Instructional project reflection

We were able to quickly decide on a topic suggested by Latrece, teaching seniors how to sign up for and use Facebook. Her and I both had personal experience assisting older member of our family with signing up recently and felt this would be useful for seniors while being focused on using social media. I think the most difficult part for us in constructing this lesson was trying to find a way to have our pretend seniors follow along on a computer. Given almost everyone in the class already had a Facebook, no one would be able to start a new one because it is linked to phone numbers and email addresses. We didn't want this to be a lecture for our classmates. We felt that keeping people engaged would happen by having them participate in the signup process.

The easiest part of the design process was actually coming up with what we wanted to go over. We wanted our learners to have a Facebook with a profile picture, be able to find friends, and be able to post messages by the end of our lesson. We just came up with the exact steps to do this. I feel that the class was engaged in the lesson even though it was material they did not need. Everyone played their roles very well and brought up legitimate issues seniors would encounter during our lesson; such as profile picture problems, not knowing which keys are which, and concerns about privacy and information. I was surprised at how fast the time went and how easy it felt to actually go through the lesson plan. It did not feel like a presentation which was nice, I tend to be very nervous when presenting something. Teaching feels much more calm to me. 

To check out our lesson plan click here.

Database tutorial reflection

For my database tutorial I decided to use Choice Reviews Online as the database I would go over. During my reference and user services course as a new library student I had a great deal of trouble with a collection development assignment because I was unaware of collection development tools available at the time. During my employment as a reference assistant at the Crown Library I have used this database on multiple collection development projects my supervisors have given me. I showed the viewer how to get to the database and how to do a search on the database for material.

When we were told about this project I immediately decided to use a screen capture software I have called Snagit. I had used the screencasting part of it once and to me it seemed like it would make this very simple. It was easy enough to record the video and after a few hiccups I got the audio to record as I made the video so that I didn't need to use an external program like audacity. However, after the video had been captured  I discovered that Snagit does not allow users to impose shapes or texts on top of the video despite allowing this on images you edit. It also has no video editing components to it. This was highly disappointing given how simple it would be to enable it. From here I tried out a video editing software called VideoPad that was available for free. While I was able to add text on top of my video it did not allow shapes of any kind and quickly became of no use to me. I wanted to be able to circle what I wanted the user to click but this was not an option. While Snagit will remain in my professional toolbox it was disappointing to discover its limitations.

Snagit would be simple to teach to others. You just select the frame size of the screen (you can exclude the url box and other parts of the desktop), click on the microphone to enable audio, and click record to make your video. Given the lack of video editing capabilities the user will need to record over again if they want to eliminate mistakes.

Pathfinder reflection

For my pathfinder I chose to focus on Latin American and Latino studies. Being Puerto Rican, I have a personal interest in this subject and a few months ago I created a LibGuide for the Rebecca Crown Library covering some resources for this subject. Given I had a list of all the resources and summaries of what was available in them already written down it seemed like it would be easier to create a pathfinder out of that material. When creating the pathfinder I tried looking at some of the other curation links like blendspace, educlipper, and feedly briefly but those seemed either to focused on creating actual lesson plans instead of research resources or to brief, not allowing for a proper description of a resource.

I ended up using Livebinders.com which was suggested in class last week. At first it seemed like is was too messy visually for me when we were given it as an example. It felt cluttered and a little hectic in my mind. After using it however, I feel like it was a great way to organize information. I didn't plan on having sub-tabs but after adding in some of the websites resources to the binder it seemed like the most logical thing to do. The fact that users can actually use the website within the Livebinder page was a nice feature that I think adds to how valuable this is as a tool. It was easy to change the layout of a tab, its color, and its place among the other tabs. Deleting an unnecessary tab was also simple and I didn't need to look up any instructional videos on how to use Livebinder despite this being my first experience with it. The only issue I had with it was that even after selecting an option or changing a setting the pop up window for that particular feature stays open till you close it. To me it would make sense for it to return you to the main page automatically after you click on an option. Livebinders will be added to my professional toolkit in the future. It will be great when creating pathfinders for patrons and fellow staff members alike.

Click here to open this binder in a new window.

Digital Storytelling Reflection

The most enjoyable part of this process was the interaction with my group members while creating it. We had a lot of fun locating images to put into the movie, deciding on a script, and convincing each other to try and perform the role. We laughed a great deal and it did not feel like we were doing actual work. The most difficult parts were technical issues (not being able to find the record button or separating audio) and we usually had to seek out help to resolve these issues. Even though the three of us had a little experience with iMovie, we still had to learn new things to be able to create our project. We even learned how to record audio in garage band and import it into iMovie prior to learning the shortcut to make the audio record button visible. 

