Week 3: Smartphones

Thing #6 Apps for Sharing

Some examples of mobile sharing apps are:

• Foursquare: http://www.foursquare.com. This app allows you to “check in” when you visit places around town, and after a certain number of check ins you can sometimes get coupons or other prizes. You can also become the “mayor” of locations you check into frequently – we have a mayor, for example, on our page: https://foursquare.com/v/marcellus-free-library/4e39505018a8d2fcc62a0c8f It used to be Mr. Mancciochi, but someone else has recently taken over the mayorship of Marcellus Free Library.
• Twitter: http://www.twitter.com. With the Twitter app, you can “Tweet” about your favorite stuff, details of your day, or have Twitter conversations with other members. You can also Tweet pictures and videos, uploaded from your mobile phone or tablet. Even Barbra does it! https://twitter.com/BarbraStreisand
• Instagram: http://www.instagram.com. This is an app for sharing photos. You can snap a picture with your phone, then edit it in all sorts of interesting ways and share it with other Instagram members. You can see some of the coolest Instagram shots here: http://mashable.com/2012/03/04/best-instagram-photos/. They have all been enhanced with Instagram’s editor in some way, so they are like art pieces as well as photographs.
• Go Try It On: http://www.gotryiton.com. This is an iPhone app that lets you take pictures of yourself in different outfits, then post the photos and get feedback. Lots of people use this to snap pictures in the dressing room and get comments on whether or not they should buy what they’re trying on.

Thing #7 Why share? For virtual badges, of course!

Remember when you were in Girl Scouts and you got that great sash (well, you paid a lot of money for it, actually) and then you could get all those badges that your mom diligently sewed on so you could display your accomplishments? I, for example, earned the Compass Badge and the Math Badge, yet oddly I have a terrible sense of direction and got a 36 on my Course III Regents. Hmm.

Anyway, badges are back in a big way, and for grownups too! But, like everything else, they’ve gone virtual. Many sharing websites like Facebook and Foursquare offer badges that you can earn and display on your page. For example, Foursquare gives you a badge when you check in a certain number of times at a location – the “Newbie” badge for the first time you check in anywhere, the “Porky” badge for people who love barbeque, and the “Don’t Stop Believin’” badge for all of you karaoke superstars out there.

Social media has had badges for several years, but now educational sites are getting in on the action. Badges have become little ways to show you’re dedicated to lifelong learning, and people are even putting them on resumes. This type of badge earning is less like the Foursquare “Check in” and more like a little report card, because you choose to complete the steps necessary to earn educational badges. For an idea of how this works, go to this site http://openbadges.org/  and click “get started” to earn your first educational badge (it won’t take more than 5 minutes – I promise!)

Educational badges are also going to be a part of our amped-up Summer Reading Program this year, called “Make Your Summer @ Your Library.” To see details of the program and the badges we’ve designed so far, check out our site: http://sites.google.com/site/ocplsummerprogram. This type of educational badge program is sometimes called Gamification, and works really well for mobile users who want to take their projects with them and learn whenever they have idle time. Badge earning with your mobile device basically makes your real life into a challenge or a game – which is also the point of our next thing, Augmented Reality.

Thing #8 Augmented Reality

Do you like living in your own little world? Well it turns out that everyone does! We’ve talked about Augmented Reality before, in the 23 Things for Learning Web2.0. But the difference now is that it isn’t a futuristic concept anymore. Basically, AR is a tool to make the real world more like the digital one. The future of augmented reality may make it possible for you to put on a pair of special gloves and use your fingers to “click” on objects or locations in the real world and display them on a device you wear around your neck, similarly to the way we click and move objects on a computer or smartphone. Currently, most AR apps are for directions, but there are also games, apps to help with color blindness, to see if there have been crimes committed around where you are, to find your car, and to help you pick out furniture! Click here to get an idea of what AR looks like and what it’s used for: http://www.iphoneness.com/iphone-apps/best-augmented-reality-iphone-applications/.