Jing all the way!!!

Jing is not only a program that allows you to instantly capture images and record video on your computer then share them with others but it is also a great tool to use for to teaching/instruction by screening recording only almost anything. At first I got confused on how to use JING, yes the instructions were there and seemed easy but I had so many questions and did not know where to get the answers so I continue to search online in hopes to get some clarification. I found the answers to my question on online pdf document called “Capturing a Video Using Jing”. Not until this class I had heard about Jing and after visiting the website I realized that this type of media would probably work well for creating at first a fun brief instructional video about Pluto the once planet now a dwarf planet. So, I started writing my script I was thinking about my target audience, and I thought this would be good for 7 to 8 graders, and then came trying to tie together the capture images annotated with text, arrows, and color and then turning it into a video. It was not an easy project since I first had to capture, save, then transfer to word document, change its background to color and then start all over again and video. So, I called this video the “Pluto Dilemma”.

After I was done creating this video, I went back to the Jing website and realized that this is not the project that I wanted to turn in for Module 7. I went back to the drawing board and thought about other projects that I had done in the past for the library and in some way impacted the library patrons so the use and need for E-government came to mind and with that thought I started on my 3 to 5 minute script on how to teach patrons and other individuals on how to access E-government from the library’s website.  For this project, I decided to go with Miami-Dade Public Library’s website because it is the library system that I have worked for in the past and I am more familiar with. I thought on who would be my audience for this video, and remembering who I have helped in the past accessing the library’s E-government site, I would say that my audience are the unemployed and seniors.  This was not an easy video to do and I ended editing and re-doing the video about 10 times, I found that I had to cut a lot on my script just to make it to the end of the time allotted. I finally got a product that I was satisfied with but I think that my video “E-government at Miami-Dade Public Library” would have been more complete if more time was allowed. E-government at Miami-Dade Public Library is an area of work that can be improved and I see myself creating other videos as a continuation to this first one. 

I think that with time I will be able to improve the quality and quantity on the use of Jing and create more substantive videos that will probably allow for more whistles to be added.

In the meantime, I will continue to explore Jing’s possibility, at this time I cannot make any constructive criticism on its value since I am only basing my experience on its free version that is limited on functionality. I will say that it was easy to follow and the instructions are very elementary (even though at first I was a little scare and did my own research on how to use its site).

While Jing free version is limited to 5 minutes, it should not come as a surprise that it took much longer time to put it together.  I had to read my script several times and make some minor changes and record it a couple of times to try and get a good take. The great part of this whole experience was that it was simple to do from a technical perspective and the result can be viewed over and over again.  

The most important question to answer is how can instructional presentations assist in enhancing learning outcomes? By using both visual and audio content, they engage the visual and the auditory learner. It allows for viewers to easily rewind and replay this instructional video. I think the one interesting thing about this instructional video is that it can be used constructively if placed on the library’s website; viewers can see from any computer, 24/7 and perhaps take notes and when they again visit our library’s website they can always go back to the video and replay. 

The other good thing is that this is just the first of many other instructional videos on E-government but also other instructional videos can be made about the library’s webpage, instruction on specifics such as how to use other library resources such as Ask a librarian, or a specific catalog such as EBSCO. In conclusion Jing not only is it a tool that can be used for many fun ideas such as a video recording of a children’s storytelling video, but also you can teach how to draw, make origami or even how to cook a dish and display again the video at the library’s website.

Going Wiki all the Way

It was exciting being part of this Wiki assignment, I really enjoyed creating the YouMedia Wiki and learned much more at each step of the process. I personally enjoyed researching the topic, learning about YouMedia and being able to put together my part of the project and being able to share with the rest of the class. Apart from all other web 2.0 assignments completed, the wiki assignment turned out to be fun and easy to do. I felt that I was in control of what I needed to do and the wiki site is an easy site to follow and use. I also learned about how to use the wiki by watching the above You Tube video "Wikis in Plain English".  I think that the Wiki site could be a useful tool for any librarian that wishes to put together a pathfinder of information for patrons.  I think that the Wiki has lots of possibilities it is functionality is “user friendly” it can be created by one person or multiple people. It can be used as an information webpage that anyone can access.   It can be used by an individual, librarians, teachers, students or group of people. You can put together stories, autobiographies, historical information, pictures, geography and anything you want others to learn about. It can be used personally to build a family website that the entire family can work on like a genealogy tree. Most importantly, it allows for a person to update, add and comment helping it to become a place where a person can build a story or any other idea.

Discovering the use of QR Codes

Just in case you have not noticed on my blog “Finding Happiness in Social Bookmarking, I make mention about my experience with QR Code but also I posted there my QR code for your review. However, I have decided to add my own personal view on my experience on QR Codes.  For the QR Code assignment I chose for the link my Google site page on Early Literacy.  Prior to this assignment, QR Codes were ignored. I've seen QR codes popping up in all places and it got me thinking the following: What was its purpose and what can the consumer gain from its use?  It seemed to me that it was just another step to add to the many that already exist to access anything electronically.  So, I never really bother to check them out nor did I try uploading the app’s that were free and available to add to my smart phone.

