Reflections

My experiences in this course have introduced me to several new technologies that I am excited to put to use as an educator and to share with others.  It was exciting to practice with so many apps and programs that can be incorporated into the classroom with students because our students are living a life immersed in technology,  Anytime that I am able to bring an activity to students that is driven by technology, most of them truly seem to enjoy the learning process more than if I resort to the lecture and notes method.

I have been a Facebook user for a long time, so I have some experience with it and how it can be used in education.  Our district tends to use it more for making announcements and passing along information to parents since that is the age group who predominately used Facebook.  I had a blast, though, playing with my new Instagram and Vine accounts.  I have already worked with an English teacher on incorporating Vine into her upcoming unit, and I am very excited to see how it will work.  I know that the students will enjoy the activity.  I haven't played with Twitter quite as much, but I know what an awesome resource it can be, and I plan to become more familiar and comfortable with it.

I am also putting infographics to use in my current position.  I send out a tip for the district each Tuesday, and I have been using the infographic sites to create these documents to email out.  

Screencasts and QR Codes were elements that I already had some experience with.  I recently created a QR Code for our counselors' office that hangs in every teacher's classroom for students to scan and sign up to see their counselor.  This is helping us decrease traffic in the hallways during classes.  I have used Screencast-o-matic several times, but I enjoyed learning about Jing, and have opted to keep it on my laptop to use in the future.

I shared some of the sites for creating comics just last week with a teacher who was wanting her students to create comics to go along with their unit.  She was commenting about how so many of them were nervous about drawing, and I was excited to share these resources with her.  I have an upcoming project in mind myself that I plan to have students use the comic makers for.

The only assignment that I ran into trouble with was the podcasting assignment, only because I couldn't get my account created due to some strange glitch that was happening in one of the programs.

I definitely found this course to be a super resource for my future, and I enjoyed so many of the activities that we did.  I have put several of them to real-life use, and find myself sharing these ideas with others on a regular basis.  I am even considering creating a personal blog, because I have found that I enjoy this process.

As for the students, I truly feel that they can benefit from all of these technologies if they are thoughtfully planned for and incorporated into the right classes.  I love the idea of having students show their understanding of a concept in a 6 second vine.  I also think that exploring and introducing podcasts to the classroom would be beneficial.  Ultimately, I think that each of these technologies could enhance a lesson in a way that would make it enjoyable and valid for our students.

Media (is) the Message

In looking at the media debate between Richard Clark and Robert Cozmo, it is important to take a few things into consideration.  First is the time period in which this debate spans.  Clarks first article which argued that “media are mere vehicles that deliver instruction but do not influence student achievement any more than the truck that delivers our groceries causes changes in our nutrition” was written in 1983, the year I was born.  Kozma’s articles rebutting this argument were written in the early 90s.  We, as lovers of technology, know how quickly it changes and develops. One thing is true; technology has changed tremendously since the year I was born, a time when cassette tapes were current, and many people still owned record players.  Also, as educators, we know that one size never fits all.  For these reasons, I agree with Kozma’s outlook on how media impacts learning.

Kozma argues that “learning is an active, constructive, cognitive, and social process,” rather than “a passive response to instructions ‘delivery’.”  Therefore choosing the best medium to present information to particular students an absolutely influence learning.  Our students come to us with individual abilities and challenges.  To assume to presenting information the same way to each child would be effective is simply incorrect.  Clark suggests that several options for information delivery will yield the same outcome so “we must always choose the less expensive way to achieve a learning goal”.  Again, I feel like this argument is made assuming that everyone learns the same way, which is not a fact.  This is why we teach and reteach concepts in the classroom.  Some students may be fine learning by reading from a book, but others are successful hearing information, and from my experience, most of them learn best with hands on experience.  That is what modern technology introduces.  We have resources which allow students to discover information on their own, analyze it and present it in a way that makes sense to them.  As teachers, it is our responsibility to find many mediums to help all students discover and understand content.

   

Resources:

Clark, R. E. (1994). Media Will Never Influence Learning. Educational Technology, Research and Development, 42(2), 21.

Kozma, Robert B. (1994), The Influence of Media on Learning: The Debate Continues, School Library Media Research, Volume 22, Number 4, Summer 1994.

