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is because browsing through bookmarks that allow for you to add to your computer favorite links in a certain way are outdated, frustrating and unmanageable.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