PLN Plus reflection – community in the making

In this guest post from Sue Osborne, Head of Library Service, Haileybury College, Brighton, she shares her experience of the recent PLN Plus course.

I was interested to do the PLN+ because I had participated in several PLN courses (two 23 things, PLN research tool kit) and I was interested in taking the things I had learned the next level. I was also interested in the idea of project work and finding other library professionals who were interested in developing similar ideas in their schools.

I found the course to be quite different from my past experience of the PLN. Firstly, it was a shorter course – only four weeks long, but it was filled with new ideas, so in terms of content it still delivered. There was also a less formal approach, with four stages rather than particular products or apps to focus on. It was more about the process of starting and growing networks, rather than specific, measurable outcomes. I found this approach disconcerting at first, but once we all started talking about our areas of interest, I took to it well.

I enjoyed the relaxed approach, self-driven learning, connecting with like-minded colleagues who wanted to be instruments of change within their organisations as well as a huge pool of ideas and tools to think about and try. I will be exploring the tools for at least the next month or so! I’ve listed my three favourite tools below.

1/ Mightybell – the platform the PLN was based in has been fantastic. It is easy to use, looks great and has greatly enhanced the learning and sharing for this course. Far superior to Edmodo, which was used in the last course. I love it. Not sure how I might use it in my work, except perhaps to set up a project group of my own down the track (not on the cards just yet)

2/ Shadow Puppet – this iPad app allowed me to take photographs and then record a narration track over a slide show. I decide when each photo comes up. It is intuitive and dead easy to use (as easy as Animoto, which I use almost constantly at work now). I am planning to use Shadow Puppet with my newly formed Middle School Library Committee. We are going to make short how-to presentations about the library catalogue, searching and so on for classes to view before they come to the Library to do research

3/ Padlet – this product let’s you set up a wall, send the link to people you want to have participate in the project/discussion and you all post ideas (a bit like post-it notes) so you can collaborate and brainstorm together. I am already using this regularly with other staff to talk about planning information literacy sessions and trying to develop a reading culture within the school

I guess the number one thing I am taking from the course is a sense of community – that we are all part of something bigger, something that can help us achieve great (or small) things. The openness of the participants has been fantastic and I think many of us will stay in touch by following each other on Twitter, or continuing to build on our Padlets or other collaborative tools.

I will also take a renewed sense of purpose in what I do, and the knowledge that I have skills and experience that other people appreciate and value, just as I value their experience and skills. The rise in my professional (and as a result, personal) self-esteem was an unexpected bonus.

Finally I plan to implement some programs in my school and document them, with the objective of sharing them via Bright Ideas, or perhaps even FYI, so that others can see what I am doing, and perhaps be inspired to try something different. I have the confidence to push myself forward and try harder, which is probably the most valuable thing of all.

Image credit: Toban Black on flickr

You can follow Sue on Twitter at @LibraryMonitor and her reviewing blog Worth Reading, Worth Sharing.

 

Make a digital mural with Mural.ly

Mural.ly is an interesting new site that lets users create a digital mural using images, videos, web pages and diagrams sourced from any website. While there have been other sites that have similar features to Mural.ly, it is definitely worth a look as it combines a number of great features from other web tools.

At first glance Mural.ly looks like a cross between Glogster and Wallwisher (which recently changed names to Padlet). You can pin items to a large virtual wall by either uploading the items, entering the url of the item or dragging the item into the Mural.ly window. You can also search Google Images from within Mural.ly, and connect your Google Drive account to add items from there as well. There are also inbuilt symbols, stickers, sticky notes and text boxes that can be added to your board. Several graphical organisers are also provided as templates. At this stage the graphic organisers tend to be more business focused, but hopefully some educational based templates will be added over time.

Where Mural.ly really sets itself apart from other virtual pinboard tools is the Frames options. This lets a user define the areas of the board that viewers will see in sequence. It works in a similar way to Prezi, one of the popular zooming presentation tools. Viewers can then click through and be taken on a tour of the elements of the board. Any interactive elements like videos or web pages can also be viewed from within the Mural.ly site.

By defining frames on your board you can tour viewers through your presentation.

Overall Mural.ly is an easy to use site with a wide range of educational applications. It could be used as a shared planning space, a presentation tool or as an inspiration board for a piece of writing (in a similar way to the Story Scrapbook tool). The ability to define frames also means that a board could serve as a way of telling a digital story, such as an animated timeline or a multimedia story.

Mural.ly is still in beta, meaning that you can expect a couple of minor bugs (particularly when zooming your board). It might not be ready for an entire class to use just yet, but I’d definitely recommend having a look at the introductory video below and exploring the site. You can also see a sample mural we built.

Mural.ly doesn’t do anything particularly groundbreaking, but it does take some of the best features of other web tools and puts them all into a very attractive package.

Museum Box

This is a nifty site that is available to teachers and schools worldwide. The site explains how Museum Box

provides the tools for you to build up an argument or description of an event, person or historical period by placing items in a virtual box. What items, for example, would you put in a box to describe your life; the life of a Victorian Servant or Roman soldier; or to show that slavery was wrong and unnecessary? You can display anything from a text file to a movie. You can also view and comment on the museum boxes submitted by others.

Museum box

The site also explains how

You can add text, images, video and sound to the side of the cubes. To save your box you will need to register. For teachers there is lesson guidance and instructions for use are available in the Teachers Area and you can Register your school.

Anyone can view the Museum Boxes, but if you wish to make and save your own box, it does require registration, which is approved (in my case) in about five days.

What an engaging way of putting together resources on a historical (or any) topic.

Thanks to Richard Byrne from Free Technology for Teachers for alerting Bright Ideas to Museum Box!

Prezi

Prezi is a very interesting presentation tool. This Prezi by Adam Somlai Fischer explains more:

Finished Prezis can be embedded into websites, accessed online via a URL or can even be saved to use offline. This can be a godsend if you are delivering a presentation and don’t want to have to rely on internet access.

The great news this week is that Prezi has released educational accounts. Previously all prezis had to be public. Now schools have the chance for students to use Prezi, but only share their presentation with selected people.  Prezi EDUEnjoy is free.

Although a little tricky to begin with, watching the Prezi tutorial videos and spending an hour or so just playing with Prezi will really pay off. There are free accounts as well as ones that do cost due to extra features.

Thanks to Dianne McKenzie (@dimac4) and Glenys Lowden (@glenyslowden) for the heads up on Prezi.

MyBrainshark

MyBrainshark is a useful way of hosting online presentations. Free to use, presentations such as powerpoints can be uploaded, narrated, saved, shared and embedded. Documents can be uploaded and narrated and photo albums can be made. Here is a quick tour of MyBrainshark that shows and explains how it can be used. 

 

Another potentially useful site for both teachers and students.

Flowgram

Flowgram is a total online multimedia presentation tool. 

Flowgram homepage
Flowgram homepage

Think Powerpoint with voiceover, interactive webpages, photos and more. Ideal for online conferences and even better for archiving conference sessions, Flowgram is almost as good as being there.

Here is a Flowgram on Web 2.0 by mseifman:

 Although it can be a little clunky to use, the benefits of Flowgram far outweigh the drawbacks.