Recently, we announced that CMLE, as the Central Minnesota component of the statewide multitype library systems, will begin the 23 Mobile Things program in mid-January. Start shining up your mobile devices for a fun, online, self-paced program that is sprinkled with incentives, discoveries, and prizes too! Can we break our record of 300 CMLE participants from the 23 Things on a Stick program from five years ago?
News Flash! Metronet is the Twin Cities multitype, and LeAnn Suchy will be offering a free Apps in a Flash: 23 Mobile Things Preview webinar on December 5th, as part of the Minitex Outreach & Instruction Guest Webinar Series. Tune in to learn about apps for photos, videos, notetaking, presentations, education and more!
Register now for the webinar! Peek into the future of the 23 Mobile Things Program!
Didn’t see our earlier post about the 23 Mobile Things Program?
This week, CMLE’s Recommended Ed Tech Tool is Quixey (beta site.) Quixey is a free, clean, easy-to-use, and uncluttered website that allows users to conduct quick, functional searches for apps. It stills gives you (the end user) the option to search for an app by name, with the added flexibility to also identify a list of apps by specific tasks and functions.
How does it work?
This site uses a proprietary, algorithmic based system to gather data from the web found in blogs, tweets, articles, product descriptions, and even reviews. This information is used to generate a profile for each app. At Quixey’s homepage, a large single search box appears in the middle of the screen. You can enter a task you would like an app to preform, such as reading. Then, a list is created based on the app’s profile along with a brief product description, the cost (if any), and current reviews.
Additional functions:
Search by mobile device (Android, iPad, Windows Phone, etc.), desktop (Mac or Windows), or browser (Chrome, Firefox, etc.)
View currently trending apps, top picks, and games.
Browse by category (play, work, live, or learn.)
View samples of apps with screen shots.
Sorted apps in list form, by image, or price.
Connect using an existing Facebook account (not required). This will allow you to save and sync your bookmarks (favorite or interesting apps) to multiple devices.
Why does this matter?
It is easy to become overwhelmed. The market for app development has been growing exponentially since 2008. According to About.com (October 2013), there were 775,000 apps available for download in the iTunes Store in January 2013. Approximately 300,000 of these apps were native to iPad devices. AppBrain (October 2013) estimated app development each month, peeking in June of this year, with approximately 57,000 new apps.
Quick Response Codes (QR Codes) consists of black modules (square dots) arranged in a square pattern on a white background. The information encoded can be made up of virtually any kind of data. If you have a mobile device that uses smart technology (IPhone, Android, IPad, etc.) you can download an app that will read these two-dimensional (matrix) codes.
Originally QR codes were designed for the automotive industry to store large amounts of production information. More recently, the system has become popular across any industry type due to accessibility, readability and large storage capacity (compared to standard UPC barcodes). Today its has any number of applications for anyone looking to market to a tech savvy customer without the need for large layout space. If you are interested in creating your own QR code all it takes is a free QR code writer and you can begin placing them on any printable surface.
Check back next week, CMLE will feature a member library who is using this little box in a big way.
Here is a simple App you can use traveling anywhere with your phone!
Jenna Wortham writes: “Vine, a new video application for the iPhone introduced by Twitter on January 24, lets users create and share miniature videos that are six seconds long and set to loop automatically, similar to an animated GIF. The app is brilliantly simple: Users just aim their cameras at what they want to capture, tap the screen once to start filming, and tap it once more to stop. They can film a single shot for the maximum time allotted or quickly cut together a series of scenes using the tap-to-edit feature.”Here are some examples.
Send us a comment to let us know how this App could be used in your library!
This Free App from Educreations blends the functionality of a traditional dry erase board with standard presentation software. The user can easily create quick tutorials and how-to videos. With multiple applications in and out of the media center or classroom you might want to add this APP to your list of must haves!