Podcasts in Education

This week I took a look at podcasting as a teaching tool. Podcasts can be useful in a variety of ways.  As a librarian, I might create podcasts to share with my students about the latest titles that I have read as well as short pieces to help students navigate the research process.  It would also be neat to have students record their own book review podcasts to upload to the library station.  As a teacher, I like the idea of exploring some good educational Podcast stations to have students listen to.  After looking at GrammarGirl's podcasts, I thought this would be a fun way to change up bell work from time to time.  I'm sure my students wouldn't mind hearing a voice other than mine going over content for the day!  

I think that in order to be successful at getting students to listen to a podcast station, it would probably have to be done in large group settings.  I don't think that most students are going to seek out and listen to these things on their own time.  I do think, however, that teachers would benefit from a good podcasts for professional development purposes, so a librarian might create some of these to share information with the faculty.  Maybe it would be neat for principal's to address the staff this way in between faculty meetings instead of the classic bulleted email.

I explored three websites for creating and hosting podcasts: SoundCloud, Audioboo, and Podomatic.  I chose to use SoundCloud to create my podcast.  I liked that the homepage of the site listed suggestions for podcasts to follow, and it was easy to create an account and jump right in to recording or uploading a recording.  The site allows you to embed your podcasts to share elsewhere.  Audioboo required you to submit details about your podcast before being set up to get started, so I didn't get very far with it because I had already discovered how simple SoundCloud was, and didn't feel it necessary to take those extra steps.  It did offer a wide variety of podcasts to listen to right away, though.  Unfortunately, my exploration of Podomatic was cut short because as I tried to create the account, I continually got an error message that said "Captcha failed".  I tried several times, but never could get the account created.

I don't know if this was just a me thing, or if the site was having some issues, but it blocked my ability to check it out any further.

I created a podcast titled "5 Apps to Amp Up Projects".  This is a podcast that I plan to really share with the students and teachers at my school.  Here it is:

Creating Comics

Exploring websites for creating comics this week was a lot of fun!  I haven't ever created comics to enhance a lesson before, but I can see where it would be a fun addition to a lesson for a teacher, and also a good assignment to give to students to encourage them to explain a concept in a fun way using technology.  Below are the comics that I created using Toondoo.com, Pixton.com, and makebeliefscomix.com followed by my thoughts on each sight.

Toondoo



Toondoo requires users to create a free account to gain access to lots of options for clipart, backgrounds and text options.  My initial reaction to the homepage was that it was very busy, and a little confusing, but once I got signed up and figured out where to get started, the program was pretty simple to work through.  There were lots of options for elements to add to the cartoon, and there is a search bar available so that a user can type in a term and have all of the clipart related to that term pop up.  The process is to simply click and drag the items that you want into the windows that you want, and a toolbar across the bottom of the page offers tools to resize and manipulate each item to your liking.  I liked that there were lots of options for type besides just the thought bubbles.  It was simple to access and embed code to share my comic.

Pixton

By ambermstowers | View this Toon at ToonDoo | Create your own Toon

Pixton required me to set up a free account, but as I began exploring the many templates available I discovered that the free account limits users to the creation of three comics.  There is an option for a free trial period, and after that you must pay to upgrade.  A teacher account provides you with the ability to give students a code to also use Pixton.  One issue that I came across, however, was that initially I was using my ipad which required me to download the app.  The app was not opening things correctly for me to edit, and upon further investigation, I found that there were many negative reviews in the app store.  This would be an issue for schools like mine where we are 1:1 with ipads.  I liked, very much that Pixton offers a large library of templates that can be changed and manipulated.  Templates are categorized by school subject.  I think this would serve students well with assignments that need to be done quickly because they wouldn't need to start off with a blank page.  It was simple to go in and make changes and additions to the templates.  Pixton also gives the option to start from scratch if desired.

Make Beliefs Comix

Make Beliefs Comix is a website for creating comix that does not require the setup of an account.  It is simple to choose a blank template and browse through a library of characters with multiple moods, objects, and text bubbles to add.  I liked that all of the tools in the editor were clearly labeled and very easy to use.  I found myself wishing that their were more options for adding text to my comic outside of thought bubbles, but I made it work.  Since you don't sign up for an account in this program, your options are to save your comic as a png to insert into your work, or email it.  I really liked using this website, and found it very user friendly with a fair amount of options.

