23 Mobile Things * Thing 23!!!!!!

Evaluate 23 Mobile Things

I just completed the survey for 23 Mobile Things. It is an accomplishment to have done all 23 things and come out on the other side being a daring mobile user - my goal from the beginning! Creating the blog and learning of the mobile device tips was a huge leap for me. I figured if I could do that much, I could do the rest. I know we could do the things in any order, but I went in numerical order and it was perfect. Each successful thing got me excited and ready to take on the next thing; they built on each other whether you intended that or not they did and I am appreciative.

I knew my knowledge was minimal at best of mobile devices and all their capabilities but now feel empowered to keep learning. The possibilities are endless and it is refreshing and it feels good to learn!

My plan now is to review the 23 things, beginning with thing 2 so that all may solidify in my brain!

I look forward to the next 23 Things!

Description of my experience - Dabbling to Daring!

Thank you.

23 Mobile Things * Thing 22!

Discovering Apps

I learned about Quixey, the app for finding new apps when I was reading another blogger's post. It is worth bookmarking for future reference. (I did)

I also encourage you all to dabble in Top 265 Best iPad apps 2014 that 23 Mobile Things found for us. Yes, searching online can be a good friend when searching for apps.

Apps Gone Free is another great app for getting freebies from the App Store; apps that are free for a day or more. Apps Gone Free allows browsing in 8 languages, allows sharing so others may enjoy the free apps, and encourages recommendations for future free apps.

• FineScanner turns your iPad into a scanner!
• RealiFit personal training in my pocket! That's fun!
• 50music - listen to 50 music styles and millions of different songs. 

That is enough for now, but I will be back to see what else is free tomorrow!

23 Mobile Things * Thing 21!

Free-for-All

We have a Mini i-Pad cart that is checked out for use from the library. Teachers have been the ones to request the apps that have been downloaded to the mini lab. This free-for-all thing will be my excused chance to dabble in these apps. (80 in all)

For sure all libraries that partner with Gale should have My School downloaded as it is one stop shopping for students' research.

The apps are drill and skill games directed towards grades Prek-5.

Here is a partial list of those available:

• Number Line
• 3D Organs
• Bills and Coins
• Geoboard
• BrainPop
• Cursive Practice
• Spelling Bug
• Grammar Jammers -Primary
• Sight Words - Sight Cards
• Daily Grammar
• Hands on Math (levels 1,2,3)
• Spelling Test

That's a dabbling dozen for you all!

23 Mobile Things * Thing 20!

Games!

Oh my we get to play!

Anything to do with words is my game; shades of Scrabble up north when I was a kid! I played Word Abacus, Word Collapse and Word Warp and best of all Wordmaster. I will share these apps with my students and family but then take them off my i-Pad as my battery dies quickly and I need it for class presentations rather than playing!

Dabbling in addicting word games...

23 Mobile Things * Thing 19!

Hobbies

After reading other 23 Mobile Thing blogs I dabbled with Quixey an app finder that was recommended. From there I downloaded an App titled Photo Garden. It was to help plan a new garden as well as offering photos to inspire. It froze so I deleted it; you get what you pay for!

On to Spotify the app the 23 Mobile Things offered! I do have Pandora for my music but this supposedly is a must-have for music fans! It is free on tablets and so we can listen to music any time any where. This works for me! I listened to several of my favorite tunes quietly in the library. Now it is back to books.

23 Mobile Things * Thing 18!

Education

Apps for Educators: I downloaded Bill Nye the Science Guy. Our faculty uses his DVD's so I thought this app would be a nice addition to our resources. I can' believe it is a free app. There are so many good ones. I did share the list with my faculty.

Glorified games with fun facts involved...intuitive and appropriate for grades 2-7.

Google Earth-Amazing. Students will love this. Gave Google our location and it takes us right to our school. One would think they could almost find their way in to the library! I went to Rome Italy for fun. Google Earth has provided several You Tube videos to make us feel at  home. Endless hours of meandering await the viewer.

23 Mobile Things * Thing 17!

Connecting to Community

The task for this post is to investigate an app that will connect us to our greater community be it local or a bit out state. I have chosen to investigate the app Highlights of the Superior Hiking Trail as the Superior Hiking Trail travels just to the southwest of property my family owned from 1983 to 2003 in Grand Marais, MN; a place near and dear to my heart.

Truly a trip down memory lane. The trail is calling me back, perhaps for a fresh spring walk or once the snow goes out a June hike! The app also introduced me to the Superior Hiking Trail association; shta.org.
Please take a look-see at the photo tab. You will not be disappointed. See you on the trail!

