Appy Friday - Plickers

Appy Friday - Pixel Press - Gaming and Coding Made Simple

Appy Friday - FLOWBOARD

50 Tech Tools every Teacher-Librarian Should Know

Are you looking for some web tools to investigate this summer?  Take a look at the 50 tech tools listed below to get started. If you click on the button, it will take you to the website or app.  If there is a picture, you can click there to get an example of what some of the tools do.  Please note: not all pictures have an example!

Searching Modernized

In this school library, we have only one computer solely dedicated to searching the catalog.  That is absolutely all you can do with it. It's always on and ready to search.

But one is not enough.  Space limitations prevent us from adding more dedicated computers.

We also have 26 other brand new iMacs.  They are most frequently used by classes doing research, but they are also available for independent use.  Students who want to search a book are required to login to their individual user accounts, access the internet, find Destiny (if they haven't bookmarked it) and then conduct their search for books.  

Too many steps.

A cart of iPads is available for teacher check-out (which includes me).  Students have learned to use the Destiny Quest app, but they cannot checkout iPads individually.

Students won't search if it is too difficult, so we needed to find a simple solution. 

This is what we came up with:

The mount was purchased from Smart Things.  

Locking the iPad to one app is called Guided Access.  To set it up, go to:

• Settings
• General
• Accessibility
• Guided Access (near the bottom)
• Turn it on & set 4-digit passcode
• Go to the app you want to use and triple-click the home button
• At this point you can circle any areas you want to restrict and there are additional options for disabling the sleep/wake button, volume buttons, touch control, and motion control.  We did not need to change anything here.
• To change anything or disable restrictions, just triple-click the home button, enter your code, and make your changes.

This has been such a success that we are looking for other locations to mount them... and the funds to do it with.

App of the Week: Follett Destiny

I frequently use Destiny Quest on my iPad to access our catalog while I am in the stacks with students.  It's just so.... portable... convenient... and easy. 

I love the feature that provides suggested titles - a life saver when the requested title is already checked out or has been mis-shelved.  

The idea of an app for the circulation side of things has been on my wish list for quite sometime.  Just think... book check-out IN the stacks, IN the hallways or staff rooms, IN the classroom... everywhere things change hands.

Follett Destiny

In all honesty, it is a little embarrassing to be so late to the table with this post, but I was so thrilled to finally discover this app existed, I just had to share... 

The Follett Destiny app was first released last September, and while I am not sure how I missed the news, I know I am not the only librarian who was busy starting a new school year, settling into a new role, learning hundreds of new things each day.  If there were blog posts, LM_Net discussions, or Tweets about the release, I missed them all.

Until last week...

I stumbled upon this app while reading what's new in the recent upgrade to Destiny 11.0.


While still somewhat limited, the Follett Destiny app does the basics beautifully.  You can:

• Check books in and out by keying in or scanning barcodes
• Find patrons by scanning library card OR searching by name or id #
• Check patron status
• Check item status

This is not an app to replace the traditional platform of computer and barcode scanner.  When checking out multiple books, one must tap on "scan" for each book.  Tap, scan, tap, scan.  Not really a problem, but an extra step I am not used to doing.  Completing checkout for an entire class of students with multiple books each will obviously take longer than our existing circ desk approach, but scanning the odd book outside of the library has become much, much more convenient.

Another thing I have found is that I need to close the app when I leave it.  If I return to Follett Destiny without relaunching, some of the features do not work.  Closing and relaunching solves this.
After more use of the app, I realized the problem was me, not the app.  You must clear patrons (one tap) between individuals, otherwise it thinks you are searching books.

I read in the app store reviews that some users would like an inventory tab.  While this would be a nice feature, bear in mind that items "checked in" during an inventory will be marked "found"... which makes it possible to inventory via the app.  However, you will have to tap "scan" between items, and there will be no beeps to alert you when a book is misshelved.

Have you used this app?  What do you think of it?

Apps of the Week

I have tried a few new apps recently, but I have not found one that proved to be an indispensible tool for a while....

and then I stumbled across the lists below 

from Silvia Rosental Tolisano on Langwitches blog.

I can already spy half a dozen I want to check out immediately.

