Infographics!

This week I made the exciting foray into INFOGRAPHICS. After nearly an entire abysmal day spent on Easel.ly, in which I lost all of my work, I decided to try again today using Infogr.am.

After all, being able to create infographics will come in extremely handy when presenting library statistical information to both the users and administration. Plus, infographics look awesome and I'd like to become better at creating them.

I watched a few YouTube tutorials concerning different infographic-creating websites before deciding to give Easel.ly a try. I found the interface somewhat difficult, and importing charts/graphs I made on other websites transferred over and looked very clunky. After spending several hours on an infographic concerning opinions of the EU, I somehow managed to lose most of my work, including a slice of pie in my pie chart. Frustrated, angry, and out of time, I cursed Easel.ly.

Having contemplated my failed first attempt at creating an infographic on Easel.ly, I decided to give the site, Infogr.am a try. I'd like to become competent in creating at least basic infographics, and despite the fact that I have no talent at design in real life or on the web, I was determined to at least complete this assignment.

Infogr.am was much easier for me to navigate, and seemed intuitive when I attempted to create charts and graphs using the data I found in a PEW Research Center article. I chose an article that discussed European views of the EU and Brexit (this info is from before Brexit was actually voted on in the UK referendum).

My completed infographic is extremely basic, but I really started to get the jist of the site. It would have been nice to have different font options, and text centering options, but I have a feeling those are the type of options available if you pay for an upgraded account. All in all, I enjoyed using Infogr.am, and look forward to practicing my infographic-creating skills on the site.

Blogs and Blog Readers

With the demise of Google Reader in 2013, Feedly won the RSS reader war after many different readers attempted to attract all of Google Reader's former fans. It is easy to tell why Feedly now reigns as feeder King. After browsing other RSS readers and researching the latest, Feedly seemed to have all of the components I was looking for in a reader, so I decided to check it out.

Feedly is easy to use and navigate for those without any prior knowledge of feed readers. It is aesthetically pleasing; not too stark and not too crowded. All of your feeds are organized on the left-hand side, displaying which blogs have updated material that are unread. However, my favorite offering of Feedly's is the ability to easily find related material to what you are interested in. Feedly offers a "Discover and Follow" button above your feed list that allows users to search by title, URL, or #topic. Once you find something of interest, it is extremely easy to add to your feed. A similar option of Feedly's is that it offers "related feeds" suggestions to help guide users to other blogs/articles/videos they may be interested in. Best of all, Feedly is also easily integrated with Facebook, Twitter, and Pocket. Yay! Feedly out performs both Flipboard and Digg, which I found to be visually overcrowded and behind the times, respectively.

5 BLOGS I RECOMMEND:

1. Educational Technology and Mobile Learning
I chose to follow this blog because it is a great "resource of educational web tools and mobile apps for teachers and educators." This blog, written by teachers and based out of Canada, is a wonderful resource for the latest technology info, and can even be searched by category.

2. We Need Diverse Books
This is the official Tumblr page for the 'We Need Diverse Books' official campaign. WNDB promotes books that highlight the diversity of humans by age, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, religion, abilities, etc. In turn, WNDB feels that kids will be empowered by reading about more diverse characters they can relate to.

3. Mighty Little Librarian
Mighty Little Librarian gets into the nitty-gritty of what it is to be a school librarian. She covers topics like genrefication, professional development, elementary/middle library lessons, digital citizenship, etc.

4. American Library Association
The official Tumblr of the ALA is worth following because it gives lively updates as to the goings-on of the ALA. It's a great space to find information about this week's ALA conference in Orlando, as well as the latest book campaigns and informational articles. And best of all, they post incredibly cute cat gifs!

5. The Daring Librarian
Gwyneth Jones is well known in the librarian circle due to her timely updates, relevant content, and refreshingly colorful graphics. Her blog has won many awards
She is a teacher librarian at Murray Hill Middle School, and her school library blog can be found at http://daringlibrary.edublogs.org. Her blogs cover the latest ed tech, book reviews, provides killer resources, and fantastic project ideas for your school library.


I did a thing!