I plan to use each of the comics that I created with students in our district as I present to them about Digital Citizenship.  My favorite program to use was Make Beliefs Comix because it was so simple, but someone seeking a more detailed comic might want to try one of the other options.  I think that the fact that this website doesn't require an account is good for using with students.  They can simply create and then save their work to their Google Drive or school drive.  I think that in the library, it would be fun to create some of these to demonstrate expectations and procedures.  It might also be good to create some for topics like plagiarism and research.  It would be fun to have students create storyboard comics for the latest book that they have read, and display them for others to see.  I can see a lot of potential for using comics to amp up lessons for students in an enjoyable way.

Here is the Telegami that I created:

Videos and QR Codes in the Library

For this assignment, I had the opportunity to look at some YouTube channels created by librarians, create a book trailer, and play with QR codes. It was interesting to watch the YouTube videos and think about what was useful, and what would be appealing to students in order to come up with my own ideas of what I might do for  my yay own library.  Here are a few video highlights:

The NHS Library: This channel had a mixture of informational videos to guide students through using some of the computer resources in the library as well as a couple of promotional videos.  I thought that the video “Getting Started with the NHS Library Website” would be particularly useful to students because it is very short, but reviews students about the basics of using the website. While many schools do a library orientation at the beginning of the year, we all know that students may forget some of the information so this video would be handy as a quick guide.

I think students would like the video “Tiger Visits the Norman High School Library” because it is a fun little video of the school mascot and his experiences in the library meant to encourage students to visit.


2. The Unquiet Library: This librarian clearly works closely with some of the teachers on her campus because many of the videos on this channel address tasks that students are completing in a particular class. There are several videos on how to search for Creative Commons images such as “Video tutorial: Finding CC Images Using Compfight”.  I think that these videos would be very helpful to students because so many of them are used to copying and pasting any image that they want, and do not realize the copyright issues that go along with this.


A video that I think students would enjoy would be “Scenes from the Unquiet Library August 2012”.  This is a compilation of images of students doing various things in the library set to music.  I think students would enjoy looking for themselves and others in this video.


3. Pikesville HS Library:  This channel is quite different from the previous two in that it has more fun, student centered videos than instructional videos.  One instructional video that would be useful to students is “2013-2014 Registration Process” where the campus counselors go over the forms and requirements for registering for classes.  


A video that I think students would enjoy is “Senior Party in the Library”. This is a fun video of seniors having a good time in the library, and I think that students would find it entertaining.


4. BBMS Media: This channel is made up of a combination of student work as well as a variety of instructional videos.  One instructional video that I think students would find useful is “NHD Annotation Writing”.  The teacher created a detailed video of expectations for an annotated works cited page that students were to complete for an assignment.  I really like that the student videos are educational.  It looks as though students were instructed to show some sort of science experiment with explanations in a video.


One that I think students would like was “Caroline Director’s Video 10/14/16.  The student shows an experiment with dying roses, and the video is well made and interesting.


I would definitely use videos in the library to share book trailers that I find on books that we have in the collection.  I would also visit classes when it is okay with teachers to share some of these videos.  I know that our librarian does this occasionally, and the books that she features are checked out very quickly.  I also like the idea of sharing videos of things that go on in the library to promote it, and to inspire students to create videos that I could share.

My Book Trailer

I created a book trailer using the free program, Animoto.  I found it to be a very simple task to work through this free program.  My book trailer features JoJo Moyes's, After You. 

The program allowed me to choose from a library of themes and music to start.  Then, I did a creative commons search for images to include in the trailer.  Once the images are loaded, it is simple to drag them into the order that you want them to appear, and add text with the images.

Here is a synopsis of the book taken from amazon.com:

How do you move on after losing the person you loved? How do you build a life worth living?
 
Louisa Clark is no longer just an ordinary girl living an ordinary life. After the transformative six months spent with Will Traynor, she is struggling without him. When an extraordinary accident forces Lou to return home to her family, she can’t help but feel she’s right back where she started.
 
