Thing 23: Evaluate 23 Mobile Apps

Thank you for offering 23 Mobile Apps. I really enjoyed doing the course and discovering new apps. I think that mobile devices are the way of the future. Everyone wants to take all of their information with them! I feel there will be more and more apps developed because of this. Some of my favorite apps that I explored were: Line Camera as I am very interested in photography and how you can improve and alter your photos, MPR Radio because I enjoy some of their programs such as Garrison Keillor and I enjoy the music offered, and Dragon Dictation because I thought it was cool to see my words type out on the screen! These are just a few of the apps that I thought were great. I connected with others by reading their blogs. There seemed to be many people who started the program but didn't finish. I know life can get in the way of your personal expectations. I cannot think of any way that this program could have been improved! I told my boss I was going to finish the program so I could get a raise! Dream On! I liked the badges as we completed each five items as a little incentive of our progress. Even adults need those little incentives. I would definitely take part in more 23 things as this is the third time I have participated. Continuing education is so important for everyone. There are always new things to learn to inspire and educate us. This helps us to provide better library service to our patrons. I would express my feelings with two words: lifelong learning!

Thing 22: Discovering Apps

Quixey was the app I downloaded in order to discover new apps. I searched the topic Library. Several of the sites were connections to your local library's digital collections. 3M cloud Library and Book Myne did not include my library system. Book Myne said to tell my library to join! So, I searched flowers for my next topic and discovered the app Flowers in HD. What a wonderful app! The pictures of the flowers were gorgeous! There was an alphabetical listing to go by and also other categories such as what is trending. This was a bright spot on this rainy day. As you said, there are thousands of apps to explore, but I think we had a good introduction to what is out there.

Thing 21: Free-for-all

My favorite app is Maps on my iPhone. I use it all the time as a GPS. It will map out your route to a destination and give you alternate routes also. It will give you verbal directions which is great when you are traveling alone and can't be looking at your phone. It will also reroute if you don't take its advice. It gives printed directions and also a map overview. This app eliminates the need for a separate GPS unit in your car.

Thing 20: Games

Games are not my favorite thing! I have been invited many times to play Candy Crush Saga, so decided to try it. I went through 3 levels and still decided it's not for me. I'm not sure why, but it seems like you either like gaming or you don't. There are a lot of games available online and I can see many people playing them on the public computers at the library. There is even online gambling. So much of these can be addictive. Sorry, I would rather read!

Thing 19: Hobbies

I explored MyGarden because I love to garden. This site seems to me like the Pinterest of gardening. You need to set up an account with them and then choose Plant overview, add a message, messages, gardeners or garden todos. Gardeners include fans and favorite plants. You can choose gardeners to follow and select plants that you're interested in. The plant overview gives you lots of info about each plant. I don't think this app would be one I would continue to use as I'm not interested in following fellow gardeners. I'm more interested in pictures of gardens and descriptions of the plants and how to take care of them.

Thing 18: Education

There are so many educational apps available. I look at three of those listed. The first was Eat this not that. It compared two food items and you had to decide which was the best to eat. After you made a choice it told you why you were right or wrong. This was an educational app that could help us to make better food choices. Next I looked at artCircles. This had a circular index where you could pick different categories (nature, popular, colors, etc.) and view art work that matches that category. I especially liked the color choice where you could decide what color artwork you would select for each room in your house. I translate was a fascinating app! You type in a phrase and can translate it into multiple languages. I remember a patron who brought in a letter in another language and wanted it translated. This app would do it for you!

Thing 17: Connecting to Community

I was disappointed that the only app listed for the Sammie region was Marshall Living. I installed that app and looked through the categories listed. It did include quite a bit of territory around Marshall, so it wasn't just limited to the city of Marshall. I also installed MPR Radio and the Minnesota State Fair. Both apps are fun to explore. I was scrolling through the entertainment for the Minnesota State Fair which took quite some time as they offer a lot. When I was almost finished, I realized that it was last year's schedule. Since it is June, this should have been updated by now. I also downloaded Explore Minnesota. It kept freezing up as I was checking out the festivals. So, these apps are fun but need to be updated regularly to insure info is accurate and up to date. Thanks for sharing these apps I wasn't aware of.

Thing16: Audio

Sound Cloud was an interesting app to explore. I recorded my own voice, which was very simple to do. I decided not to share it as I really didn't know what to say! I searched for other recordings to listen to and followed several of them. I followed Harper Audio and heard a book review. I listened to some music audios. I searched for libraries, but didn't find many actual libraries listed. This was another fun app to explore. Personally, I would Like to record our church choir, of which I am a member, to see what we sound like. Professionally, our head librarian does a weekly radio show. She could use Sound Cloud to record her show and then share it with the radio station. The sound quality is very good!

Thing 15: Infographics

Visualize was the app I chose for infographics. It was fun to play with. I chose a theme and then tried to find pictures to add to my page. When I was unable to figure out how to do this (after trying all the features), I went back and watch the video. It was very helpful. You need to have your pictures copied that you plan to use or have them in your camera roll. There were many features to add notes, shapes, text, color, etc. I think this would be a great app for promotional posters. We make a lot of posters for our library and this app would help to give them a more professional look and enable you to add lots of options to give your posters that "WOW" factor!

