Thing 23

Evaluation
I did the other two 23 Things programs and enjoyed them very much. I do appreciate having the chance to take part in a group activity where we can learn from each other. I actually did go to other blogs and check out their comments on the "thing of the day." 

I thought that this was another good opportunity to learn new tools. It won't be long and everyone will be toting around a mobile device and we need to know about them too. At my library last year, all the librarians got a tablet of their choice and since then we have had some show and tell sessions. This program will give me some more apps to share.

Truth be told, I would not have tried many of the apps if I had not done 23 Mobile Things. I do admit being annoyed each time I had to make another online account to try an app, but being able to use Google accounts, Twitter accounts and Facebook accounts instead helped a lot. Even if I never use some of the apps again, at least I know about them and can recommend them to those who might find them useful.

Thing 22

I did not have an App for discovering apps, so I first looked at Quixey, but when I tried to install it on my Sony android tablet, I was informed that it is not compatible. I then went to Droid of the Day (DOTD) which suggests a different app for the day. DOTD lets you see lists of apps by date, name, category, top tools, top games, loved apps, hated apps, and installed apps.

Under the fitness category I found a 7 minute workout that runs you through a set of exercises like jumping jacks, wall sit, push-up, crunches, planks, squats, lunges, etc. The sets are quite short but intense. There are 12 exercises for 30 seconds with 10 seconds of resting  in between. It seems to be backed by a scientific study and if I ever get the motivation to try it, I will let you know how it goes. The idea of getting a full workout in only seven minutes is intriguing however.

Thing 21

I love to travel so I am always looking for travel apps to make my life easier. For example, every time I signed up to go to a conference, I would make my hotel reservations and travel plans and then, in a very unorganized way, I would search email for the confirmations whenever I was wondering when and where and how I was traveling. Then I downloaded TripIt and have used that to track my plans. I forward all the confirmations to TripIt and TripIt creates a detailed daily itinerary. The itineraries are available offline which is extremely handy and I can get directions, maps and weather for each trip. Plans can be synced with my Outlook calendar and each plan can be edited manually too. It makes traveling a lot easier when I don't have to remember to print out pages of documents before I leave home.

Here is what an itinerary looks like in TripIt:

Thing 20

So Thing 20 is games and I downloaded one last night and even though it was described as addictive, I went ahead and played it. The app was Take Ten, a brain puzzle game. It is a grid of numbers and you try to remove them in adjoining matching  pairs or in adjoining pairs that equal ten. If you get to the point where you still have numbers left but cannot remove any (and believe me, you will get to this point) you click the + button and the puzzle adds several more rows. I never won and I could not figure out a strategy, but I had some fun trying. I used to play the bubble game too, but got tired of it. I still like to play solitaire occasionally and also have a long streak of playing video poker behind me. I had to quit playing it so much when I realized that my neck was hurting at work from playing poker at night holding up an iPod 1 for several hours. I think I had better wait until retirement for any more games. I really understand how people can get caught up in playing a game, but am worried that not everyone can stop. 

Here is Take Ten!

Thing 19

Thing 19 is hobbies. I have been intrigued by geocaching ever since I went to a conference in another state and one of my colleagues was having a nice walk and entertaining himself by trying to find a nearby geocache. Since then I have attended sessions on geocaching in the Library at two different conferences, bought my husband a GPS thinking he might be interested in it (wrong!) and downloaded the app, c:geo, to my first smartphone. When I sit in my office and turn on the app, I see a whole page full of caches that are within a half mile of me. Someday I am going to go out and find them!

The app is completely free and if other people are using the same app, you can see their location and what cache they are going after. Libraries could use them in scavenger hunts for different locations and services--I imagine most students have a phone that they could use for this. I think it would be fun, but I think I would rather take part in something like this than organize it.

Thing 18

Thing 18 is education and I tried several of the apps. I know some Spanish so I tried Duolingo which is a completely free language learning program. The webpage says that Duolingo will always be free because the users "create value" by translating documents while they learn. However, I did not see any option for this in the application but then again, maybe you have to pass all the modules before they would let you do any translating. I tried a few basic lessons and they seem to assume that you know certain things before you start. Since I did know some things I had no problem but I think it would take some creative thinking to catch on that the article ending usually matches the noun ending and other basic rules of grammar. Still the website cites a study that indicates the app is as effective as a semester of a college language. You can't beat that!