I created a Tumblr @ https://www.tumblr.com/blog/bookdrunklibrarian

Facebook Pages and Twitter

 

 

Utilizing Facebook to peruse different school library pages (Davis Middle School, Ockerman Middle School, and many others), I noticed that most posts on individual school library Facebook pages are made by the resident librarian and often include new library information, pictures of activities the students participate in while in the library, and upcoming events. Most of these school library Facebook pages do not have many followers, and the posts often lack many comments. One factor to attribute to this lack of participation is that the students of these libraries are either too young for Facebook, or are older and prefer to utilize a different form of social media and do not have Facebook accounts. Most of the followers of these pages are other teachers in the school or district, and some of the parents of the students. Parents are often too busy to check Facebook, and when they do, their first priority is not checking out the latest developments in the library at their child's school. I think Facebook library pages were a good idea at attempting to reach out to the community and encourage discourse about the school library, but because of different factors, I do not feel that this option panned out as well as everyone had hoped. Perhaps one day entire schools will have Facebook pages (or the like) that can incorporate the library page posts so that more members of the community have access to them? In the future this may take place on a totally different social media platform. At that point perhaps, maybe then parents and students can finally come together and collaborate about the happenings in the school library the way we had hoped school Facebook library pages were going to.

While exploring ed tech leaders on Twitter, I was wishing I had more time in the day to devote strictly to following all of their links and playing around with the new apps, computer software, and gadgets they post about. Following these ed tech gurus is also a good way to find out about up and coming tech related webinars, conventions, and to find helpful tech infographics to use in the classroom.


Here is a Twitter post by Kathry Schrock. I'm feeling the need to buy this ASUS Chrombook Flip!:

Kathy Schrock ‏@kathyschrock Jun 2

Loving the Asus Chromebook Flip! Good build, Nice screen. Touchscreen. Good touch pad. Convertible.

 

Gwyneth Jones posts helpful infographics:

Gwyneth Jones ‏@GwynethJones May 30

Makerspace #INFOGraphic Share w/ your teachers! @isteconnects http://sco.lt/4qv43V 

She also discusses important tech ed topics:

Gwyneth Jones ‏@GwynethJones May 27

Digital Citizenship: 2 Perspectives on Using Social Media in Education http://sco.lt/9Kdxjd 

5 retweets 6 likes

Teaching Digital Natives

 

   Marc Prensky’s thoughts on “digital natives” echoes Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy, but in a more general sense. Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy offers specific examples of apps and games via Kathy Schrock’s suggestions and based on a taxonomy pyramid, while Prensky’s thoughts are more generalized, offering a worldview theory about tech savvy students that utilize the internet, wikipedia, and various social media networking sites.

    Prensky’s views support Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy because he recognizes that modern 21st century students are digital natives, having grown up with technology, and who look at the world through a lens of modern technology, apps, and internet access. This is different compared to how current teachers view the world, as we are from an older generation that did not grow up with the same ubiquitous access to advanced technology. Therefore we, as teachers, need to learn to view the world as our students do, through their technology lens if we wish to educate them in the best way possible. If we wish to prepare our students for the 21st century, we need to equip them with 21st century skills. We can equip them with these skills by relying on and relating our need for technology in the classroom, to Bloom’s Updated Digital Taxonomy. Bloom’s Taxonomy has been an essential guide for teachers for years, and now the updated Digital Taxonomy is even more important if we wish to stay current in best practices for our students. Requesting new technology for our classrooms should be goal-oriented with respect to curriculum, matching the right tool for each different teaching exercise.

    It is necessary to break down how we utilize technology as teaching tools because different levels of Bloom’s Digital Taxonomy will require the use of different computer apps as referenced in Kathy Schrock’s Guide to Everything. For example, a memory-focused exercise for students that uses spelling would require students to work with different educational apps than a creative exercise that uses digital painting.

Technology is a fundamental tool for learning that will quickly and constantly continue to change. The goal of teachers is to effectively utilize current and accessible technology to better teach students and to equip them with tools which facilitate their ability to learn and create. Overly focusing on a tool that will be obsolete in five years is far less useful than utilizing a technological tool to better teach a subject matter in a way students will respond positively towards. In other words, a narrow focused technology tool is less useful and quickly obsolete, while multiple, concept-focused technology tools are more useful and offer a broader knowledge base.

    Librarians have always utilized evolving data technology. Librarians have been data technology pioneers since the beginning of recorded history, utilizing   cuneiform tablets, papyrus scrolls, books and periodicals, microfilm, microfiche, CDs, DvDs, digital storage, and now the internet to store information. 21st century technology is advancing faster than ever before in accordance with Moore’s Law, and providing accessible information is fundamental to library science. Today this means digital information and technology in a variety of formats, as well as traditional books. Sorting through the vast numbers of apps, programs, programming languages, social media tools, etc., is an immensely valuable service to both educators and students.