Videos and QR Codes in the Library

YouTube

I enjoyed visiting the different library YouTube sites and seeing how the videos are used in the library.  When I am a librarian, I think I will use videos a lot as tutorials for how to use the different library resources.   This would be especially helpful in the middle and high school libraries.   They would also be great to document events that are going on in the library, such as Battle of the Books, Book Fair, new books, etc.  

These are the YouTube sites that I visited : 

Norman High Library   https://www.youtube.com/user/TheNHSLibrary/videos

Most Helpful Video : Getting Started with the NHS Library Website

It talks about getting started with the NHS Library Website, as well as the ins and outs of website.

Video Students Would Like the Most : Norman Public Schools Celebrates Your Freedom to Read

Frequently challenged books are read and discussed.

The Unquiet Library https://www.youtube.com/user/theunquietlibrary/videos

Most Helpful Video : Finding and Using Wikimedia Commons.

Showcases useful tutorials for the library.

Video Students Would Like the Most : The student interviews, excerpts and testimonials, such as this mythology project :

Pikesville HS Library    https://www.youtube.com/user/pikesvillehslibrary/videos

Most Helpful Video : Course Advisement Video :

Walks students how to pick courses.

Videos Students Would Like the Most : Videos of events in the library, such as Senior party in the library .

BBMS Media   https://www.youtube.com/user/bbmsmedia/videos

Most Helpful Video : Instructional videos, such as headphone storage

Video Students Would Like the Most : Star Wars themed library topics, such as this one on overdue books.  

Overdue Games was a cute concept as well that students would love!

QR Codes

There are so many ways that QR codes can be put to use in the library.  Some of the ways I have heard or experienced are :

• student projects
• book trailers
• instructional videos
• book summaries
• scavenger hunts

I chose to do a book trailer on a book I love, Emmanuel's Dream : The True Story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah by Laurie Ann Thompson.
Here is the synopsis from Penguin Random House, the publisher.

Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah’s inspiring true story—which was turned into a film, Emmanuel’s Gift, narrated by Oprah Winfrey—is nothing short of remarkable.

Born in Ghana, West Africa, with one deformed leg, he was dismissed by most people—but not by his mother, who taught him to reach for his dreams. As a boy, Emmanuel hopped to school more than two miles each way, learned to play soccer, left home at age thirteen to provide for his family, and, eventually, became a cyclist. He rode an astonishing four hundred miles across Ghana in 2001, spreading his powerful message: disability is not inability. Today, Emmanuel continues to work on behalf of the disabled.

Thompson’s lyrical prose and Qualls’s bold collage illustrations offer a powerful celebration of triumphing over adversity.

Includes an author’s note with more information about Emmanuel’s charity.

I enjoyed making the book trailer. Animoto was an easier site to use and I see students having a great time with it as well!

References : 

Synopsis of Emmanuel's Dream from Penguin Random House.  Retrieved from https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/224630/emmanuels-dream-the-true-story-of-emmanuel-ofosu-yeboah-by-laurie-ann-thompson-illustrated-by-sean-qualls/9780449817445/

Thompson, L.  (2015).  Emmanuel's dream : The true story of Emmanuel Ofosu Yeboah.  New York : Schwartz & Wade.

Zinkovich, B.  (2016).  Using QR codes to promote your library.  Retrieved from https://www.ebscohost.com/novelist/novelist-special/using-qr-codes-to-promote-your-library

