Thing 17: Connecting to community

Thing 17 is a call to use locally-focused apps to connect to your community. I downloaded the St. Cloud State University app, as well as the MN Museums and MPR News and Radio apps.

I like the idea of the SCSU app more than the actual app. I could see how the Campus Map would be helpful and the 360 panoramas are interesting and helpful if you aren't familiar with campus or haven't been there in a while (I graduated in 2003 but my husband attends grad school at SCSU now so we are both very familiar with campus). I don't really care about sports, so that feature wasn't important to me, but the news feed has not been updated since 2012, which was strange. Perhaps a glitch?

The MN Museums app could come in very handy. You can browse by looking at a map, which is useful for museum-dense areas like the twin cities, and also nice to see what museums might be nearby if you're traveling somewhere. You can also browse by categories, so if you're especially interested in, for example, science, you can find out the locations of the Bakken Library and Museum, Headwaters Science Center, MN Discovery Center, etc. all in one place. I'd really like to visit the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis and some of the historic homes on the list.

I really like the MPR News app, makes it very easy to find shows and recent news item quickly. The MPR Radio app is also good to have. I'll be keeping both of these on my phone.

Thing 16: Audio

Thing 16 is audio, and since I'm a very into music, I checked out the app for SoundCloud. I was pretty impressed. I wasn't expecting to find so many of my favorite artists posting their own music, but I was pleasantly surprised. I recently saw Tokyo Police Club in Minneapolis, and was very pleased to find their series of cover songs available on SoundCloud.

For your enjoyment, I put together a list of 23 songs by artists I'm enjoying lately. I can highly recommend London Grammar, The 1975, and Gotye, as I've also been to their concerts.

The 1975 at First Avenue, May 2, 2014

Thing 15: Infographics

Thing 15 has us explore infographics. I downloaded the info.Graphics app, and took a look at a few of the infographics there. My problem with some of them was that they were unreadable, which was unfortunate. I do, however, have a couple favorite infographics to share.

http://obizmedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/10/The-True-Cost-Of-Commuting-830x3371.jpg

http://media-cache-ec0.pinimg.com/736x/36/bf/94/36bf94a25400507f6847d82917265961.jpg

I could see recommending one of these apps to someone searching for infographics, or presenting the idea of using an infographic to someone creating a presentation or website on a specific topic that could be better illustrated using an infographic.

Thing 14: Videos

Thing 14 is videos. The only app I downloaded for this 'thing' is Magisto, because I already use my phone's video feature to actually record clips, and I tend to use the Instagram video feature for cute little videos of the dachshunds which I can immediately post with very little processing time and some simple options for adding filters.

I made a basic video with Magisto. I was able to select video clips and photos from my phone's library, select a layout and some music, and make a cute 45 second video of Pippa. Here's a screen shot of the video:

 

I'll also mention the app Vyclone, which allows multiple people to take video of the same event and then it edits together your videos to create multi-camera videos. I think this is a really cool idea, and could come in handy in so many situations.

Thing 13: Presentations

Thing 13 is presentations, something I don't often do, but found these apps interesting nonetheless. I downloaded Deck and Haiku Deck..

I really liked the presentation options in Deck, and there are a lot of different options. I made a quick 3-point presentation in the Paper Plane theme and thought it was really cute.

I took a look at Haiku Deck, not realizing I couldn't create one on my phone (looks like only on a computer or iPad, but a phone can be used to help you present your Haiku Deck once it's completed). I looked at a couple of example presentations, and while they were okay, I wasn't as impressed with them as I was with the Deck presentation options.

Thing 12: Books, Books, & More Books

Thing 12 is all about books. I admitted in my last post that I'm not big on reading on my phone or iPad, but I did download three of the apps mentioned in this thing: Wattpad, iStoryBooks, and the YALSA Teen Book Finder.

I figured Wattpad could be good for getting some classics, and also wanted to see if there was much in terms of mysteries (my favorite genre). I liked that it prompted me to select my favorite genres right when I logged in:

I was also pleasantly surprised to find there are some Agatha Christie titles available--I love watching the television and movie adaptations of Poirot and Miss Marple stories, but have only read one of Agatha Christie's books, so I think this will be perfect summer reading fare:

I downloaded iStoryBooks because I am occasionally around small children who seem drawn to my phone like a moth to a flame and thought it could be good to have a few more apps for kids. Usually, I end up showing kids my photos and videos of the dachshunds which seems to keep them entertained for a few minutes, but I do have one app for kids on my phone, a game called Toca House which my friends' daughter loved and wanted to keep playing until she was ushered off to bed. iStoryBooks reminds me a lot of a service my library offers, TumbleBooks, except that I think TumbleBooks requires a constant internet connection. The one thing I'd suggest for iStoryBooks is to add a suggested age level or reading level for each story. I viewed one titled 'Food From the Sun' which I found to be a bit more technical than standard 'storybook' reading level. It was cute, though, and the illustrations and narration were well done:

 

Lastly, I used the YALSA app to find a few new titles to read. It could be a handy app for staff in a teen area to have to help teens find their next book, or for creating displays based on awards or genres:

Thing 11: Library & Reference

Thing 11 is Library & Reference apps. I tried out the ELM site on my iPhone, and was pleased that it was responsive to my screen size and all of the major access points for finding information were immediately accessible.

My library (Great River Regional) does not have its own app, but I did download BookMyne, which is for libraries using the Horizon ILS. We don't promote this app for our users because I've heard it can be glitchy, but I'm going to give it another try and see if I have any issues with it. The interface is easier to read than the library's website when it's really tiny on my phone browser. This is my items checked out on BookMyne:

And this is my items checked out on the library's site in my phone's browser:

My library also offers downloadable books via OverDrive, and I have used that app many times to access the digital library. Except that I don't really like reading books on my phone or iPad, because I prefer the sensation of sitting down with an actual paper book. I'm probably going to download a few eBooks this summer and try again so I don't have to carry books on my trip to Europe, but as tech savvy as I am, I guess I'm still one of those readers that just really prefers a book to a device.