I also installed Today's Document by the National Archives and Records Administration. The app brings up a different historical document for each day. Today's document (June 13) is the opinion of the court by chief Justice Earl Warren in the Case of Miranda v. Arizona, 06/13/1966. I sent it back to my birthday and found the D-day statement to soldiers, sailors, and airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force, 6/44. This is a great way to pick up on tidbits of history. Imagine how you could impress your friends in games of trivia.

I am of the opinion that you can learn almost anything you want on the Internet, so whatever you need, just Google it.

Thing 17

Connecting with community has many interesting apps that I am very interested in trying. I don't know if I should try ones I am interested in and see if the app convinces me to go there or just wait and see if I go and use the app when I get there. That said I think I will tell you about a different app that I discovered at a conference a few weeks ago. It is called Field Trip--I have the android version but I think that it has an Apple version too.
Field Trip finds local places of interest when you get near to them. When I sit at my desk at MSU, I get information about the Amos Owen Garden of American Indian Horticulture which is grown and maintained at MSU. Another place nearby is our Highland Park which is billed as Mankato's First City Park and apparently was first called Bunker Hill but the city decided to name it Highland when they made it into a park. The listings that come up as nearby is every single art sculpture on our city art walking tour. It lists the sculptor, something about him/her and something about the work itself. I highly recommend this app.
The app draws information from several sources including Arcadia, Historvius, Food Network, Zagat, Atlas Obscura, and Daily Secret among others.I had not heard of most of these sources, so now will have to explore them too.
I also downloaded the Mankato 311 app. I think it is great to be able to report problems right when you see them. I have done it by email in the past and Mankato actually responds and tries to rectify the problem if possible.

Thing 16

I picked SoundCloud to try out for Audio Files, thing 16. SoundCloud is more than just recording. It lets you hear music, record audio and share what you record. I saw it referred to as the YouTube for audio files. It could be used to record oral histories or you could make travel comments and put them on Facebook. You could record yourself reading a book for your grandchildren. The app includes the capability to geotag recordings with local information. There are a lot of possibilities.

This app was actually more than I bargained for since the site it connects to includes music and audio in all genres--like a Spotify site. I used my Facebook to log in but I suppose this is another account for me on another site that I probably won't use again.

Thing 15

Infographics is a new term for me although once I started looking at examples of infographics, I realized it is just a new term applied to updated ways of using graphs, charts, and other graphics to show data. These infographics are visual representations of information that present complex information quickly and clearly. You can see patterns and trends at a glance rather than poring over tables of raw data. I am sure everyone would agree that seeing complex data represented in this way is much easier to understand and use.

I created the infographic above using i Visual Info Touch Lite. Since I write a number of reports that display various statistics, a program like this would probably be very useful. If you look at my different labeled balls in my graphic, their relative sizes have nothing to do with the numbers they represent. I just sized the smaller balls in relation to the biggest ball. Not very scientific or accurate I am afraid, so I would need to work on making these more accurate. The app itself was easy to use and I was able to save it and use it here without any problem. This topic is well worth my time to explore it more fully.

Thing 14

Thing number 14 is videos. I looked at the Vine application and watched some of the six second videos. Some were silly, of course, but some of them showed an amazing amount of information in six seconds. I found another link to videos that stitched videos together into something longer and more meaningful. In the right creative hands, they could be very useful. I am not sure how it could be used for a library, but I could see it as part of some larger presentation. The app itself was easy to use and it came with a very short tutorial that showed the instructions on the screen as you made the video.

Thing 13

Thing 13 has a some presentation apps and whiteboard apps. I tried the Deck Slideshow Presentation App first. It was very simple to use once I figured it out, but it seemed very simplistic. I would not have wanted to try to explain anything complicated using this app. I made five slides pretty quickly and picked out a theme that didn't cost anything and I was done. There was not a lot of choice for free themes.

