Teens, Technology, and Friendships

Teens, Technology, and Friendship

Lenhart, A. (2015).  Teens, technology and friendships.  Retrieved from: Pew Center Research.

 This report explored the new contours of friendship in the digital age. It covers the results of a national survey of teens ages 13 to 17.  According to Pew Research:

·         57% of All today’s teens have made new friends online. 

·         29% of these teens admitting they have met more than 5 friends online.

·         Boys are more likely than girls to make online friends 61% of boys compared to 52% of girls have made friends online.  Girls who have met new friends online are more likely to meet them via social media (78% vs. 52% of boys), while boys are substantially more likely to meet new friends while playing games online (57% vs. 13% of girls)

·         Older teens are more likely to make friends than younger teens- 60% of teens between the ages of 15-17 have made friends online. 

·         Texting is a huge component of socializing in a teen’s world- 55% of teens spend their time texting.  Texting is the most common way they communicate with close friends

·         Only 25% of teens spend time with friends face to face.

Here is a list of how teens communicate with their friends:

Instant messaging: 79% of all teens instant message their friends.

Social media: 72% of all teens spend time with friends via social media.

Email: 64% of all teens use email with friends.

Video chat: 59% of all teens video chat with their friends.

Video games: 52% of all teens spend time with friends playing video games.

Messaging apps: 42% of all teens spend time with friends on messaging apps such as Kik and WhatsApp.

How Teens Hang Out and Stay in Touch With Their Closest Friends:

At School-83%

Someone’s house-58%

Online-55%

Sports, club (extracurricular activity)-45%

Neighborhood-42%

Mall-23%

Church-21%

Job-6%

Other location-5%

 

 76 pages

 

Final Reflections Digital Technology

   

Final Reflections

Where do I start?  I made it! Well almost... as you can see from this post, I'm still having some technical difficulties.  I don't know where the hot pink lines came from and I've tried everything to remove them, to no avail.  It's only fitting that my last blog I would experience this, right?  There were times I felt like the lady on top when it came to completing assignments, and sometimes it was the lady on the the bottom.  From the first assignment, no from the time I registered for Digital Technology for the School Librarian, I was somewhat intimidated, that tends to happen to me, when you don’t think of yourself as very technical or technically challenged person.  I want to first say, that I’m glad that this was a required course.  I proved to myself that I can do it. I also learned that some of this new technology is not so bad.  I honestly learned something good, something I could take with me from each and every assignment, however that didn't stop me from becoming frustrated with a few (maybe several) of the assignments because I couldn’t get them to act right on my computer. 

Facebook and Twitter, I was already familiar with, I will continue to use both. I liked creating an Infographic, and using Pictochart made it fairly easy to do. Blogs/Blog Readers, I like reading other people blogs, maybe not writing them myself, as much. Youtube, Animoto, and QR Codes, I've always enjoyed Youtube videos, I especially liked seeing how librarians and students creatively used them for the library.  I will be using Animoto a lot more for book trailers, I enjoyed creating my very first.
Information Ethics and Acceptable Use Policy assignments were especially helpful to me.  I'm a little embarrassed to say, but I didn't have a clear understanding of what they were or how to present it, but because of the assignment, articles, and reading other blogs on it, I'm more confident on how to address it now. Podcasting and Screencasting, were fun, I like the audio thing.  I also had major issues with my computer and trying to record, it was a little frustrating at times.  I had to do almost eight takes with the screencast!  The verdict is still out on Online Book Communities, I will continue to use Goodreads, but I'm not so sure about the others?  Cartoons and Comics, I was thrilled with the idea of creating my very own comic,  that was until it became very time consuming and frustrating, waiting for things to upload.  Maybe it was the site or maybe it was my computer again? I do think having students create is a great idea.  Instagram and Vine were okay, I can see possibly using Instagram  with some of the ideas suggested by others. Mining PEW (150 pgs.), I think Pew Research is a great source for information and research, I will definitely continue to read the articles, and presentations.
Overall, I got a lot out of this course, great things to try in the library and share with teachers and faculty.  I put in a lot of sweat, tears, some frustration, but the knowledge gained, makes it well worth it!  

