Videos and QR Codes in the Library

I had a great time looking through the school YouTube videos, especially the BBMS Media videos. All the different music videos for overdue books were a riot. I also loved the "Dr. Katherine and the Book Hoarder".
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFiuTt3_u98&t=80s
My family calls me a book hoarder all the time, so that just resonated with me. I love that the kids had the opportunity to be so creative. I'd love to do something like this my library. I think it would be great to create videos on checkout procedures, using the IPAC, using playaways, and behaviors and expectations in the makerspace. By using students, the videos would be much more engaging for the students.

In addition, the wide variety of screencast videos made using the databases and other resources in library easier for students to understand and use. I particularly liked the ones from The Unquiet Library and BBMS.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ZnzMDkXjqQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sa1o8Pubzqo 

Channel                              Like                               Helpful
Calypso Gilstrap      Freedom to Read                   Screencast of
                                                                                EBSCOHost
Unquiet Library       almost everything!                 Easybib videos
Pikesville HS           didn't think this was as strong    Course Advisement
                                 a channel as the others               
BBMS Media          This channel is AMAZING     Noodletools videos

Animoto

I had used Animoto in the past for student created book trailers and slide shows for family occassions like my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. I've also used QR codes for a variety of activities. One of my favorites is a scavenger hunt. The QR code reveals a question. The students select and answer and that determines where they go next. If they select correctly, they will end up in one place and incorrectly, in another. I've also used QR codes for test reviews, stations, homework, and open house. I'd like to use them for accessing book trailers, like in this assignments. I'd also like to have a display with popular book covers with the title "If you liked this book, read this". QR codes would be on each cover with read alikes. I could also link screencasts of how to do searches or use databases to QR codes and post them near the computers. It would also be an easy way to link information for teachers.

Below is the QR code for my book trailer for The Librarian of Auschwitz by Antonio Iturbe.

Screencasts, Instagram, and Flipagram

So, this assignment is taking a village. While the screencast portion has been fun, I'm struggling with Instagram. I called in the reserves - my teenage daughter and her friends to help me understand all that is Instagram. I think I may have made it worse once I involved the 17 year olds. They are so comfortable with it, and I'm just the idiot 50 year old mom trying to figure this out. I did finally manage to add Mr. Schu, Donalyn Miller, Hope King, Scholastic Book Fairs, and Maggie Steifvater.

While I see this as a great tool to use to share daily pictures with parents, I'm not sure how my elementary age students could use this. After a long Marco Polo (my new favorite app) with my team at school, they shared with me that they find more of their great teaching ideas from Instagram.
My name on Instagram is Pamster30 and the picture below is the first one I figured out how to post myself. Forgive me that it is a picture of the daughter who was trying to help me. It somehow seemed appropriate.

Screen cast O'Matic
To figure out Screencast O'Matic, I first watched a couple of YouTube videos. Once I started playing with it, it was so easy to use. I created a video for my second graders to watch to use with our upcoming book study on Gail Gibbons nonfiction books. I demonstrated how to get into and use PebbleGo.

https://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cFeZ0xDa7D

This may be my new go to! I love the idea of having these videos available on an iPad. I could create videos of things like how to do a station and the kids could readily have access to them. I can also see using this with parents to explain how I want school work done or how to use certain programs with their children.

I did try to play with Jing, but my laptop is issued from the school district so I was unable to download the program. I watched a couple of YouTube user videos and I like that you can select specific images and use just them rather that capture the whole screen. I may ask tech to override the security so that I can play with it more.

Flipagram - username Pamster30 https://flipagram.com/pamster30#_=_
I'm also going to have fun with this app. I'd love to see this used for quick book talks! A student could grab an iPad and in a few minutes record a book talk that could be shared with the whole school. The ability to add music, text, and special effects would definitely make this fun to use. I'd also love to see my little ones use it to create a Busy Bee of the Week video that could be on our FB page. Yes, I made a pathetic video of my cat and used a Rick Springfield song, but I'm old and lame according to my kids.  Give me a little more time and I'll do something really great.

Infographics

I was super excited to play with infographics. I used them to teach with when I was teaching higher grades, but I'd never created one before. After looking at Easelly, Infogram, and Piktochart,  I did check and play with all three suggested.  Easelly  had a lot of templates but you could only change what the chart said. You had to pay for a upgrade to add graphics. Infogram had one template that was free but allowed for more personalization. I felt that Piktochart was the best of both worlds; the free version had a wide variety of templates to pick from and allowed for the most personalization with graphics and placement of data so I decided to use Piktochart. It was super easy to use, as the dashboard resembled the one in Microsoft Publisher, a program I am very comfortable using. I was able to take their template and easily rearrange text, add pictures, and change font and font colors. All three sites had tutorials available on the site and on YouTube so if you have issues, it is very easy to resolve them.