I also tried the Haiku Deck and that was really easy and fun to use. The tutorial was entertaining and I quickly had an attractive short presentation. I used my Twitter account to upload the presentation and then was able to access it online. This is handy if you have to present and will have online access. I would use this for something short and quick, but for the usual presentations I feel like I need PowerPoint is the best choice. I did read somewhere that you can import PowerPoint presentations into Haiku Deck and I suppose if you wanted online access you might do that. However, if I had already gone through the trouble of making a PowerPoint presentation, I doubt I would import it into Haiku.

Thing 12

For Books, Books, Books, I picked the Audiobooks App to try. Everything is in the public domain and therefore free to listen to.The App works well, streaming the audio smoothly. The files download eventually, so you can listen to them offline.  I listened to a bit of Black Beauty and found it clear and enjoyable listening. I then started listening to Alice in Wonderland and it had a whole cast of narrators which is really quite impressive for a free audio book. Free audio books are also available in different languages, so I got a book in Spanish in hopes of refining my comprehension. There is also an offering of recent podcasts so I now have one from NPR to enjoy later.

 The app has automatic bookmarking and a sleep timer. You can pick from a list of  titles, authors, genres, narrators, languages, and even a "Surprise Me" category. The player has the usual controls, rewind, fast forward, play, etc. It tells you what part you are on and how many minutes left. I did have a problem with the downloading of a book. I changed my mind after it started and then was not able to stop it in progress. The delete function says delete "heard" podcasts, so I wonder if I will be able to get rid of it without listening to it. I will let you know when it gets done downloading!

I have downloaded a lot of audio books through OverDrive from the public library and although the selection is better and the titles are newer, I think the quality of  listening with this App is excellent and very easy to accomplish. There are some ads running across the bottom of the App but I did not find it a problem. It really is amazing what you can get for free.

Thing 11

My Library does not have its own mobile page or App, but we do have a few Apps that we have subscribed to and use. We have the Chronicle of Higher Education App and the Press Reader App from Newspaper Direct. We also have Browzine, an App  we have paid for that allows our users to create virtual bookshelves of journals in their subject areas. Individual articles can be saved and read offline in an easier to read tablet format. It is easy to organize your professional reading using this tool.

We have publicized all these tools in our LibGuides subject guides, our newsletter, our homepage, and on our electronic monitors throughout the Library. I am not sure if we can get any statistics for these Apps, but it would be interesting to know if they are being used given the time we have devoted to them. I, myself, enjoy reading on tablets and reading journal articles is (to me) better on a tablet than on a computer screen. You can tilt the screen and bring it closer to your face and sit anywhere you like (almost like reading a book) Even though the Apps work on phones, I am not sure I would ever read articles on a
phone.

 

Thing 10

I had never used Instagram before but set up an account and logged in. I lurked around seeing if there was anyone I knew there. Since I have two relatives on Facebook who are either professional photographers or budding professional photographers, it was easy to find their Instagram accounts and see what they shared. I found some very creative photos and it really showed me the difference between pictures I take and pictures they take! Nevertheless, I snapped a photo in the Instagram app and checked out the editing functions. Editing is very simple in Instagram--I liked it better in the Aviary photo editor. I used Flickr a few years back, but stopped and I have the feeling I won't do much sharing on Instagram either. I am glad I tried it.

Thing 9

I picked the Photo Editor by Aviary for my photo App. I snapped a picture of some bushes in my front yard, cropped the picture and added a frame. It was ready to share with any of the Social Media sites, if I felt it was worth sharing.The App is very simple and intuitive to use. You can crop and change the orientation very easily. For changing color, etc you can change the saturation, brightness, contrast, sharpness, take out red eye, whiten and use filters to change the hue and lighting.

You can also add stickers, word bubbles and text if you wish.

Here is my edited image. It has a white frame around it that is hard to see. This is a great application to do simple editing on a mobile device. I would use it again.

Thing 8

Thing 8 is Social Media Management Tools. I do have Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, but I have always thought of them as separate things. I would not post the same things to my Twitter account that I would put on my Facebook account and I would be even more careful with anything I put on my LinkedIn account. However, I can see where a management tool would be very useful for someone who might manage a number of accounts for their work.

