Thing 5: Audio Tools

I have been doing audio book reviews with 8th graders for years, but this thing inspired me to take that to the next level.  I always called them "podcasts", but they really weren't because it was never gathered to be presented that way.  I have previously been sharing them through QR Codes on books, which was effective, but limited access to physical presence in the library.  Through this "thing" I explored Anchor, and have so far published three episodes of our "LG Reads" podcast.  This allows me to share the student reviews through our library social media, as well as providing access on the books through QR Codes. 

While working through this process I also explored the tools Beautiful Audio Editor (Chrome Extension) and Clyp: https://clyp.it/ , which I may use in the future instead of Audacity. I was able to provide them as options for seniors doing interactive exhibits this month, however none of the students opted to try them, instead using QuickTime to create screencasts. One of my frustrations with audio is that we can't embed it into Google Slides, which would increase the ease of access and sharing to a broader audience.
As I explore tools for creation of audio, and ideas for sharing/ presenting audio, I have also made it a point to explore quality audio content by subscribing to a few Podcasts myself. I have been enjoying "So We've Been Thinking" and "Hey YA", although the challenge continues to be finding time to enjoy this media type, as it isn't my "go-to" in the way that blogs and visual content would be.

Thing 3: Photo Fun

My goal for this thing was to explore more potential on Social Media for the library.  We have a Facebook, Twitter, SnapChat and Instagram, but I am not very consistent in how I use them.  Part of this is the time factor, which is always going to be a factor, but part of it is also being purposeful in reaching my audience through these different tools.

I really appreciated the article that said, "Facebook is old school, Twitter is succinct, Instagram is highly polished and curated but Snapchat is silly and goofy and fun."  I typically share all of my posts across platforms, but this got me think not only about there being different audiences, but also a different purpose within these medias.
Since then I have been asking myself more about the type of content and tone/ mood being shared through each.  I would say that Facebook reaches more of an adult audience, in particular our school community (teachers and parents, etc.), Twitter is my professional platform where I connect with other educators both within and outside of my school, SnapChat and Instagram are more where students live.  Even within these medias I should have a different type of presence though- lighter on SnapChat and more polished on Instagram.

To this end, I have spent some time playing- especially on SnapChat.  I created a Filter and experimented with sharing it for others to download- that could be a lot of fun incorporated into some broader contest or interactive board, so I will revisit it when we do Bookopoly later this spring.

Some of the ideas I have for hashtags for rotating/ intentionally presenting pictures are listed below:
Book Snaps
#LGMakers
#LGReads
#EmpoweredLearner
Global Connections