Her body heals, but Lou herself knows that she needs to be kick-started back to life. Which is how she ends up in a church basement with the members of the Moving On support group, who share insights, laughter, frustrations, and terrible cookies. They will also lead her to the strong, capable Sam Fielding—the paramedic, whose business is life and death, and the one man who might be able to understand her. Then a figure from Will’s past appears and hijacks all her plans, propelling her into a very different future. . . .
 
For Lou Clark, life after Will Traynor means learning to fall in love again, with all the risks that brings. But here Jojo Moyes gives us two families, as real as our own, whose joys and sorrows will touch you deeply, and where both changes and surprises await.

Scan this QR Code to view my book trailer:

I really love using QR Codes with my students.  As an English teacher, I had my student scan a QR Code daily when they entered my classroom to access their bell work.  They would be useful in the library in a variety of ways. I would link a Google Form to a QR Code at the entrance of the library and have students sign in and out this way.  Google Forms includes a time stamp when someone fills it out, so it would be a nice way to keep good records of who was in the library and what time they arrived and left.  Our students participate in a QR Code Scavenger Hunt at their library orientation at the beginning of the year where they scan the codes throughout the library to learn things about the resources available.  Eduscapes.com suggested assessing what students need to know when they come into the library and posting QR Codes linking students to instructions for those things like working the copying machine.  The Daring Librarian suggests ten ways to incorporate QR Codes into the library on Back to School Night.  She posts QR Codes that link parents and students to her YouTube channel, contact information, videos and photos from the library, and useful information on the school website.  QR codes are very useful in a library, and it is fun for the students to scan them to discover what they are linked to.

Resources:

https://www.amazon.com/After-You-Novel-Jojo-Moyes/dp/0143108867

http://eduscapes.com/sessions/qrcodes/

http://www.thedaringlibrarian.com/2014/08/10-things-to-do-with-qr-codes-on-backto.html

Instagram, Vine and Screencasting

Technology is life… at least to most of today’s students it is.  They have grown up knowing technology as a staple in their day for as long as they can remember.  This is why it is so important that we incorporate technology into education often in order to meet the students where they are and provide content in a way that they know and enjoy.  Many students use or at least check their social media accounts regularly when they have a device in hand.  Instagram and Vine are two forms of social media that are incredibly popular among young people.  I am old, so I had yet to check these out, but after playing with these accounts, I might even like them better than trusty ole Facebook!  I also explored a couple of screencasting programs that prove beneficial in the classroom or library.

After going through the Prezi “Using Instagram in the Classroom”, I realized that their are many ways to use Instagram in the classroom. Whether it be to share an image to serve as a writing prompt or art project, or giving sneak peaks to encourage yearbook sales, Instagram has many possibilities.  A librarian create a page to post covers of new books that are in the library, or give book reviews for students.  I found the appearance of Instagram to be very simple and clean which is probably one reason that it is appealing to young people.  It is very easy to take pictures to share, apply filters to give an artistic effect to your photos, and follow friends, famous people, or companies to see what they are sharing.  There is an option to “like” and comment on photos that people post, but my experience with the accounts that I started following showed that there really isn’t as much conversation going on through Instagram as happens on Facebook.  People seemed to add a simple caption with their photos, and their may be a few comments, but overall, the threads didn’t tend to be as long.  Now, let me apologize ahead of time for the fact that my Instagram and Vine material is quite limited because I am currently home on maternity leave caring for my newborn baby and twin 19 month olds.  They dominate my day, so they are my models for this assignment!  Here are my Instagram posts:

A beautiful mess!

A photo posted by Amber Fuchs Stowers (@amber.stowers) on Oct 23, 2016 at 7:27pm PDT

Coming live and in person October 31 in search of treats!

A photo posted by Amber Fuchs Stowers (@amber.stowers) on Oct 22, 2016 at 10:44am PDT

Next year we will be pulling a wagon to the fair! I love carrying on family traditions with my babies.

A photo posted by Amber Fuchs Stowers (@amber.stowers) on Oct 21, 2016 at 12:47pm PDT

Reading with the big dog!