So, now that I have used it and learned how to create one I can say this much about it. It seems to be a a new marketing strategy to attract attention in people wanting to know what is the message hidden behind the labyrinth shaped box. A key point here is that users are asked to do something to access the brand. The viewer, audience or member/passerby must take an action to interact with the QR Code and many of those interacting are expectant consumers etc. that are interest in not only finding out what is the surprise found in code but they do expect a payoff.   My take on this is, it is fun, new and it is always healthy to try something new. But I also say in my personal opinion if it is not in plain English why even bother.

I hope you enjoy looking at my QR Code since it was fun to create. For those of you that are unable to scan the QR Code I have included the following page to view my Early Literacy page.

Finding Happiness in Social Bookmarking

As Social Bookmarking continues to grow and gain acceptance, browsing through old bookmarks are becoming less popular. One of the reasons why I say this is because browsing through bookmarks that allow for you to add to your computer favorite links in a certain way are outdated, frustrating and unmanageable.  Just imagine folders, after folders bookmarking websites not in a neat organized way and if you have more than one computer you may not have the same folders in all computers. So, I feel that I do not have to struggle anymore because of Social Bookmarks like diigo or delicious.  Access to my favorite sites is now fun and organized and most important my bookmarks are kept safe online and I can access them from any computer. My favorites on delicious are now organized, click here and see for yourself.  I like how each link has a site picture, I have added tags, descriptions I can edit, remove. I am able to share my delicious with others and I can even use the delicious blog.  

I found similarities with the use of diigo all of my favorite links are organized,  I was able to add tags, descriptions, remove and I can also share my diigo with others either by sending messages or joining their blog.  But what I liked the most about my diigo, click and see, was the page set up it seemed more organized, user friendly, colorful and I can check into a group, review group categories, I can go into community and read bookmarks that are hot and make comments. I enjoyed adding my favorite links to diigo and even though they are the same links used for delicious. I felt more comfortable and less intimidated using diigo than delicious.  It is still early to determine if my fascination with diigo will last since I am still learning how to use it.  But I hope to master the app and use it more often. Another feature that I want to share and I think it is an important reason why I enjoyed learning about delicious and diigo is that with both bookmarks the idea of saving pages has become easier, I can now browse and share the results of my bookmark with Facebook and Twitter.  Diigo has also an advantage over delicious, I can now highlight the page that is being bookmarked making it easier to retrieve the information at a later date.

Another Social Bookmark very popular, especially among Facebook members is Pinterest. I was first introduced to Pinterest through Facebook a few months back. It all started with pretty pins of doors, decorating entrance doors.  I love images of doors and beautiful entrances with lots of flowers and color so I knew I wanted that pin and that is how I got to join Pinterest and Pinterest has become my best friend I now have three Pinterest accounts the most recent opened account is the Pinterest dedicated to all library thing and I wish to share with all of you, so click and see.  What I find most attractive about Pinterest is that it lets me think and learn to organize. I enjoy sharing all of the beautiful things that I have found on the web. I have heard that some people actually use pinboards to plan parties or change the decorations at home.  Viewing Pinterest has been therapeutic, I have used Pinterest to get ideas about decorating doors. Pinterest has allow me to share with my friends on Facebook, browse through all the interesting pinboards, discover new things and get inspiration from people who share my interest.

When it came to creating the QR Code, at first I was reluctant not understanding its importance. It became a challenge as I had to figure out what to do with my Google site.  I think I struggled more creating my google site page than with anything else.  I struggle deciding what I wanted my Google site page to look like and what type of messages or information the page was about. I then realized that I wanted it to be a page for parents and care givers to get ideas on Early Literacy and it would be a page that would be constantly updated with new ideas, information and tools for teaching Early Literacy. The page is still in its early stage to view this page, but please scan below the QR Code to view my page.  

 

 

 While discussing with some library friends about QR Code, I learned that QR Codes are being used in some libraries. One library that is using QR Codes to announce Library services is Broward County Public Libraries “Free Books Posters”.

Finally, let me add that if I was given the choice to choose which Social Bookmark would be my app of choice to work with, share and maintain as a link to communication, it would most likely be Pinterest, the reason is very simple, Pinterest and is visual bookmarking services offers users certain advantages that diigom does not offer. Diigo does not show thumbnails on bookmarked images. I see Pinterest like a visual scrapbooking (I enjoy Scrapbooking!). Another reason is that Pinterest as a Social Bookmark allows consumers to promote products and services for free. So, I thought why not use Pinterest to promote library services and programs  and even share with others different pins taken about the library or even adding pins that share library announcement.  I guess there is no stopping creativity!!!

 

 

The benefits of pod casting for library's and other institutions

I think that the benefits of pod-casting are many.  Libraries, schools and other institutions such as Museum can benefit from pod-casting as it facilitates communication, delivers information and can serve to broadcast a range of services by making audio content available to the public. Pod-casting is also a great tool for staff development; it can serve as a reference resource, or to guide a patron on how to use the libraries services. It can serve to announce up coming events. 