I looked at a couple of the tools and picked Buffer to focus on for this posting. Buffer can be set up to post to Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google+ pages. The free account allows you to connect one account for each to your Buffer account. Once you have this set up, you can write several posts and have them sent out at different times.You can schedule for a specific time and you can also pause your account so that nothing goes out. Buffer has browser extensions for Chrome, Safari, and Firefox to make sharing easier. You can get analytics and statistics to see how your posts perform. The company has different plans to meet different needs and I can see where companies would find this program useful.

Thing 7

I can't tell you how many times I have found websites that I intend to visit again but immediately forget about  or cannot find it again even when looking a day later. The closest I ever came to being online organized was my iGoogle account where  I stored a number of bookmarks that I used constantly.iGoogle no longer exists but my bookmarks live on in Google bookmarks. However, I have to go to the bookmarks page and add a link for each bookmark--not hard, but not really convenient  either.

I have a Pinterest account, but previously did not go beyond just looking at other people's lists.I have now installed the Firefox bookmarklet for Pinterest and this makes it really easy to add links to my account. I found out that 23 Mobile Things has a Pinterest board. I have read a few articles about how different people are using their boards and what kinds of lists they are making. One that interested me was using Pinterest to plan a vacation. You can make a place board and then search for the place in Pinterest. You can find options for nearly everything for your trip, from lodging to entertainment to restaurants, on Pinterest. I am sure there are many uses for Pinterest beyond the usual.

Thing 6

Thing 6 which is creating and editing docs is a very useful one. I have used Google Documents for years, even sharing and writing a presentation with two other people around the state. The fact that Google Documents converted our PowerPoint was a bit of a problem, but two of us just went along with it. Our colleague who used the most recent version of PowerPoint  ran into problems on presentation day because the campus we presented at did not have the most recent version of PowerPoint on their presentation equipment. QuickOffice does not convert documents so that seems like a positive thing.

 I decided to look at both CloudOn and QuickOffice. Both Apps connect to Google Drive and DropBox which I use. CloudOn seemed the easiest to use because the appearance and functions looked more familiar to me. QuickOffice could not open Google Drive documents without downloading and installing another App called Docs.

 I love using a tablet for certain things, but I do not prefer it for creating and editing documents, spreadsheets or presentations. I would use an app like to this open email attachments or agendas when in meetings. So, I would use these apps to view documents but would not use them to create documents (except for extremely simple ones). I think CloudOn would be good for iPad users who often have problems with Office documents.

Thing 5

As you can see I am working against a deadline trying to do 20 things in the last week. It is not as bad as it sounds because I have been actively using tablets and have tried many Apps already. However, the problem with procrastinating with these Apps is that some are no longer available. I could not find Springpad and Bamboo Paper for my Android and Dragon Dictation is Apple only so I ended up with Remember the Milk.

I had used Remember the Milk a year or so ago so maybe it is an App with some lasting power. It is an online reminder and task manager. You can access your reminders and tasks from any device and get email reminders. You can share tasks and add them to your calendar. There are Remember the Milk addins for both Firefox and Chrome. If you pay for the Pro version you can even sync it with Outlook (although it does not look like it is compatible with Outlook 2013). There are a lot of ways available to do tasks and reminders and Remember the Milk is a good one, but you may already have something built into your device or email that will do the same.

Thing 4

Flipboard sounded like too much work for me so I selected Zite. The App scans millions of articles each day, categorizes them and delivers them to interested readers. It was extremely easy to set up with a dangerously long list of interesting subjects to add to a reading list. As soon as I added a bunch, I was lost in the reading, going from article to article and scanning through the different subject areas. This is a dangerous app for me and I am afraid that I could lose whole days wandering around in it. I think that I would need to limit myself to one topic and maybe limit my time so that I don't waste too much time reading through articles.

Zite has agreements with many publishers including Bleacher Report, CNN, The Daily Beast, FOX Sports, HLN tv, The Huffington Post, Motley Fool, The Next Web and VentureBeat. I saw many different sources and the educator in me wants to remind people to evaluate their sources. The App learns about the reader's preferences from articles that are read and gets smarter the more you use it.

I also discovered that FlipBoard has bought Zite so who knows how much longer it will be around. As we have seen Apps can have a very limited life and makes you want to stick with the ones that have been around for a while. I did enjoy testing Zite and plan to get back to it when I finish the 23 Things.

