explanatory, but as I started to try to create an infographic, I got very frustrated very quickly, even just trying to change the font size was proving to be difficult. I'm not sure what I was doing wrong but it just intimated me and frustrated me. There are both free and paid versions as well, with the costs started at $19.00/month and moving up from there. I did like how their website was set up; it's very comprehensive, professional, and obviously well-established. Infogr.am also has specific templates to suit specific social media sites, which I found really interesting and beneficial.

In the end, I would like to try them all eventually. I went with Piktochart this time because the tutorial pulled me in and encouraged me to start creating. Below is the infographic I created, which took me about 35 minutes to complete.

For a closer look at my infographic, Click Here.