I think it can also be used to promote programs being offered at the library, for story time, to promote a bestseller books or upcoming collections. Pod-casting is another form of media and it’s used are multiple  they can go from something  as easy as providing instructions to a student how to use the libraries catalog to library tour.  I enjoyed discovering the use of a podcast but I was even more amazed on how easy it could be to share and view others podcast through Drop Box. 

The Early Literacy Podcast Experience

While searching for a topic to discuss, I came across some of my Early Literacy training documents. I realized at that moment that it would be fun to be able to create a podcast for parents to listen to on the topic of Early Literacy and how they can apply the six early literacy skills while reading to their child. Every child deserves the opportunity to discover bookd to learn to read and to fall in love with reading and writing. But most important to the basics of reading and writing  before they start school. My podcast on Early Literacy is about preparing parents to engage in reading activities with their children so that they can succeed in school in reading and writing. How children learn will make a difference in a child’s academic growth. The podcast provides the basic for learning the six literacy skills and applying it to everyday learning.

My experience at creating this podcast at first was stressful. I was not sure of my ability to pull through with recording and creating a mp3 and then transferring to Dropbox. My first attempt at creating the mp3 was a disaster the recording would not recognize my commands and would continue to give error screens. A day later, I decided to give it a try again and carefully followed Dr. Martin’s instructions until I was able to finally put together the podcast.

I am giving Podcast a second chance to work with me. I think is a wonderful media tool that does not require a lot of knowledge in media technology as long as you follow word by word the instructions. I think so far podcast is a media tool that has a future with me and probably I would use it for different library presentations library workshops and even for staff training. But the one application that I found quite impressive and useful was the Dropbox. I had heard about cloud storage and I even attended a presentation at Best Buy where they were presenting the new chromebook and they explained how it works with clouds. It backs up all of your documents, photos and others into cloud storage instead of the hard drive and it works faster than other laptops. I was tempted to buy it but because it was a new technology my husband did not feel comfortable about making an investment until he learned more about it.

Here goes my Podcast Presentation

https://dl.dropbox.com/u/108709166/Iglesias_Teaching%20Early%20Literacy%20Skills.mp3

Will Prezi replace PowerPoint

Prezi is another fun web 2.0 application that can be used for school projects, art projects, marketing presentations or just for fun. It offers an innovative way to present a project. It delivers fun, active, colorful presentations. It is a great tool for a person with imagination, looking for something different non-linear. For the individual with a sense of creativity and enjoys exploring new ways of getting the message across Prezi is for you.

The difference between Prezi and PowerPoint is that it is non-linear while PowerPoint has more of the traditional presentation applications that we are used to seeing especially in the business world.  

At first I was quite impressed by the brightness and smooth look of Prezi. The platform offers a very different angle at looking at a presentation definitely different from the linear series of slides that one can create with PowerPoint. I loved how you can zoom in and out of your frame set, rotate each frame or create a flow diagram of your topic and include the content as you are editing.  

I spend most of one day putting my Prezi presentation together at first I did not know how to go about using Prezi but I followed each of the instructional tabs and started to explore its use. I played with Prezi like putting together a puzzle with each of the pieces that I selected I discovered how I can manipulate its use and make it more interesting. I played with background colors offered and loved how it made the presentation looked different. I selected the spring color schemed of colors  available because it looked like the look that it gave of coloring with crayons or markers and I wanted the presentation to be more appealing to the eye and hoped to attract a younger audience.  I think that with time Prezi will grow on me, but I think that its use will be more towards fun presentations to do for youth programs or even for marketing a school or a library program.

As functionality goes I think I will continue to stick to using PowerPoint. PowerPoint is very functional and simple and the data can be inputted quickly and effectively. It is part of the Microsoft packages so you can save the presentation in your computer or a flash drive. This is something that I found to be important. While with Prezi, as far as I can see you have to log on from the Internet to be able to open your presentation and I am not sure of how safe or protected is your presentation on Prezi. I understand that because Prezi basic is a free application it is free for the public to see.  Using Prezi may be a fun tool to explore and play around but in my opinion is not a tool that I would use for a serious professional presentation.

PowerPoint offer versatility, a high degree of customization tools and features that makes it possible for the user to keep its format consistent and organized in each of the slides. The animation, video links and many of the inserts available are easily accessible. Prezi offers animation,  youtube uploads or other downloads function and like PowerPoint it offers clipboard, charts and many other features but it is not easy to tweak the presentation to suit any need or occasion like PowerPoint.

Maybe it has to do with the basic access application that is free to the public and it does not offer as many options for creating a more formal kind of presentation without losing is luster.  I think it offers enough options for a nice presentation.  I will continue to play with Prezi and hope to discover more uses; I may or may not incorporate the Prezi to future presentations. In the meantime, I will continue to be faithful to PowerPoint until I find that Prezi or other presentation platforms out there are capable of meeting my presentation needs.