Thing 3

I have used QR code readers and think they are very useful. I have snapped them from webpages, newspapers, and most recently from a magazine I get. If you find a code in an article you are reading, the QR code reader takes you right to a related tutorial--very useful.

So, I decided to try something I have not done before and the StandApp looked interesting since that is the latest buzz about workplace health. According to the information for the App, sitting at work can lead to health issues such as "obesity, cardiovascular disease, poor cholesterol, high blood pressure, breast and colon cancer, type 2 diabetes, and overall higher mortality rate." We all know we should get up every now and then so this App seems like it would be beneficial.

The StandApp only opens in portrait mode which I find annoying. Set up of the app takes place the first time you open it. You first set the interval that you want--I selected 15 minutes so I could see it in action sooner. I think if I actually used it, I would do more like 60 minutes.The app starts counting down and at the end a video exercise comes up to get you on your feet and moving. (a word was spelled wrong on the screen which is also annoying) The App popped up on time and started a 5 minute countdown doing a neck stretch. I was advised to remain standing even if not performing the exercise. I was allowed to "snooze, skip, list or do more." The list brought up 9 other video exercises to do. I thought this was a good idea since five minutes of neck stretching seemed a little extreme. My favorite exercise was coffee break which showed me how to walk down the hall and get coffee. The "do more" link went to an advertisement for a stand up workstation.

I think this App would be good for workaholics who lose track of time sitting at their desks and might serve to get get them on their feet more. It is a good reminder for the rest of us and might get us into the habit of standing up and doing a few stretches throughout the day.

Thing 2

Thank goodness the academic year is winding down and I can get back on track with my 23 mobile things.

As I mentioned earlier, I have 3 tablets--one of the first Ipads which cannot get the latest OS update, an Amazon Fire tablet, and a newer Android Sony Xperia Z tablet. I carry the Sony with me the most because it is speedier and can do more than the others. That does not mean that the others are useless. I dearly love the Amazon tablet for reading ebooks and watching Amazon Prime videos. I can also do the same on the older Ipad, including watching the Amazon videos with an App made just for that. However, getting Amazon video to play on the Sony has been a challenge which apparently has to do with the lack of an Android version of Flash.

I followed the instructions for installing an old version of Flash on the tablet to work with Firefox and i seem to remember that it worked for a while. But then it didn't. I found a browser called Puffin (supposed to be free) that nagged me to pay. The idea of paying for a browser is completely foreign to me! I did find another browser that plays the videos, but it is clunky to get to full screen and just not as enjoyable as the Ipad and the Fire. I still like the Sony tablet though.

Another thing that took some finagling before it worked was the bluetooth connection to my Fitbit (an electronic pedometer). I don't know how I was so lucky to pick a phone and a tablet that did not work with the Fitbit (I could use the provided dongle to connect to my laptop, so I wasn't totally out of luck). After a bit of Googling, I found a fix that allowed both to connect to the Fitbit which is much more convenient.

I learned that my tablet can also function as a TV remote, but so far I still use the TV remote. My tablet is also waterproof, but I have not tested that function yet either! (Since it is my work tablet, I will try to never test that) My co-workers with Ipads seem to struggle a bit with Office documents and pdf files. I, on the other hand, have no problem with them. The included Open Office App, works great for viewing Office files--I confess I have not done much editing. I have learned to kill apps and enhance my sound among other things. I hope to figure out how to use voice commands in the future. I know it is not hard-I just need to do it.

To summarize, there is a lot more functionality left to explore.

Thing 1

I have been using Blogger since the original "Things" so I added another blog to my account.

I love technology and probably have more than my share, for the most part, through no fault of mine! I can explain away the two Android phones and the Kindle Fire--and most of my other gadgets just came my way. The problem is that I have learned a few things about each device, but am not using any device to its full capability. So that is my primary goal--to learn to use my device (and I will pick my new Android phone as the device of choice) to its fullest capacity.

I know that Apps are the big thing, but I get overwhelmed by too many choices. That is why I like the idea of picking and choosing from the ones that will be presented to us. So, I am ready to begin. Bring on the Apps!

Ready for 23 Mobile Things in Minnesota!

Here is my new blog, all ready to go!