This project would be great when trying to promote library evens or services to the community. We could make the video and have it published to the library page, email the link out to subscribing members of our newsletter, and try to have teachers play the videos for students/parents during orientations or weekly announcements. This project provides a great opportunity to teach kids not only how to produce media content but also what they are allowed to put within their content and how copyright laws work. They can have fun making the videos but also learn how to locate images, music, and other material that are licensed under creative commons. Within the library this medium can also be used to create book reviews that might help promote reading among other students.


 

Creating a Book Trailer

The book I chose to use for the book trailer was Born on a Rotten Day by Hazel Dixon-Cooper. The book itself details all the terrible traits a person may have based upon their zodiac sign. The goal of my trailer was to shock and amuse the audience by using positive and negative comparisons for a sign while also having a cool picture representing the sign. Doing this in Animoto was both simple and fun. The music available seemed like a good fit for a zodiac book; the spiderweb theme added a bit of the dark feel I wanted for the audience. They get to discover their dark side if they read the book so a dark theme and music go great. While at first it was difficult to get the text character limit down, after the first couple pictures were added in this became easy. The preview option for the video was much appreciated as well. I will be adding Animoto to my professional toolkit for later use.

The other site I decided to try was Masher.com because I enjoyed the title to be honest. While it was easy enough to add content the options for themes were very limiting and even though there was a link to check for masher music to use in the video for free I could not actually get any music to come up. I found free music through the creative commons website and deliberately picked a 30 second clip to hopefully keep the video short but the video was 2 minutes instead. There was no way I could locate to limit the time an image was on screen or the length of the entire video. Also you are not able to add captions to the pictures which I disliked. There was no option for previewing the video before it was created either; another negative in my view. It also turned the image of the book cover from its original vertical position and wouldn't let me change it back. This was just frustrating. I don't think I will ever use this to make a book trailer again because it feels like a less functional PowerPoint slide show. This tool will not be going in my professional toolkit either.

 

Making a Promotional Poster

While developing the flyers I was focused on creating something that would be eye catching for college students. For the Smore flyer, it only took me about 30 minutes to create a product that I felt would catch someone's eye and also communicate all the necessary information readers needed to understand what events there would be and when they would happen. The ability to add in a video was another plus since I feel people would be attracted to it. Were I doing this for an actual event I would make a video about banned book week and keep it short, about 30 seconds to a minute instead of the library tour video. The layout creates a good contrast between the text and background. The divided parts come together nicely as a whole piece. In the future I think I will be using Smore when trying to create nice flyers. 

I decided to use Microsoft Publisher for the PDF flyer I needed to make and still feel frustrated with the design. I changed the color scheme between the text and background multiple times to try and have a good contrast. I didn't want an image hard to see from far away or that would clutter the poster so I used a transparent simple one and then added some shapes on it to create a banned book image. Prior to settling on this I did go through multiple images and all just seemed to clutter the poster instead of adding to the design. The text was something else I had an issue with; there is less on the PDF poster but it still feels like to much to me. I tried to use horizontal and vertical lines to draw the eye of the viewer. I also tried to use alignments to make it look a bit more interesting. In the end I feel what I came up with would be acceptable at least. 

The two flyers: 

Subscription Database Brochure Reflection

When deciding what database to use when making this brochure I tried to pick the one most used at my current place of work and it overwhelmingly seemed like Academic Search Complete (ASC) was used the most. Dominican University offers a large number of databases for patrons but when a student comes to me seeking assistance with research I usually find myself teaching him/her how to perform a database search through ASC since it is listed on the library home page. Also when considering my audience I felt the brochure would be focused on freshman or beginning University students that may not be aware of how to find helpful research. It is these students that I usually walk through accessing the database. Then I teach them how to use Boolean statements to find the results they need without having one long statement that is to specific for tangible results. 

I chose to use a trifold pamphlet with the idea that it can be given out during freshman orientation to students. This way when they need to start researching for classes they have an idea of how to use the database, that it has articles, some of the broad subject areas it has information for, and that they can come to the library for more help. I also tried to include information about our web reference and online tutorials for students that may be unable to come to the library or uncomfortable with coming to us for help. I do realize that my brochure is somewhat text heavy and this was deliberate. When putting in screen shots for the databases I found that the image was getting to distorted because it needed to be re-sized to fit the thin column width. A bad image seemed less useful then some text about what to do.This pamphlet can serve as another outreach tool for the library to get information about our available resources out there to our students. It also serves our patrons as a beginner guide to our most popular database.