I plan to download the Minneapolis Skyway app and share it with family new to Mpls.! It looks like it is the ticket to a wonderful app for navigating downtown Mpls.! HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM, not so. Couldn't get it from the app store.

 P.S. After this winter everyone should have the 511 Minnesota app as well. DO NOT USE IT WHILE DRIVING!

23 Mobile Things * Thing 16!

Audio

The possibilities are endless...mobile devices with their built in microphones allow recordings anytime any where. In the library I could record students reading aloud and play it back for them to hear their own reading and story telling. I know that they would get a kick out that! Who needs cassette tapes and recorders when you have an I-pad!

I chose to try the app SoundCloud. Billed as a "Huge Social Sound Platform," including music, comedy, news, podcasts and the ability to record my own. Note that 120 minutes of recordings are free and after that it is a $6/month fee if this is a keeper! Deleting old recordings allows new ones to record and freeing up your minutes.

First I watched the Tutorial which for all the mobile things that offer this, I do watch and they have been valuable.
...I could not get past the Accept button, so I tried Audioboo! It is supposed to be simple where I can record up to 3 minutes of audio; enough to do a booktalk/review! I was able to record a lesson plan for Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson for my PreSchoolers. The end result being an art project I title PreK and the Purple Marker! One of the more fun activities with Audioboo is to have the readers share their own stories in their own voice - I know they would get a kick out of that! Please be sure to visit the AudioBoo tab for Educators.

23 Mobile Things * Thing 15!

Infographics

I love the first sentence of Mobile Thing 15!

Infographics are ways you can display information visually. How great will this be for our visual learners (which in my mind is so important)?

info.Graphics is all about finding infographics. Per 23 Mobile Things it is a collection of the newest infographics categories including education, social media, technology and just for fun infographics. Well long story short, I downloaded the app and I could not get it to open on my iPad. Which may be why it had 2 out of 5 stars for a rating...

On to Infographics Hub:

So I clicked on What makes Some Things Antiques? It was a 5 star rated info graphic with a lot to say. I sent it to my e-mail to see how it would appear. It is possible to Facebook, Tweet, and Pin it and add it to Linked In. The information was gathered by the folks at loveantiques.com. The librarian in me asks is this info authoritative? Is it opinion? We have stressed over the years to use reliable resources. These certainly are fun, but reliable? I would love to have others thoughts on this....I go back to my first sentence; it will help our visual learners!

23 Mobile Things * Thing 14!

Videos

With 5 photos from my iPad album I was able to create a very quick video using Magisto! This app provides the backdrop and music options to make your photo/video creation. This was very fun and quick; probably the quickest mobile thing to work with yet. I would love to do this with my Middle Schoolers in the library. Let them loose with a camera and create the videos. I was thinking they could take pictures of their sources and use the video as their bibliography. Who said a bibliography has to be a type written page. The students would still be giving credit where credit is due.

My video titled Birds of Summer was all of 6 seconds but I was able to include the pictures of a Robin's nest from egg to hatch-lings to an empty nest from last summer at my home. If I wanted to publish this video I would have had to open an account with Magisto, which I am not ready to do at this time. This being noted I would have to figure out the logistics for student accounts in order to publish...hmm.

At any rate, it was well worth the play time!

23 Mobile Things * Thing 13!

Presentations

Thing 13 introduces presentation apps. I thought I would try the Lensoo Create app but first watched the tutorial which with so many of the Mobile Things has proven to be well worth it!

Lensoo was billed as absurdly simple to use.

• Use Lensoo to express yourself, record and share your creative abilities.
• Express your thoughts, your ideas and publish them. Students can come back on their own time to review.

The example was given where students were learning about inference. The tutorial showed Kindergartners creating their own lessons with Lensoo about inference!

The narrator said it is used by inventors, to artists to folks sending a note to their crush! Tomorrow is Valentine's Day - I just might have to send a note!
If as a teacher/librarian you are looking for whiteboard technology on your iPad, then Lensoo is for you.

Please note this application requires IOS 7, I bit the bullet and downloaded it. Here's hoping that it will be without glitches!
Here is my Valentine Lensloo creation:
http://create.lensoo.com/#!watch;v=b5rM

23 Mobile Things * Thing 12!

Books, Books, & More

...as in books, ebooks, digital storytimes and a look at what Amazon, Apple, and Google have to offer in their free ebooks and audio books libraries.