 

Millennials and Libraries

Rainie, L. (2014, April ). Teens and Libraries In Today's Digital World. Pew Research Center

How do libraries fit into the lives of American teens and young adults?  Well, at the Texas Library Association’s Annual Conference, Lee Rainie, Director of the Pew Research Center’s Internet Project, discussed the project’s research, and seven key insights from the research about younger Americans and how they differ from older Americans.
1.Teens live in a different ecosystem.
·         95% use internet / three-quarters have broadband at home
·         74% access internet on mobile device – 25%“cell mostly” internet users
·         78% have cell phones / 47% have smartphones
·         80% have desktop/laptop
·         23% have tablet computers
·         81% use social networking sites
·         76% use Facebook - 24% use Twitter
·         Approx. from young adult data: a quarter of teens use Instagram; 1 in 7 use Pinterest;
      1 in 10 use Tumblr
2. Teens live in a different learning ecosystem.
·         77% of teachers surveyed say the internet and digital search tools have had a “mostly positive” impact on their students ‘research work”
·         87% agree these technologies are creating an “easily distracted generation with short attention spans

3. Teens reading levels match/exceed adult levels.

                                                  Ages 16-29                  Ages 30+

·         Read for work/school             81%                           49%
·         Read for pleasure                    76%                          81%
·         Read to keep up with current events 73%                79%
·         Read to research topics of interest 81%                   73%
4. Teens use libraries and librarians, but do not love them as much.
5. Teens have different priorities in library services than non-teens.
·         86% Personal book recommendations/62% non-teens
·         81% Library redboxes around town/62% non-teens
·         80% Cell app that allows you to use library services/57% non-teens
·         74% Pre-loaded e-book readers/57% non-teens
·         70% App for in-library navigation/52% non-teens
·         60% Classes on gadget use/50% non-teens
6. Teens will behave differently in the world to come.
Millennials’ future will either produce positive outcomes or negative, based on their decisions.
7. The public and teachers recognize this and want libraries to adjust.
Teachers press for literacy
·         57% spend class time helping students improve their search skills.
·         35% devote class time to helping students understand how search engines work and how
search results are generated.
·         Asked what curriculum changes might be necessary in middle and high schools today,
·         47% “strongly agree” and 44% “somewhat agree” that courses or content focusing on

40 slides

Instagram and Vine

 

Instagram   and   Vine

 Instagram and Vine are great social media platforms to connect with students.

Instagram is an online mobile photo sharing app. Users can share photos and videos on this social networking site for others to view.  Here are a couple ways you can use this app in the classroom or library:
*highlight books or events in the library
*post an image on Instagram as a writing prompt
*allow students to use Instagram to document evidence for a  special assignment
Here are a few pictures from my Instagram account

Vine is a short-form video sharing service app where users can share six-second long video clips with others.  I think librarians could make a six second video showcasing new books or highlighting events in the library.
Here is a video from my Vine account
https://vine.co/v/iu5701TE6dL/embed/simple

Screencast

A screencast or screen-casting is the act of recording an activity on a computer screen, while you're narrating. Any action a user makes on their screen can be recorded as a video. These recordings, called screencasts, can be seen all over the Web as parts of tutorials, advertisements, movies, training videos, and the like. 

My thoughts on Screencast-o-matic:  it was easy to sign-up for, the idea of creating a screencast was intriguing, once I figured out what it was. I ran into multiple issues trying to use screencast-o-matic on my computer.  When you're not that technical, every little thing can be a bit frustrating. By the time I switched computers and recorded my first screencast, I had reached a high level of frustration, not because screencast-o-matic was difficult to use, but my computer!
Here is a link to my screencast http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/coXQfOhIBE, the sound is not that great, and by the time I finally recorded, this was my 7th take (I kept getting pop-ups on my screen) so I would pause my recording and have to rerecord.  Overall, I thought screencast-o-matic was pretty easy to navigate through, and you get more than enough time to record.  I would recommend it to those wanting to produce a screencast.  I think I just have issues with the computers I'm using.  I was going to create my second screencast using Screenr, but unfortunately they were retiring their site on November 11, so I went with Jing.  Read about Jing and my experience below.


Jing   With Jing you can capture an image of what you see on your computer screen with. Simply select any window or region that you want to capture, mark up your screenshot with a text box, arrow, highlight or picture caption, and decide how you want to share it. Jing records everything you see and do, however videos are only limited to five minutes.  I got a bit confused because I wasn't sure if I needed to sign-up through screencast or not?  But, once I figured it out it was fairly easy. I would recommend Jing as well, I didn't come across any major hurdles, other than the computer I was using. Click the link below to view my screencast on making a comic strip using MakeBeliefsComix:

http://screencast.com/t/G5EWLUPyu

Have fun creating your screencast!

