Staying Current

One of our other assignments was to look at some blogs of librarians who stay current and updated on the latest technology and library movements.  After looking over a number of them, the one that really stood out to me and spoke to my heart as a future librarian was Shannon McClintock Miller's blog called "The Library Voice" because as I was reading her blog she had one entry where she had helped a young girl start her own blog so she could share her own creative "voice" and have an outlet for things that she wanted to express.  I think a lot of our students have this need because they feel like no one listens to them or values their opinion.  I thought about how I could work blogging into my classroom this year and also later when I become a librarian.  She also had a post about makerspaces and was encouraging other librarians/teachers to share how they have set up makerspaces in their libraries/classrooms.  This is something that I have become VERY interested in through my coursework.  I like the way Ms. Miller has a blog where she shares ideas and also encourages others to comment and share too.  It is a very "common learning" space for all to feel welcome in expressing and sharing ideas.  I really enjoyed it!

www.figment.com

Here is my third choice of favorites from the 2014 AASL's Top Websites.  I fell in LOVE with this website because I absolutely LOVE Writing!!!!!  I have kept a journal since I was in 5th-grade (I'm on journal #16 now!) so when I opened up this website and discovered that this one gives students a chance to publish their writings, I was mesmerized.  Students can go in and look up topics that are being written about and join the list of published authors as they create their own original work.  How EXCITING that is to have  a forum to share your writing with others!  This website also has contests and the one that I looked at for July gives them a prompt and they are to create something using 750 words or less.  Such a creative outlet for the students in the classroom who truly enjoy the art of creative writing and are looking for an authentic way to put their work out there for others to read.  I read five published works ABOUT journal writing and really enjoyed them!  I love this website!!!!!!
www.figment.com

www.canva.com

Here is another website that I played around with from the 2014 AASL Best Websites.  It is called Canva and you can EASILY design posters, flyers, etc. and add either your own pictures or pictures that they have (most of them cost $1.00 each).  I had a ball designing a poster for our school's Open House.  We are the Gibson Bulldogs so I used a bulldog picture that we have in stock and uploaded it and then chose free text features to type the information about the date and the time.  I chose the template of a cell phone since I know how much our students LOVE cell phones.  I did all of this in about 10 minutes, so it's VERY simple and fun to use!  Students would LOVE to use this to create posters and other graphics for concepts and skills they are learning in the classroom.  Here's my creation:

www.canva.com

www.recitethis.com

This week, one of my assignments is to check out three of the 2014 AASL Best Websites and report on them.  The first one I decided that I really liked is Recite This.  You can create a picture that features a quote and then use the quote on your websites or publications.  I created this poster with a quote from Walt Disney about dreams:

This was a VERY quick and easy process and I could see using it in the classroom for students to not only make inspirational posters/pictures of their favorite quotes, but they could also make them to showcase key quotes from characters in different novels or to make posters that gave quick one sentence summaries of books they read or concepts they learned in class.  This was fun!

www.recitethis.com

Augmented Reality (Aurasma)

One of my assignments this week was to read about augmented reality and how to use a free app named Aurasma. Wow, this class is really expanding my mind and teaching me a lot of new technology-based things. The most helpful reading I did was on this website: http://www.kleinspiration.com/2013/05/using-augmented-reality-via-aurasma-in.html It really broke it all down in easy to understand examples and explained words such as aura, trigger images, overlays, aurasma and augmented reality. It's all pretty neat and in really really simple terms it's basically where you have a picture (called your trigger image) that you apply another "level" to so that when people use the app, Aurasma, to focus on your image, an aura pops up and lets them see an overlay which is the thing that you applied to that trigger image. For example, if you had a picture of a book about the Titanic and then they used Aurasma to look at that picture, you could have an overlay of a video about the Titanic that would pop up to enhance the book picture. You could also use it in the classroom. For example, in my Science class I could have a picture of a volcano and then an overlay that has a short video of an exploding volcano. Or in a History class, I could have a picture of John F. Kennedy and then an overlay that comes up with the assassination of JFK. Imagine our textbooks having these types of experiences for the students? Wouldn't that just be so interactive and exciting for them? It's amazing what technology comes up with. I really enjoy playing around with this new stuff even though I do struggle with it sometimes!