I created a children's library with iStoryBooks. Readers PreK to 2nd grade would enjoy the stories shared here. Twenty Five fiction and nonfiction free books make up this collection with the option to purchase premium titles. The free titles were in my opinion adequate, with average pictures, text and audio. It does take a while to set up your free library as each book is individually downloaded. One title stood out among
 the others and that was Sea Animals with lovely real life photos!

I do have an app from previous browsing titled MeeGenius that is similar in quality to iStoryBooks. Bottom line - you get what you pay for!

I did not download the Audiobooks App but I would for sure share this with faculty and students as I am a strong proponent of audiobooks for struggling readers.

I will put in a plug here too for Teen Book Finder as well. I have used this app in the past as it directs teens, parents and educators to the Young Adult Library Services Association's awards and lists. It has proven to be a solid resource for teen book selection and recommendation.

23 Mobile Things * Thing 11!

Library and Reference

Thing 11 asks that we investigate the ELM Mobile site - so I am off to dabble....elm4you.org!

Oh my goodness I feel as though I have hit the jackpot! This is one stop library shopping for teachers and students! I feel bad that I am just now learning of this great portal. Here are some of the things we have available at the ELM Mobile site:

• Research Now connects you to the mobile-friendly databases. At the bottom of that page is a link to the full list of all ELM databases.
• Ask a Librarian connects you to AskMN, 24/7 reference service.
• Plan Your Research takes you to the Research Project Calculator.
• View Help Videos will take you to the Minitex Reference Outreach & Instruction YouTube Channel where all the ELM video tutorials are held.
• Find Your Library connects you to the State Library Services’ Library Directory.
• Friend Us on Facebook! connects you to the ELM Facebook page.

Can't wait to share this with my faculty!

Searchasaurus is a data base provided by ELM that I discovered thanks to 23 Mobile Things. It is a perfect research tool for grades K-5. March in 5th grade brings animal research projects to the library. Having the ELM Mobile site to use with our Mini iPad lab will be perfect. I can demo and the kids can investigate - so simple! Thank you 23 Mobile Things.

Just received a request to share with 8th grade research tips for "1930's American History." We will be more than dabbling, we will be digging!

23 Mobile Things * Thing 10!

Sharing Photos

Instagram and Snapchat are two programs that I know our Middle Schoolers live by! I will be happy to see what all the fuss is about! SMILE - you're on Snapchat!

I had an interesting chat with a Middle School Boy. He said ReadLady, don't take Snapchat seriously. It is fun and a novelty. He said he would never use it for school but likes to use it for videos of friends! He said it was a techie toy, easy and so fun to use!

• Snapshot is available across multiple Platforms
• Capture photos or self or turn camera around for regular use
• Can add text to your snap
• Draw as well a little message if so inclined!
• Can set time as to how long you want your snap to be seen by the people receiving it
• Press send from your contact list - it's a snap!
• Video and snaps are viewable up to 10 seconds
• Can send to multiple people but they can only view it once and for up to the time limit set
• If the receiver takes a screen shot of your image you are notified they did so

So now you have it!

23 Mobile Things * Thing 9!

Taking and Editing Photos

I had chosen Photo Editor by Aviary and was not able to download the App as I need OS 7.0.4 and I do not have that yet so now I will try Line Camera!

We celebrated Catholic Schools Week last week and had lots of fun in the library including a guessing game I called Are You Smarter than Your Librarian!? I took so many cute pictures of my reading winners and with Line Camera I was able to put them into a collage format, one of which I have attached here! I can imagine using this app with the kids in so many ways; from booktalks to a slideshow showcasing the latest additions to the library. Great fun! I need to spend a lot more time with this hands on fun!

P.S. I feel so proud of myself to actually get this cute collage in my blog!!! Small steps....oh and one more thing, be sure to watch the tutorial for Line Camera! Crazy Mike's review will get you thinking outside the photo! I added a cute border!

23 Mobile Things * Thing 8!

Social Media Management Tools


Managing my social media! Ha! I don't want to twitter and do Facebook but I will be happy to explore! Here goes something!

First of all I was surprised that I had to download an app...I have a lot to learn! I did not want to sign in or sign up with another password! Guess I will go on to Facebook! I will review the Facebook iPad App Tutorial which in the long run proved to be enough. I am pleased to see the various privacy levels with Facebook. My initial reaction is that it is overkill and a repetitive resource for us. So many of the First 7 Mobile Things we have perused are capable of doing what Facebook does.  Frankly I do not have the time and choose not to Facebook. Sorry if I am showing my 50 something age. Now, I am getting ticked as I see it as a waste of my precious time. Sorry 23 Mobile Things I'm not buying in to it.