A photo posted by Amber Fuchs Stowers (@amber.stowers) on Oct 20, 2016 at 9:02am PDT

There is one word that I think perfectly describes Vine: fun!  When my cousins started talking about Vine a couple of years ago, I thought it was silly, and couldn’t figure out  why anyone would want to do a six second video.  After playing with my own account, I began to be overwhelmed with ideas for how Vine could be incorporated in the classroom. What if, as a review activity, groups were assigned a scene from a play they were studying to create a Vine including the key parts of that scene?  I can just hear the laughter while learning, which I love!  Students could be assigned a vocabulary word to act out the definition for in a Vine.  I can’t wait to share ideas with the teachers on my campus and see Vine in action as a learning tool.  I found the app very simple to manipulate. After selecting the icon that looks like a camera, you simply hold your finger down to record and let off to stop. This makes it easy to string multiple scenes into one six second video.  It is simple to search for people or companies to follow.  Here are my Vines:

Screencast-O-Matic is a simple program for creating videos that show what you are doing on your computer screen.  You can sign up for a free account, or pay $15 a year for a “Pro” account.  With a free account, you can create 15 minute videos of the screen or using a webcam and publish them to Youtube, Screencast-O-matic, or save as a video file.  With a “Pro” account, you can create longer videos, and there are options for video editing as well as more options for publishing.  When you launch the program, it is easy to navigate.  You simply click “record”, and the program gives you a brief countdown to start.  Then you just go through the motions of what you want to record and talk through what you are doing.  There is a running timer at the bottom of the screen so that you know how much time you have used.  Click the pause button if you need to take a break.  Selecting the pause button also gives you the option to choose “done” which will then give you the options for uploading your video.  The only frustrating thing that I have run into with Screencast-O-matic in the free version is the fact that you cannot edit the video.  I have messed up before trying to do a tutorial video, and have had to restart several times.  Believe me, when you are doing this late at night, starting over doesn’t always help matters!  Overall, I like Screencast-O-matic, and am considering upgrading to a Pro account so that I can save my videos to my Google Drive.  Here is my screencast about using Symbaloo:

The other screencasting program that I tried was Jing.  It was user friendly, but the free subscription only allowed me to create a five minute video, so I had to do it twice to fit everything in.  When you download the program and create an account, as yellow sun icon appears at the top of your screen.  If you hover over the sun, you get the options to “capture” or look at your history.  A capture will give you options for one of two things.  You can either take a screenshot of your screen to share by clicking and dragging over what you would like to capture, or you can do a short video of what you are doing on the screen.  Videos are uploaded to your Screencast.com account.  Here is my screencast about how to create a ThinkLink:

http://screencast.com/t/huz1rrBza

Ultimately, I like Screencast-O-matic better than Jing because it allows for longer videos to be created with the free account, and multiple ways to save the videos that you make.

Resources:

https://prezi.com/fvbrbbznr7ee/using-instagram-in-the-classroom/

Review: Infographic Creators

Infographics are educational tools that allow for the presentation of a lot of information in a simple and visual way.  They are great tools for differentiating in the classroom, and students need practice interpreting and analyzing information presented through infographics, not only to help them be successful on state mandated standardized tests, but also to be successful in this highly visual world.  They are also, simply, much more fun to look at and study for information that the block of text that we have resorted to historically!

I played with three websites for creating infographics, and while all three were pretty user friendly, they were each a little different in terms of options and features that they offered.  Easel.ly allows a user 60 free images per month to choose from with 10 font options for free.  A person can upgrade to a Pro Account for $3.00 a month which upgrades the offerings to 680,000 free images and 50 fonts, plus more options for personalization. The templates are easy to change and adjust to meet the user’s needs.  One feature that Easel.ly did not offer that the other two websites had was the map creator.  The website did allow you to save your infographic as a PDF in the free version, and it was simple to get a shareable link for the image to be accessed through the web.  The editor was very simple to use.  It was simple to edit text by double clicking on text that was already on the template, or add and change the font, size and color of new text.  Moving items around was as simple as clicking and dragging.  Images were easy to upload, and there was also a good collection of images and clipart available through the site.  I like this option to share with students who need to create an infographic due to the large number of templates available for free.

Piktochart was unique in that it offered editors for creating not only infographics, but also slide presentations, posters, and reports.  With a free account, the user had 10 templates to choose from, or the option to create from scratch.  Two upgrades are available.  A Lite account is $15 per month and gets the user 600 templates and access to all icons.  A Pro version costs $29 per month and also allows for 600 templates, all icons, and several other design options.  There are also special price packages available for education and non-profit companies.  Piktochart has a large library of icons, photos and frames available.  It also boasts options for creating very detailed charts and maps.  A user can also link videos to their infographic.  With this programs, a user can only save work as a PDF with a paid account.  The editor could be navigated fairly easily, but it wasn’t quite as simple as that of Easel.ly.

