There are so many apps to stay connected with others. One of them, Instagram has been around for a while and is pretty popular with teens and young adults. Another, Vine is fairly new and has been around for only about three years. Instagram used to be a way to see only uploaded photos of people and friends from around the world, but now you can also upload videos as well. Vine is similar to Instagram, but instead of doing photos, it only does videos. It allows you to upload six second videos for the world to see.
I have been on Instagram for about seven years now. I have to admit I have never been that interested in the site. I prefer Facebook because you can add a lot of text as well as pictures. I do have a few followers in the application, most of them are teachers I used to work with at my school. I found through playing with the app that you can add some text to the picture, just not a whole lot. You can even "tag," it with hashtags and it will mark it for Twitter searches. What I like most about the site is you can edit your photo with different effects, giving it a different and unique look.
I can foresee this probably being a better site to involve parents and colleagues than Facebook. Instagram is all about photos, which of course can spark ideas for others and quickly show parents what lessons are being learned.
Instagram pix
Vine
Vine was a new app I had never used before. I really didn't know much about it. When I looked into it I found that you could only upload six second videos. Because of that fact most postings were silly things people were doing for fun. I really didn't see a whole lot of valuable posts. The one type of posting I thought would be good to share with a class, is a snapshot of what it's like to be in a certain part of the world. I saw fascinating posts of people on islands near Mexico, in public squares in Europe, markets around the world, forested areas and landmarks. I found that to be particularly interesting. Because of these types of posts, I thought this would be great to show a class. I felt it would show them that these places are indeed real and would give them a chance to "see," it for themselves.
As far as postings, I posted two short videos both of them "How To," videos. The first one was "How to Create A Personal Narrative." It was alright, however I found it really difficult to keep my hand perfectly still and get a good shot, as well as pressing the stop/go button. Once you start recording it only records a small bit. You have to keep pressing to keep the video running, so you get this "start/stop," effect which makes the video look like it's jumping around.
I also posted a "How to," about "How to regroup ones using a 10-frame." Again, it was very difficult controlling the video button, but it did give me some good experience with it. I was thinking it would be good to maybe do a Vine post for the Literacy Night coming up on Thursday. I could open up Vine on my work computer, project it from our Elmo and have it loop. We are doing "Monster Book Reviews," and it would be interesting to do a short video on book suggestions.
https://vine.co/u/1277825390035066880?mode=list
Google+
In conclusion I had a pretty difficult time uploading my Instagram pictures and my Vine videos. I had to upload it as a web link, so I went ahead and did a screenshot of some of the things I did in each application with Skitch to show a visual of what I did in each one.
I found out that Google+ is another great application that does the same thing as both Instagram and Vine put-together. It looks like Instagram on your phone, but looks more like pinterest on your computer. It allows you to upload videos (the videos come from Youtube) and pictures. It also suggests people and groups to follow. You cannot use the site to directly take pictures with or take videos with. You have to take pictures with your camera and with your video recorder. Once it's been taken, you then have to upload it to the site.
I thought it was interesting to note that it works better with the blogger app in Google drive. It stands to reason that it would be easier to embed both photos and videos from that site than it would be from Instagram and Vine (which are separate apps) and do not work in conjunction with Google. It will be interesting to see what Google will do with this new application in the future.
Six seconds is not long enough to do much. Thanks for sharing about Google+. I never thought about using that! Great idea!
ReplyDeleteI agree, six seconds is not enough, but it's great to "hook" patrons. I had not heard of the Google+, will definitely look into it.
ReplyDeleteTry clicking on the ellipses (...) , and then click the embed button. Next, go to your blog and go to upper left hand corner, and click on HTML button.
Instagram will allow you to upload 15 second videos. I think I would use Instagram over Vine.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with everyone here. I would opt for Instagram over Vine just for the sake of time allowed.
ReplyDeleteYou really do have to pick your stories~ if a kid were to tell a joke, or maybe, learning new words, you could do a short video, but yeh it's not easy. It is good though, to force ourselves to think about using a new tool-- that's how we got where we are today!
ReplyDeleteI like the idea of showing kids small snapshots into lives across the globe. It might be interesting to have students create a Vine video about their life to share with you. Building relationships with students is important - and a 6 second glimpse into their life might be helpful in doing so.
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