I’ll admit, I was a little intimidated when we received our team pairings for this assignment. I know I’m often times the only or one of the only academic librarians-in-training in my classes, so finding someone with interests similar to mine is a bit of a shell game. I was paired with the incomparable Stacy Morgan, school library conquerer-to-be for this assignment, given that both of us were bound and determined to finish our projects early.

Honestly, that pairing was serendipitous! Stacy and I first worked together, albeit briefly, in LIS 600 in the same discussion group during my first semester, her second or third (I can’t remember which!) last fall. I knew her worth ethic was absolutely admirable. In the midst of the almost 50 e-mails we batted back and forth and an almost two hour Google Hangout, we settled on a concrete work plan that incorporated both of our essential questions into one point-of-view; finding a tool that promoted transliteracy and technological savvy across the ages or, as I came up with the title, Across the Academy. Dr. Morris, in her pairing e-mail, encouraged us to look at the K-18 perspective rather than K-12 versus the undergraduate experience.

Since Stacy is on the SLM track (School Library Media, as opposed to yours truly who is on the ubiquitous General track with a heavy slant towards technology and instruction), we needed to present our material as a professional development opportunity. After copious research, we discovered a new tool (at least to the two of us) called Wikispaces Classroom that could bridge that age gap easily AND is low-to-no-cost for instructors across the spectrum. After orienting ourselves to the product, we split the work down the middle, suiting each of our strengths and making sure that both of our voices were represented (quite literally; you’ll hear both of our voices in the package!) and both our chosen fields were represented. To present the material, we utilized the TEDed platform to fuse together our Parts 2-3; the instructional video, the assessment scheme, and the curated collection are all embedded directly into the module. We hope you enjoy and learn from our flipped instruction module!

Part One – Instruction Plan: Click Here
Part Two – Curated Collection (“Dig Deeper”) and Part Three – Instructional Video (“Watch”) and Assessment Strategy (“Think” and Discuss”): Click Here

(Actually, yes we do, but I wanted to use that as my title.)

When I investigated a bit further, I found that OpenBadges has a WordPress plugin that drops your badge directly into your media library! Talk about handy.

I’m a gamification fan. I’ve read Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World cover to cover twice now. I’ll preach the benefits of gamification and applications such as HabitRPG until I’m blue in the face.

Instead of using one of the tools Dr. Morris recommended, I went with something I’ve used to produce QR codes before; the QR Code Generator Plug-In for Google Chrome. It uses the code producing, well, code from the-qrcode-generator.com, but it’s a very handy little widget.

As far as using QR codes in a library, I have a personal favorite use; SCAVENGER HUNTS! Okay, yes, I realize that I’m the poster child for scavenger hunt use. My summers revolve around a massive scavenger hunt for incoming freshmen. But, think of it this way; you could use QR codes to display clues that people have to find other codes tucked away both physically and on web pages. I’d love to expand my scavenger hunt to include these.

“Not I, nor anyone else can travel that road for you.
You must travel it by yourself.
It is not far. It is within reach.
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born, and did not know. 
Perhaps it is everywhere – on water and land.”
— Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass

When I began to craft my project for the Digital Storytelling assignment, I realized that all of my classes at UNC Greensboro have a common thread; every single one has asked us to introduce ourselves and share a bit of our background. Each time, I have referred to the rather circuitous journey my twenties took me on, from meteorology to horticulture to history to libraries. However, I have never talked openly about the journey I took between horticulture and history, that period where I wandered in the proverbial woods. It’s not easy to talk about, being lost without a sense of direction.

The image I used for this assignment is a bit of a metaphor; the rock I sat upon and took the picture from is a bit like a library in the stream of chaos (life). Libraries are safe havens from the trappings of society. They are third spaces at their core; zones free of societal pressures and stigmas. We, as librarians, provide guidance for the rivers of people in our spaces, like that rock provided guidance for the Pilchuck River. My rock changed the progression of my life/river for the better; it is up to us to continually be that rock, that advocate and agent of change, for our patrons.

This video is about my 旅, my journey, all sparked by a quiet rock in a river. 

I used iMovie and Garage Band to create this film since I am a Mac user. I’ve used both with great success in the past, even creating DVD-quality videos before. I pushed myself with the audio this time, tweaking the Apple Loop to fade in a manner consistent with the look/feel/emotion I wanted to elicit. Also, instead of a traditional storyboard, I went back to my communication roots and used a script instead.  I think I can attribute this to my screenwriting class and a background in theatre; I think better with a script than a storyboard!

Digital Storytelling Script

In conclusion, this assignment pushed me even harder to embrace my past and apply it to my present, both literally and figuratively. I have a background in media; time to use it to my utmost.