Screencasts

For this post I experimented with Jing and Screencast-o-matic.  I had never had any experience with Jing before, but had used Screencast-o-matic for an assignment in another library course.  They had a lot of similarities, but also a lot of differences.
Jing is an application that you have to download on the computer, while Screencast-o-matic is a website that you can access.  I did not have any issues with downloading Jing, but the website said it will soon not be available on all browsers because they are in the process of changing it to a better application.
On Jing you can capture a video and a screenshot.  On Screencast-o-matic you can do a video, but you have to upgrade to the paid version to do a screenshot.
The screen capture tool on Jing was a little more cumbersome to use on Jing than it is on Screencast-o-matic.  You have to drag the square to the area you want to record, and it takes some practice to get it just right.  Screencast-o-matic has a large square that you can easily move and make larger and/or smaller.
For the actual recording specifics, both programs are similar.  You can redo and pause on both.  Screencast-o-matic allows you to record for up to 15 minutes, while Jing only allows 5 minutes.  They both allow you to save the videos to the desktop, and both save the videos to their websites.  Screencast-o-matic also allows you to upload the video to YouTube.  They also both have a countdown to recording, which is very helpful!
I liked both programs and think they would be useful in the library and/or classroom.  In the library you could record screencasts of how to do searches of the databases, or introduce new apps and downloads the videos to your website for students, teachers and parents to access.  In the classroom, you could use it to teach concepts students may need a little more help with, or explain certain parts of homework that may be confusing.  As a current classroom teacher now, I am going to try and use it to record instructions for stations and to explain new applications that I want the students to try.
Though Jing was great, I think that I liked Screencast-o-matic the best.  I think that with our Chromebooks at school, it would be the app that students would be able to use the best.  It is more user-friendly and also has a longer recording time, and I think that with as much as my students love to talk it would be a better option for them:)
Ultimately as well, I found out that when I recorded my video on Jing, Jing does not support audio recording on a Mac.  You have to download another application for it to work, which my computer was not allowing.:(.  So for the Jing video below there is not audio, but I was showing students what to do when they were using the Library resources to search about pandas.

Screencast-o-matic

Jing

http://www.screencast.com/t/hEnCoCHyGpv

After I couldn't get the Jing to capture my audio, I went to the app that is going to take over Jing, SnagIt, and made a video on there.  It has more features than Jing did, and let's you save it to several different places such as YouTube, like Screencast-o-matic did.  It also allowed you to add text and graphics onto your video.  I still think that Screencast-o-matic would be easier for my elementary school students to use, but I think SnagIt would be fun for me or upper grade students to experiment with!

SnagIt

Infographics

      Infographics are becoming more and more widely used in the United States and around the world.  PC Magazine defines it as, "An umbrella term for illustrations and charts that instruct people, which otherwise would be difficult or impossible with only text. Infographics are used worldwide in every discipline from road maps and street signs to the many technical drawings."  
In classrooms, teachers use them to show students a more visual representation of what they are learning about.  In the process, many students are able to grasp the concepts better than if they were just reading a traditional text with no pictures.  But where can you go on the web to make your own infographics if you can't find ones that pertain to your specific content or area?
There are several websites which allow you to make your own infographics, but the ones I focused on were Easel.ly, Piktochart and Infogr.am.  


Easel.ly
Pros

• Good templates and visuals
• Site is very versatile and easily to manipulate
• $3 per month

Cons

• The free version has limited things available, such as graphs, templates, etc.

Piktochart
Pros

• Lots of templates and icons
• Nice animation features

Cons

• $29 a month
• Not as easily to manipulate features

Infogr.am
Pros

• Animation features
• Works in a lot of browsers
• Infographic can easily be manipulated

Cons

• Few images/icons
• $18 per month

I struggled a lot with which site to pick because I saw pluses and minuses with them all, and tried out each one before I made a final decision.  Ultimately I chose Easel.ly, because I found templates and graphics on it that I liked the best.  The site also seemed easier to manipulate and change features compared to the others as well.

The article I chose to use for my infographic was 10 Facts about Americans and Facebook from the PEW Research Center, 2019.

Citations

Gramlich, J.  (2019, February 1).  10 facts about Americans and Facebook.  Retrieved from           

     http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/02/01/facts-about-americans-and-facebook/.

Tolisano, S.  (2010, June 16).  Infographics - What?Why?How?  Retrieved from

      https://langwitches.org/blog/2010/06/16/infographics-what-why-how/.