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Thing 23! Evaluate 23 Things

Go back to your thoughts/ideas about mobile devices and apps. Has anything changed as a result of this experience? I don't think so... I still think mobile devices and apps are fabulous for both professional and personal use. There are so many tasks you can complete faster (and with more flexibility) in an app than on a website. Of course, mobile devices have not yet gotten to the point of replacing PCs. What were your favorite Things and discoveries? I liked the education Thing a lot. I also am really excited to try out more infographic apps! How did you connect with others doing the 23 Mobile Things? I followed a lot of the participants who we're blogging on Tumblr. I also followed the 23 Mobile Things MN tumblr. I didn't really look at any bloggers outside of Tumblr, though. Were there any take-a-ways or unexpected outcomes from this program that surprised you? It was about what I expected. What could we do differently to improve upon this program’s format or content? I like that we're evaluating the program, but am more comfortable with private, anonymous evaluations. Not that I have anything to say that I can't say publicly, thank goodness!! If we offered a another 23 Things program like this in the future would you participate? For sure! Thank you so much MN Multitypes!! How would you describe your learning experience in one word or in one sentence, so we could use your words to promote 23 Things learning activities to others? This was a fun and useful professional growth opportunity for me. I love finding new ways to use my iPad for work!

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Thing 22! Discovering Apps I've used both the Apps Gone Free and AppsFire to discover new apps. This is something I did a lot when I first got my iPad. They post a lot of games and photo-related apps. There are also a few productivity and every so often, an educational app. Lately, I've had more luck discovering relevant new apps by either word of mouth or by reading a "best of" blog posting. One of the apps that I've been meaning to try out that I got from Apps Gone Free or AppsFire is game press. It looks like a cool app that helps you make your own games! I haven't had time to really get into it yet. I was hoping I could use it to make a library-themed game.

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Thing 21! Free-for-all I posted this image in a previous post when I was writing about Pinterest. Now I want to write about the app that I used to mark up that image. This is an app that I use quite often called Skitch. It is so fast and easy to mark up screenshots and images with Skitch. You can add text, arrows, hightlighting or pixelating. You can also just start drawing to get your idea across. I also have faculty members who use Skitch instead of SignNow to sign documents for work. It's a very handy app and the images turn out looking great!

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Thing 20! Games I tried out the Word Warp app. I could see this being a nice little game to pass a little time. You have 2 minutes to create as many words as you can with the letters provided. I like the short time frame. I don't play a lot of games on my iPad right now, but this looks like a good one because each round is just 2 min long.

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Thing 19! Hobbies One of the things I like to do most of all is visit art museums. Since I can't visit the Louvre any time I want to, I love that they have created an app! The app is called Louve HD. You can browse famous works by genre, time or name. Once you find one that you want to look at in more detail, you can select the HD option to download it and zoom in. The image I've attached here is a zoomed in portion from Filippino Lippi's Three Scenes from the Life of Virginia. You can really zoom in to see the details! Awesome, isn't it? And in the case of the Mona Lisa, you can actually see the details better in this app than you can in person at the Louvre!!

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Thing 18! Education I tried out the Fooducate app. I'm not on any weight loss diet, but I do like to eat a lot of unprocessed or minimally processed foods. I like how much nutritional info is included for each food. I also like the feature that lets you scan a barcode to see nutritional info!

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Thing 17! Connecting to community This MN 511 app is awesome - I usually look up my unfamiliar routes on MNDOT's website, but this app is actually easier to use. That's not always the case with apps. This is a good time of year to start using the MN511 app with all the warm weather construction!

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Thing 16! Audio

Well, I tried out the AudioBoo app, but not with enough success to include a link. I didn't think the sound came through as clear and loud as I wanted. I could see this app being useful for podcasting, if you could adjust the sound levels. One thing I liked about AudioBoo was that it was really easy to jump right in. You just press record and go. I also like that you can connect it to Twitter. This would be a cool way to use twitter in a little different way. One other audio-based app that I have tried before is VoiceThread. I liked how connected that one is to images. I tried to set up a VoiceThread for a discussion during NationalLibrary Week, but I didn't have any participants. That was before all the students got iPads so I could probably try it again. It would be fun if I could find an assignment to use VoiceThread with for a discussion.

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Thing 15! Infographics The Visualize app was a lot of fun to test out today. This would be a good one to use to create an infographic of some programs or to present some stats. I put some book jackets here to promote some of our nonfiction eBooks, but I don't think it's the best because I couldn't add links... Unless I'm mistaken? Does anyone know if you can add links in Visualize? I didn't see a way to do that. On my PC, I used Pictochart to make an infographic and was pretty happy with the results, but I don't see an app for that one.

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Thing 14! Videos I tried out the Magisto app and I like that you can integrate both images and video clips. It reminds me a lot of the Videolicious app. I've put in a video that I created with Videolicious to announce our new website redesign last year. This was fun and easy to create. The only problem I had with it is that it doesn't let you choose which parts of the image to zoom in or out on. Note: I used the Skitch app to annotate the images before putting them into Videolicious.

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Thing 13! Presentations! I tried out the Educreations app for explaining how libraries get materials to patrons. It was pretty fun! I could see using this with some screenshots or other pictures rather than the clip art in the future.

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Thing 12! Books! I don't read a lot on my iPad. I prefer to read in print or on my Nook (with paper white screen) because I find the iPad screen to be too much like looking at a computer screen. I look at a computer screen for most of my workday. I tried out the Free Books app and I could see myself recommending this one to people who want to read on their device. I really like the browse-ability of it. It looks like you can import other book files too, which would be fun.

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Thing 11! Library resources! Our library subscribes to Zinio and the Zinio app is definitely the best way to read these magazines. There are a lot of cool features. My favorite Zinio magazine is National Geographic because there are interactive videos, maps, and audio embedded within. It's a lot of fun. One thing we've been promoting with iPads is to have patrons add the library's website as an app icon. To do this, you open the website in Safari, use the "share" button (the square with an up arrow), and select "add to home screen."

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Thing 10! Sharing photos I tried out Snspchat because I've heard that it's basically replacing texting for a lot of people. My problem with it is that I don't use my iPad the way I use my phone ( and I don't have a smartphone to try Snapchat on). I don't have my iPad with me all that often so it's not convenient to use an app like Instagram or Snapchat. I think it's a lot of fun that you can draw on the pictures and that they're (mostly) not permanent!

Thing 9! Taking and editing photos. The LinePhoto app has a lot of really useful features. I like that there are a lot of collage and text features in this one. I could see it being useful for creating nice looking (certainly nicer than the one I made here) instructional images. There are plenty of touch up features for faces too so you can doll up your profile photos even if you had a bad hair day. I liked that I could use photos that I already took or have the option to take new ones in the app.

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Thing 8! Social media management tools I've tried HootSuite, but I don't find it very helpful. I think that's because I use my Twitter and Facebook accounts for different reasons. I find it easier just to check the two accounts individually, and I never use the scheduling feature. I could see HootSuite being a really useful app for libraries or librarians who need a way to schedule posts and communicate with patrons via social media.

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Thing 7! Content saving and sharing We all know Pinterest is great for sharing craft and recipe ideas, but I've also found it useful for saving library instruction ideas. I've also seen libraries using Pinterest as a tool to connect with patrons. I think that's a great idea.

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