Cartoons and Comics
Comics and cartoons are great ways to engage students in learning. Think about those students who love graphic novels. Did you know that there are sites out there that actually let you, yes you create your vey own cartoon and comic strips? I experimented with ToonDoo, Pixton, and MakeBeliefsComix and here is what I thought about them.

ToonDoo is a free illustrating service that allows users to create and share comic strips.  After creating my account, came the task  of creating my very first comic strip.  I started my comic by first choosing a character. It took forever for the characters to load, I literally waited almost 10 minutes or longer.  I eventually logged out and restarted.  Once I was able to actually create my comic strip, it was some what easy to create. * Note that you have a variety of options to choose from backgrounds, movements, text boxes, etc. Because it was my very first, I wanted to create something simple.  I would not recommend this site when working with students, it just takes too much time, and I only have so much time to work with students.

 

Pixton After creating a free account, I was informed of my 7 day free trial period.  I could feel my frustration growing while trying to create this comic strip.  Like Toondoo, Pixton is also time consuming and not very user friendly, in my opinion.  I'm not sure I would recommend Pixton for those who see students for a short amount of time.  I love the idea of creating comic strips with students, but it took me a lot of time to try and get them half-way decent to post for my blog. 

MakeBeliefsComix After a few attempts of trying to go to the site MakeBeliefComix from my computer, I kept getting the message below that my antivirus ware was picking up a possible threat from this site. I used a different computer, once I did, I went back to the site, and whalaa...I was able to create the comic strip below, with ease.  I didn't have to create an account or anything.  I love that.  I can see students enjoying and using this site easily!   It's free and no account is needed.

 

 

 



I'm not going to say I didn't enjoy this assignment, because the whole idea of me creating a comic strip was exciting. However, I found the first two sites somewhat tedious to work with (maybe because it was my first time), and considering the amount of time I have to work with students each day, I'm not sure about using or recommending either of them?  But, I did like the finished product.  After, getting a chance to finally create a comic strip on MakeBeliefComix, the process was so easy for me.  I would recommend it out of the three for students and teachers .  One way I might incorporate comic strips in the future is by organizing a graphic novel book discussion or teaching students to make their own comic strips.  Enjoy!



Online Book Communities
Goodreads, LibraryThing, Shelfari, Booklikes, Biblionasium

In this blog, I'll be discussing different Online Book Communities.  What is an online book community? It's simply a place for book lovers to communicate online with other book lovers and members, anywhere in the world.  Online Book Communities are also a great way to keep books organized.  Members of the sites allow most to organize books by creating your own personal book shelves, based on books you've read, books you want to read, and books you're currently reading..  You really don't have to be a book lover to join an online book community, but once you join a community, it's bound to happen.

Goodreads
This is a great website for readers, those looking for books, and those looking for book recommendations.  I've always been a fan of Goodreads, I joined a few years ago for another course I was taking and have regularly visited.  I found Goodreads  pleasing to the eye, and easy to use.  I like that creating a bookshelf is so incredibly easy! I also like their community reveiews.



Library Thing
Was not pleasing to the eye, the site looked very plain, boring.  I didn't like that I had to type in the title of a book, author's name, or ISBN to pull up a book list. Once you're in, you can easily catalog your books and join different interest groups. I did like the way the books (my choices) were displayed on the screen afterwards. 

Shelfari
Pleasing to the eye, initially seemed user friendly, I liked that the empty book shelf is the next thing you see, it was time to search.  I didn't like the process on how you had to search for books, either I was tired at this point because it just became a little frustrating for me.

Booklikes
The main page was set up nicely, very eye catching, a  it was a video, it wasn't confusing, more geared towards blogging about books.  I did like that there was a long list of book genres to choose books from and then it walked you through the steps of setting up a blog.

Biblionasium
Colorful and bright, kid friendly-centered, also for parents and educators.  I liked the site a lot, I like that it allows kids to actively participate and create bookshelves for themselves.  As an educator I like that there were several options for me to create shelves for students using Lexile, DRA, Reading Counts etc.  I couldn't find anything that I didn't like about this site.

Final Comments: If I had to choose one of the following sites that I like the best, it's Goodreads.  I will continue to use Goodreads because I find that it suits my needs when I'm looking for book recommendations and reviews.  I like  knowing that other librarians and educators go there and I can find good recommendations.  I would recommend Biblionasium  for students and teachers.  The reason I chose this site was because it was very kid oriented and there were so many things students, as well as teachers could do, like make book trailers and blogs.  I would encourage all to join an online book community.