Instagram, Vine, and Screencast

          This week's assignment was a challenging one for me.  I actually had an Instagram account that had not even one post, my only experience with Screencasts were links to videos from professors, and I had never even heard of Vine!  All in all though I would say that I had a very positive experience, not only in my venture to figure out how to use all of these applications, but in the ideas I stumbled across with how to use these features in my library and how to share them with teachers for use in their classrooms.

          Since I had the most experience with Instagram, although limited, I decided to start there.  Instead of using my personal account, I chose to create a brand new one specifically for school and library information.  Sadly most of my "friends" or followers aren't that into what's going on in my library.  Shocking?  I know right!  I didn't download any additional apps to add text to my photos, but perhaps in the future.  I could definitely see value in that. I think Instagram is a great place to share photos of reading recommendations, new books in the library, important information and activities taking place in the library.

          My next exploration was Screencast-O-Matic.  I wanted to create a video showing students how to check in and out their own materials since we've been having a little trouble with that, however with no scanner at home, that idea quickly went out the window.  I do think that would be a great idea though and will be making a video on that soon.  For now I settled on creating a screencast exploring our library webpage.  The application itself was easy to install and use and I love that it gave a countdown of 3, 2, 1 to allow you to ready yourself.  You can record just the screen, just the webcam or both.  Here is the video I created, Wrangler Library Webpage.

          After that, I decided to use my IPhone to give Adobe Spark a try.  It had a variety of templates to use to help you in creating a video best for your purpose including Show What Happened, Teach a Lesson, Promote an Idea and more.  Or you could choose to start from scratch.  I decided to use a template to showcase our recent Poetry Share held in the library this past week.  It gave me a set of slides and provided me with an idea of what to include on each slide.  I had the option of adding icons, photos or text to each and could make a recording to accompany it.  Here is the short video I created about the First Annual Richter Wrangler Poetry Share.

          The last application I utilized was Vine.  Vine is a video sharing site that limits users to a video of 6 seconds in length and plays on a loop.  While I guess I could see possibilities for use of this app in the classroom or library, I have to say I was definitely the least impressed with it.  From the reading I did, they claimed you would be surprised how long 6 seconds actually is.  I disagree.  I struggled to think of anything I could share with only 6 seconds and went through several video attempts where there simply was not enough time to cover all the information I had.  It does force the sharer to get right to the point, which I guess has it's advantages, but with all the other options available, I just don't see myself using this app all that much.  I did manage to squeeze in a quick shout out to all our Wrangler Readers of the Week.

          Our students live in a digital world and applications such as these are a great way to reach out to them and connect on their level.  A big part of our job as librarians is to be knowledgeable of the variety of technological sources out there and be able to share that information with students, staff and colleagues.  As much as I was dreading it, I found this assignment to be extremely beneficial and I really learned a lot!