Haiku Deck - Free iPad App

Haiku Deck

Haiku Deck is a free iPad app that allows  you to create wonderful presentations easily.  Haiku Deck allows you to choose from different styles and themes and then gives you access to free Creative Commons licensed photos.  It is so easy - kids can use it too!  On February 15th, the Haiku Deck blog written by Claire, gave some great ideas on how to use Haiku Deck in the classroom and iTunes gives a list of great ideas too.  Suggestions?  Science lab presentations, homework assignments, summarizing discussions, book talks, sharing books, reports, visual resumes, poems, highlights of lessons and pitching ideas.  Teacher presentations are always the key to how student's are going to listen - this tool can definitely make the difference.  On the Haiku Deck web site - they have a gallery of different presentations that students, teachers and other professionals have produced.  Here are a couple:

Catherine Carr created this presentation on Mobile Learning using Haiku Deck....

Ken Shelton created the presentation below.....

Can you think of great ways to put Haiku Deck to use?

App of the week: Dragon Dictation

What do you do with a room full of little ones and a bunch of iPads?

You could have them play games, take photos, or search for library books....

But what about something more ambitious like write reflections or create stories, tasks that require keyboarding skills? 

Dragon Dictation to the rescue.

Dragon dictation is a voice-recognition app. It allows the speaker to dictate their thoughts and instantly see them in text. It recognizes a variety of languages...40 at the time of this posting.

Tap the screen to start and tap it again when you're done speaking. Dragon dictation shows you where to speak into your iPad or other mobile device.

Once you've completed your message, you can edit, cut, copy, and paste it into other applications, or send it directly to your favorite social-networking site.

Why leave it just for your first-graders to dictate the stories they want to tell? Use it yourself to create a to-do list, send an e-mail, or create your latest blog post.

Apps of the Week - iSwifter & Rover

These two apps have been around a while, but I encountered colleagues

this past week to whom they were unknown, so I thought it best to

share, just in case you, dear reader, are also Flash-impaired.

As you are probably aware, iPads will not run flash. But the iSwifter

app makes it possible to view Flash content on an iPad. They do this

by executing the flash content on their own servers and then magically

forwarding it to the iPad. To the best of my knowledge, iSwifter was

created with gamers in mind, and it does ask if users are over 17. 

 

But never fear if you have your heart set on using Flash via iPad with

your students. Rover, by iSwifter, is the education app. With

appropriate firewalls in place, the Rover app ensures that downloaded

content is in compliance with CIPA.

Apps of the Week - BugMe! & Visualize

With 1000's of apps out there, how do you find what you need? My app choices are generally either serendipitous or word-of-mouth recommendations. I certainly haven't tried them all, but I am committing to share a couple of my favorite apps each week.

BugMe!

I am a messy thinker. Ann about fell out of her chair the first time she watched me take my to-do list, write each item on a separate sticky note, spread them out across my desk, sort, and stack into a prioritized list. "What happens if you lose them?" she asked.

Losing my stickies has never been an issue, despite the daily travel. Staying focused is. I just can't work down a to-do list without getting side-tracked from the highest priority. So a stack of stickies gives me one thing to focus on at a time. AND I love the physical act of crumpling up and throwing away each item when a task is complete.

Fortunately, they are some other messy thinkers out there who know how to create apps. Now I can create virtual stickies without fear of losing them. BugMe! is an app that allows you to create stickies, color-code and sort them. They can be "written" with a finger or, for you less-messy thinkers, keyed in. You can even set up reminders or save them to your launch screen. When a task is complete, throw them in the virtual trash can. I do not remember how I found this one, but for $1.99 it has been a steal. Between BugMe! And Outlook, I stay focused while on the fly.

VISUALIZE
Visualize is the photo layering program on my ipad that I used to create the graphic in my last post. (ThingLink was added later.) This program came as a recommendation from
Kathy Schrock at the Infographics session I attended at TxLA. There was a small cost which I cannot remember.... There is a free version, but I splurged and got the $0.99 version. This is the first program I have been able to successfully create visuals with on my iPad. It is eBay to use, but the provided backgrounds and stickers are limited. It allows for imported PNG files, but I have not yet tried that.

What are YOUR favorite apps?

What is Your Favorite Gadget, er, Tool?

I LOVE my iPad and cannot imagine my job without it.  It is portable and FAST.  Being on the fly, I work at libraries, in a cubicle at headquarters, from my car, at the local coffee shop... You name it.  I've even updated MARC records at the airport.

Dropbox allows me to access all of my files regardless of my location and the computer I am using.  I can even share files with my partner, so we can work together to add pages to our Policy & Procedure Manual or draft agendas for upcoming meetings without having to mail them back and forth. The Dropbox app allows me to open these files on my iPad.

I was overjoyed with these capabilities and then along came something BETTER.... CloudOn.  Now I am no longer limited to just viewing and emailing my documents from my iPad (or iPhone), I can manipulate the content of my Excel, Word, and PowerPoint files.

What is your favorite tool?