After chatting with some of my classmates last night (much love to Amy & Emily!) I realized that the plugin I used at first to display my Flickr slideshow is restricted to those of us with WordPress installs on our own webspaces. Never fear; Flickr Slideshow is here! All you need is

• Your photostream curated (see what I did there?) into an album
• Two tabs open; one to flickrslideshow.com, and the other to your WordPress client

So, step one; copy and paste your album URL into the Flickr Slideshow form. Here’s a couple images to show you what it looks like!

Step Two: Copy and paste the HTML into your post. On the most up-to-date WordPress install, the functionality is located next to the Visual button under Text. Here’s a step-by-step walkthrough again!

When you are in your post editor, the pictures will not show up, only a grey box will. Have no fear! Here’s what the slideshow will look like:

Linked here is a Jing screen tour (with the voiceover now!) on how I got the functionality to work. I hope this helps!

For this assignment, I decided to chronicle a typical Sunday mid-morning/afternoon living in Asheville. I’ve taken art/design courses before, including a foray into digital photography, so I kept my the principles and elements of design in mind as I took photographs.

What are these principles/elements? In the floral design world, from where I hail, they are :

• Balance
• Proportion
• Scale
• Dominance
• Harmony
• Rhythm
• Contrast

If you’ll look closely at the images, I tried to keep all of these in mind to illustrate a story of running basic errands and coming home to my little mountain oasis. I hope you enjoyed this!

Welcome to my life on a Sunday afternoon 🙂
Created with flickr slideshow.

As I began this project, I was admittedly torn between two tools, Pinterest and ProQuest Flow. Should I rely on a curation tool that I have utilized both at work and personally but struggled to see an academic connection, or should I push the definition of a curation tool towards a much more academic tool? I actually curated an entire collection of social media research for academic libraries in ProQuest Flow and built a Haiku Deck presentation (linked below) explaining how to utilize the “Save to Flow” functionality. Success!

Sadly, that success was short-lived. I realized upon investigation that while anyone in my “community” (UNC Asheville) could view my Flow library, I could not export it in a form other than a simple bibliography or link to the materials for anyone outside of the aforementioned community. The words “panic” and “defeat” do not reside within my vocabulary; I decided to take the advice of the latest ALA Report on Social Media and explore the possibilities of Pinterest as an academic research tool. The following is a detailed analysis of my experience building a Pinterest board on learning Korean, intended for a beginning-language college student who wishes to practice outside of the classroom. 

Pinterest/Jing Presentation on Pin to Board Functionality
Follow Amanda’s board Learning Korean on Pinterest.

 Curation Tool Analysis

(The Sadly-Not-So-Functional) ProQuest Flow/Haiku Deck Presentation on “Save to Flow”


LIS 635 Curation Teaching – Created with Haiku Deck, presentation software that inspires

Ah, presentation tools! A large part of my job is instruction, so I love discovering new tips and tricks for not falling into a rut as far as presenting material is concerned. (Read: PowerPoint/Keynote and Prezi, love you both to bits, but we’re far too well acquainted.)

I was fortunate enough to attend NCBIG Camp 2014 at UNCG back in May, and even more fortunate to facilitate the session on Presentation Tips and Tricks.  Keeley, the awesome notetaker from my session and a librarian at a culinary academy, introduced me to Haiku Deck. I have been waiting with bated breath to use this tool; hello, opportunity! I love the fact that it is a cross-platform tool that I can use on my iPhone, iPad, and my work Nexus 7, and the visuals are vastly appealing. I’m excited to get cracking on this!

After poking around with some of the curation tools Dr. Morris, well, curated for us, I found myself trying to think of ways that my library population, my college students, could use each of these. Admittedly, this drove me a bit batty. I broke out ye olde whiteboard (my default brainstorming tool) and after thinking like an undergraduate, I settled initially on Pinterest given its proliferation and my own knowledge of the tool.

Then, while running my ideas by my fantastic other half (as an aside; having a husband with an academic background in instructional design & technology is a MAJOR asset as a librarian-in-training!), he asked me point blank what exactly a curation tool was. When I explained my definition of what it was (something that facilitates the collection of materials/ideas/thoughts), he asked me what my favorite organizational tool was when I was knee-deep in my thesis and research.

…I seriously could have kissed him. Okay, maybe I did!

For this assignment, I’m going to be utilizing ProQuest Flow as my curation tool. What is ProQuest Flow? Flow is a citation management and information curation tool that allows the user to collect information like journal articles, websites, and videos, interact with the materials, share their collections among colleagues/friends/others, and then produce a bibliography of their materials.

As a personal testimonial, oh my goodness, Flow and its predecessor RefWorks saved my bacon during the thesis process. I had folders for each section of my work organized with annotations that I could access from anywhere I had an internet connection.