Thing 14: Videos

I had trouble finding Vine in the App Store. There was Vine Uploader and Best Vines. When I tried Uploader it wanted me to sign in with my vine account. I'm not sure what I'm missing here. I'm not sure why I want Vine as I can take videos with my I-phone and publish them to our library Facebook account. I did this last week with a performer we had at the library. I too a video with my phone of the children that she had helping her with her program. I feel that I don't need Vine in order to do this. The only advantage I can think of is watching other people's videos or storing mine. You tube has a huge selection of videos on every conceivable topic. So, unless I get more info, I'm not planning on using Vine.

Thing 13: Presentations

I enjoyed exploring Haiku Deck in Presentations. I created a presentation for Summer Reading by adding slides and text. It was fun to choose the slides related to this topic - reading, books, children, animal paws. This could be used to promote summer reading on Facebook or our website. It was interesting to see that some of the slides had a dollar sign in the corner. Not knowing what it meant, I selected one. Guess what, that one had to be purchased in order to use it. I think this would be a great app to use to market our library!

Thing 12: Books, Books, and More Books

I added iStoryBooks to my I pad. It has a library of 25 children's books to read and listen to. I listened to Chicken Little. You can go at your own pace in turning the pages. If you turn the page before she's done reading, she immediately starts reading the next page. There are several nonfiction books included also. These would be great to use for story time or for personal use by children. Hopefully, more and more books will be available for I pads and other mobile devices.

Thing 11: Library and Reference

Our library doesn't have a mobile app but I did try out Hennepin County's mobile app. It was very easy to use and informative. I looked at some of the events they have coming up. It's always fun to see what other libraries are doing in order to get ideas. It would be easy to use to check your library account and to order materials. I also examined the elm website as I hadn't used it for a while. I added the app to my Ipad. I took a workshop on Elm a few years ago, but don't find that I use it a lot in my work. I have a friend who is a school librarian and she talked about how great it is for her students that are doing research. She feels it is a great resource for high school and college research and that it is very important for her students to learn its capabilities.

Thing 10: Sharing Photos

I had already downloaded Instagram on my Ipad but can't say as used it a lot. I only had one post but I had 14 followers! So, I decided to try it again. I took a picture of my flowers outside and shared it on Facebook. It really was easy to do and I think I will use it more often now. You can also share it via e-mail. I haven't used Snapchat at all, but feel that it isn't for me. I don't share pictures that I want to disappear quickly!

Thing 9: Taking & Editing Photos

Line camera has been my favorite app so far! Love, love, love it! I take a lot of photos both personally and for the library. Line camera helps you to make your photos pretty and add designs to it. I used a library picture to add designs. You can add different frames around your picture and add text to the picture. So cool! Then it allows you to send it directly to Facebook. This will be most helpful with posting library program pictures to Facebook.

Thing 8: Social Media Management Tools

I have Facebook and Twitter accounts. I also set up a Facebook account for our library. I downloaded Tweetcaster which is supposed to let you publish to both Facebook and Twitter at the same time. When I got into TweetCaster they wanted information that I didn't want to give them! I decided I didn't really want to combine these accounts on Tweetcaster. A little social media is good, but a lot isn't good for me! Privacy is too important to me.

Thing 7: Content Saving and Sharing

I already have a Pinterest account and I love it! I love browsing and pinning things I want to save for future reference. I also love to see what my friends are pinning. The summer reading program, Paws to Read, has many interesting things on Pinterest which are useful in planning the program. Since I already used Pinterest, I tried Bitly. It was easy to use, but I had a problem retrieving the URLs I had saved. It kept telling me to try later. So, I will try later as I think it would be a very useful App when you come across a website you would like to save, and don't want to copy the whole thing down someplace.

Thing 6: Creating and Editing Docs

I downloaded the app CloudOn to my I-pad. It was simple to do because I have a google account. It is great to have access to Word, Excel and Power Point which I don't have on my I-pad. I created a document in Word and edited it. I see that it can be printed on an air printer which we have at our library. This app makes the I-pad more user friendly and I can see lots of applications both personally and professionally. I am excited about all the apps I have been discovering through this course which I had no idea were out there!

Thing 5: Notetaking

I downloaded Dragon Dictation for notetaking. What a fun app! It did an excellent job typing notes from my dictation. There were no errors at all. You need to dictate punctuation such as a period. You could use this app to dictate anything that you wanted to remember. I keep a list at the library of things I need to do. This would be a great way to keep that list or to keep track of anything you don't want to forget. You just open the app, push the button, and record. I am going to try singing and see if it understands me. Can't wait to share this app with others.

Thing 4: Keeping Up

I downloaded the app Zite. You select all the topics you are interested in and it compiles them into your own personal magazine. Articles about everything you are interested in all in one place. I selected about a dozen topics and was pleasantly surprised when all these articles were added to my personal magazine! What a great app! It saves lots of time by not requiring that you look at multiple sites to decide what to read. This would be a great app and a timesaver. Stay tuned for more info!

Thing #3: Utilities

I downloaded the mobile app Redlaser for QR codes and deals. I have wanted to do this for a long time, so now was my chance. After downloading the app, I found two QR codes to scan in magazines. They both took me to the websites which gave me more info about the products and sales. It was fun to be able to scan those little black and white squares! The app also lists deals for nearby businesses. The only ones in our area were for Radio Shacks. You can look up a large listing of other businesses, so I checked a few of those for deals. Of course, those stores are at least an hour away. You can also scan loyalty cards to have them all in one place. Library applications for this app could include scanning a book QR code to read reviews about it or other information such as similar authors or series of books. Another useful app is called Map My Walk. You can actually make a map of where you walk and how far you walk. This app is useful for anyone trying to say fit or trying to record where they have been.