Infogr.am seemed to be targeting users who are interested in using lots of graphs and charts.  A free account allows users access to 11 themes with an option to have infogr.am designers do custom themes.  “Themes” seemed to simply be new color palettes rather than detailed layouts that include pictures and graphics.  The option of a Pro account is available for $19 per month which give the user access to more themes, larger library space, more icons and download options.  There is also special pricing available for businesses and enterprises with even more options.  The editor gave many options for creating graphs and charts, but there wasn’t a library of clipart and photos.  A user would have to rely on their own uploads for these options.  

Overall, I liked Easel.ly and Piktochart the best out of the three.  I chose to create my infographic about Digital Citizenship because I will be doing a unit with students in my district focusing on this, and thought it might be useful. If I needed to create an infographic that called for graphs and charts, I would probably create it using Piktochart because the options for these items are more detailed.  I am excited to share these tools with the teachers in my district for incorporation into their classrooms, and hopefully get some of our students creating their own infographics!

Resources:

https://www.easel.ly

https://infogr.am

https://magic.piktochart.com

https://pixabay.com

@coolcatteacher, V. D. (2014, October 24). What Your Students Really Need to Know About

Digital Citizenship. Retrieved October 13, 2016, from http://www.edutopia.org/blog/digital-citizenship-need-to-know-vicki-davis

Neil Tippett, PhD|Fran Thompson, PhD|Peter K Smith, PhD. (2014, April 23). Research on

Cyberbullying: Key findings and practical suggestions. Retrieved October 13, 2016, from
http://www.education.com/reference/article/cyberbullying-research/

Inoreader and Blogs to Follow

   As I read the reviews about Feed Readers, I was a bit overwhelmed with the many options and features that each website had to offer.  In order to make a decision about which Feed Reader to subscribe to, I had to really think about what my personal needs and wants were in using a program of this sort.  As I have started a new position as an Instructional Technology Specialist in my school district, I find myself coming across websites, blogs, and articles that I would like to read, but I may not have time right at that moment.  For this reason, I chose Inoreader for my Feed Reader.  Inoreader  allowed users to archive content for long periods of time.  This is appeleaing to me, because it give me a place to keep the things that I would like to revisit for future projects and ideas.
   I like that Feed Reader has a simple, clean interface that displays blog posts and websites visually with a picture and title.  This makes it easy to quickly scroll through the content and choose what you would like to read.  As I browsed and added blogs to my feed, they appeared in a list to the left, so if I want to take a look at content from that blog only, I can simply choose it in the list.  There is also and option to save webpages in the same program, and I added websites that I visit frequently, or would like to come back to.  Inoreader offers options for organizing feeds and articles that also made it appealing to me.  Users can create folders for organizing feeds, and tag specific articles to group them.  Inoreader is free to use if you don't mind the ads.  If ads are a problem, you can pay $14.99 for a subscription that provides reading without ads.  Overall, I think that Inoreader is a user friendly way to organize and access content in one spot.
   Here are a few blogs that I added to my Inoreader and Tumblr accounts to follow:

1.  edtech VISION
http://edtechvision.org/

This blog is devoted to using technology in education.  Not only does it include blog posts about ideas for incorporating technology with students, but it also offers menus of resources for open source tools and content, workshops and presentations offered by the blogger and useful links.  This blogger is a Google Certified Teacher with blog posts archived as far back as July of 2007.  I followed this blog because I am passionate about meeting students where they are comfortable by incorporating new and innovative technologies into lessons, and this blog offers ideas for doing this.

2. The Unquiet Librarian
https://theunquietlibrarian.wordpress.com/

This blog is unique in that the blogger is not only a librarian, but a current writing teacher as well. This provides interesting perspective because this librarian is not removed from the classroom.  She blogs about current projects that she is doing with her students as well as ideas that she incorporates in her library.  The posts are archived as far back as 2007.  There are also menus and links for a lot of other useful content.  There are two dropdown menus for searching posts: Categories and Archives. This makes it simple to go to a particular year or topic of particular posts.  Included on the blog is a sidebar from Goodreads of featured books.  The blogger also includes a list of links to blogs that she finds useful herself.  I followed this blog because I find the perspective of a librarian who is still in the classroom particularly applicable because as a librarian it is important to be able to help teachers as much as possible.

