Screencasts, Instagram, and Flipagram

Screencasts, Instagram, and Flipagram are different way for us to share or present information, as librarians they can be very important to help share information with teachers, administrators, and the community.  As I reflect on all three of these visual medias I think that the one I enjoyed using the most was Screencast-O-Matic.  It was something I was not familiar with, once I logged in and began to use it I was very surprised on how easy it is to use.  I was so excited using it and I shared my excitement with my coworkers. Screencast-O-Matic is something I will definitely continue to use as a teacher and also when I become a school librarian.  With Instagram I was already familiar with it and I have to say I really enjoy using it, but Flipagram was not as easy to use and was my least favorite.  I do plan to continue to use Flipagram even if it's a little more difficult to navigate because I like the end product. Overall all three of these visual  medias are great and I enjoyed using them, I think it is a great way to share or present information and I have to say my absolute favorite from these three visual medias is Screencast-O-Matic

A Screencast is a website where we can record what we see on the computer screen, our voices are integrated into the recording.  Screencast-O-Matic is the website I used to create a screencast, this website is very user-friendly and I was able to create a screencast with no problems at all.  This website is great for presenting how to create, login, or demonstrate something on a website, it allows you to show step-by-step how you would do something.  I created a screencast on Screen-O-Matic teaching students how to login to an AR quiz, as a librarian I would be able to share this screencast with teachers and students at the beginning to the year when students are learning how to use AR.  I was so impressed with the short amount of time I spent creating it, it allowed me to edit the screencast and share it.  Screencast-O-Matic allows us to create something that will allow us to present or share information quickly and easily.

Instagram is a social media app that I am familiar with, I do have it on my smart phone.  I enjoy sharing pictures, Instagram allows you to request followers and view the pictures your followers post.  There are people you follow and followers, you can choose to keep it private or public and it can be linked to your Facebook account so what is posted on your Instagram can also be posted on your Facebook instantly.  I created a new Instagram account for the purpose of this class and think it would be a great idea to have an account as a librarian.  It would be a great way to share pictures or information of great things happening in the library.  Followers could be the teachers, students, administrators, and other librarians/libraries and of course everything that is posted has hastags.  https://www.instagram.com/mdg054/

Flipagram is an app that can be downloaded to smartphones and used to create videos with many pictures and music integrated into the video.  I found it a little more difficult to use, I did not find it to be user-friendly.  When you log in to Flipagram I found it a bit overwhelming to look at and use,  I did not feel comfortable using it.  Overall the end result is great, we can create great videos, but I did not feel it something I would like to use often.  I do think that creating videos in Flipagram is a great way to share great things that happen in the library with the teachers, administrators, students, and the community.  I created a video on our Pumpkin character contest that the library had at our school, the students and parents did a great job creating their pumpkins.

Resources:

Instagram.com

Screencastomatic.com

Flipagram.com

youtube.com

Infograhics-5391

In Wikipedia infograhics are defined as "visual representations of information, data, or knowledge intended to present information quickly and clearly." These visual representations are very important to the 21st century learner, in an article found in the New York Times Teaching with infographics/a student project model it talks about the importance of infograhics in the life of students.  This article says "we know how important it is for students to be able to read and interpret visual representations of information." With this being said, as librarians it is very important to be able to use this tool to present information and have students exposed to infograhics daily.  Can you imagine the difference this would make in our students' learning when we present information to them through visual representations or have them create their own infographic? Not only would this make a difference in the students' learning, but also would be an effective way to present data and information to teachers and administrators quickly and easily. 

     For my infographic depiction I chose Pew Research Center's article titled Most Americans-especially Millennials say libraries can help them find reliable, trustworthy information.  I used the data from this article to create my infographic, this data compares Millennials (18-35) to Generation X (36-51), Baby Boomers (52-70), and Silents (71-88).  It shows how much more Millennials trust the libraries for information, to learn new things, and to get information that help with decisions they have to make.

The following is the link to my infographic created:
 https://infogram.com/step-by-step-charts-1gx3pw0ornz02gr

    I began with Easelly, this web app did not catch my eye when I went into their website.  The template/samples available seemed too busy, it had too many graphics and images.  I did want to experience what it was it like to create and infographic on Easelly and I actually found it very user friendly.  It has many tools to help and from the template chosen it is very easy to change the text and add your own, I experienced the same thing with pictures and changing the background.  The negative I found on Easelly is that even though it is a free app when I tried to select certain graphics a pop-up screen appears to upgrade to a premium account for a fee. 
     I went on to explore PiktoChart and I found it great, it is also very user-friendly and had many templates available to use.  As I explored the different features and found it very easy to use and the best is there are templates ready to use, just needed to change images and enter my information. While PiktoChart allowed me to create my own template and Easelly did not, creating an infograhic through PiktoChart was overall quick and easy.  The negative I found was it did not seem very professional if using this to share information with teachers and administrators.
     Infogram was the web app I used to fully create an infographic.  As I began to explore it and began creating my infographic I did find it a little difficult to use, but I was determined to use it because I really liked the chart available to represent my data.  Once I continued to use it and "played" with it I created a great infographic with bar graphs to depict my information.

     Overall I found all three web apps user-friendly and being able to explore these web apps was a great experience.  I found that as a librarian having students create an infograhic would be great experience for them and I would have them use PiktoChart because it is quick and easy to use.  As a librarian presenting information to teachers and administrators I would use Easelly since it is a little easier to use and navigate, would not be as time consuming to create my infograhic.

Sources:

Easelly [Web application]. Seattle, WA. Retrieved from https://www.easel.ly/

Infogram (Infogram software) [Web application]. San Francisco, CA. Retrieved from https://infogram.com/

Piktochart [Web application]. Penang, Malaysia. Retrieved from https://piktochart.com/

Schulten, K. (2010). Teaching with infographics: A student project model. The Learning Network. Retrieved from https://learning.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/teaching-with-infographics-a-student-project-model/

Geiger, A. (2017). Most Americans-especially Millennials-say libraries can help them find reliable, trustworthy information. Pew  Research Center: Internet, Science, & Tech., Retrieved from: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/08/30/most-americans-especially-millennials-say-libraries-can-help-them-find-reliable-trustworthy-information/

Infograhic. (n.d). In Wikipedia.Retrieved October 20, 2017, from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infographic