3. Mighty Little Librarian
http://www.mightylittlelibrarian.com/

This blog offers posts about a wide variety of library related topics with some fresh and trendy ideas. My attention was initially caught by the most recent post, an advertisement for a free webinar.  Upon closer reading, I found that this webinar is offered with various content each month.  The blogger has also recently posted about new apps that she has recently presented on, the design of her circulation desk, and content based shelving.  I followed this blog because I am intrigued by the wide variety of content offerings and ideas provided by the blogger.


4.  YA Book Reviews and More
http://naomibates.blogspot.com/

With a visit to this blog, the reader is immediately greeted with links to many useful resources for teachers, librarians and students.  The blogger provides many links to Creative Commons resources available, tools for presentations, technology tools as well as a library of slide presentations that she has created over a wide variety of topics that are available for download.  I found the first post particularly intriguing as an aspiring librarian because it is not just a typical book review.  The blogger went with a seasonal approach and reviewed thriller novels for the Halloween season.  Not only did she include pictures of the book covers with a brief summary of the book, but she also included a link to the book trailer and movie pairing, if available.  This makes these review particularly appealing to students, because they enjoy watching the trailers and movies.  This blog is richly devoted to book reviews, but also provides useful posts of resources for readers.  I followed this blog to have access to all of the resources and book reviews.

5.  Lake Forest High School Library
http://lfhslibrary.tumblr.com/

The Lake Forest High School librarian uses this Tumblr account as a way to promote the library and share a variety of information with it's patrons.  There are posts of simple pictures and Memes that are fun and inviting, feature posts such as highlights of teachers on campus and their favorite books, a top ten list of books read on the campus, and images showcasing book displays and things going on in the library.  The Tumblr is also linked to the library's Twitter account, so the librarian's Tweets show up in a sidebar on the page.  I followed this blog because there are a lot of good ideas that I might like to use as a librarian, and I like it as a model of kinds of things to post in a blog.

Here is a link to my new Tumblr: http://ambermstowers.tumblr.com/



Resource:
V. C. (2015, September 22). The 10 Best Feed Reader Apps for RSS, News, and More. Retrieved              October 9, 2016, from https://zapier.com/blog/best-rss-feed-reader-apps/

 

  Facebook vs. Twitter in the Library

Social media sites are great tools for librarians to utilize to promote what is happening in the library, connect with students in a forum that they enjoy, and use as constant professional development tools.  Facebook and Twitter are both networks that can be useful for a librarian for different reasons.

    In perusing Facebook pages for school libraries, I found that they are used primarily to share information about what is going on in the library.  The pages seemed to be public relations tools.  Librarians shared pictures of their student workers, special programs, announcements and so on.  They posted questions hoping for responses from students on ways to improve the library.  They pages shared information such as hours of operation, and the address and phone number for the library.  I did see a few posts that gave me ideas that I might like to try such as a school library that opened periodically throughout the summer for their students, but mainly, it seemed that librarians use Facebook for positive promotion of their libraries, which is important and necessary.

    As I navigated Twitter, I found that there was more diversity in the kinds of information shared by librarians and school technologists.  While there was some positive promotion of the things going on in libraries, this was usually mixed in with re-tweets that I found to be good professional development resources for other librarians and educators.  Often, the Twitter feeds were packed with links to articles and videos about the latest technologies and strategies being used in classrooms.  Many of the librarians re-tweeted information from authors or other known educators.  The site seemed more conducive to collaboration and sharing that what I saw happening on Facebook.

    Overall, I think that Twitter is a more dynamic social networking site for librarians to become involved with.  It offers a forum to share what is happening in your library, but also offers many more opportunities for communication with others that will lead to finding new ideas that can be useful.

As a librarian, you are often the only person who does your job in the school building, so developing a resource that can connect you with other people in similar situations and provide so much opportunity for articles and posts that can help you constantly improve in your position is priceless.