that Pharrell Williams song<\/a> stuck in their heads! \u00a0 What is an app, exactly?\u00a0 Well, it\u2019s short for \u201capplication\u201d\u2014as in \u201ccomputer application.\u201d\u00a0 That just means it\u2019s a computer program, like Microsoft Word.\u00a0 The trendy, shortened version has come to apply mainly to programs you use on your mobile devices\u2014phones, tablets, brain chip, etc.\u00a0 (Just kidding about that last one. Or am I?)\u00a0 Apps tend to be small in computer-space and extremely focused in use\u2014they have very particular applications<\/i>, you might even say.\u00a0 (See what I did there?)<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
I recently attended a great webinar hosted by Nicole Hennig, a real expert in this emerging area of study, called \u201cApps for Librarians: Digital Literacy with Mobile Apps,\u201d that described a lot of what she calls \u201ccore apps\u201d and the ways librarians can use them to enhance services to their patrons.\u00a0 She\u2019s really knowledgeable and clear, and while I had long intended to kick off this blog with a discussion of apps, her presentation inspired me to organize it slightly differently.\u00a0 I was going<\/i> to just jump into some reviews of apps and why you should use them, but Ms. Hennig\u2019s method of categorizing apps into four major types struck me as a better means of approaching this whole, vast topic. \u00a0 So, how does she split up the world of apps?\u00a0 She talks about apps for consuming<\/i>, for curating<\/i>, for creation<\/i> and for collaboration<\/i>.<\/p>\n
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Consuming<\/i> apps are pretty straightforward.\u00a0 They know that there is stuff out there to be read, watched, heard, and so on, and give you ways to do so.\u00a0 They tend to gather that kind of material up and present it to you in easy-to-digest formats.\u00a0 E-reading apps like the Kindle app would fall under this category, as would \u2018magazine\u2019 and \u2018feed\u2019 types like Feedly and Flipboard.<\/p>\n
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Apps for curation<\/i> start to give the user a little more power.\u00a0 In these apps, the content is still out there waiting to be consumed, but they allow you to collect, organize, and present it in your own way.\u00a0 This can include big names like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest, though there are a lot more out there.\u00a0 You can also curate your own content with apps like Buffer, which allow you to schedule your social media posts throughout the day.\u00a0 (Because you wouldn\u2019t want your kids to go a half an hour without an update from you!)<\/p>\n
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Creation<\/i> apps\u2014this is where things start to get really interesting.\u00a0 These guys know that the Force is in you<\/i>, Luke.\u00a0 Whatever you want to create\u2014prose, poetry, drawings, photography, even music and 3D models\u2014there\u2019s an app for that.\u00a0 And it doesn\u2019t matter if you\u2019re a maestro or a rookie, because there are creative apps for every skill level.\u00a0 Heck, some of the apps used by digital virtuosos are equally accessible to novices.\u00a0 Some big names here are Adobe Ideas, Diptic, and the very cool music-making app, Thumb Jam.<\/p>\n
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Finally, we have collaboration<\/i> apps, which bring it all together.\u00a0 Whatever you may do on your own in the other three categories, there\u2019s most likely an app that allows you to do it in a group.\u00a0 Often they\u2019re the very same apps.\u00a0 (You\u2019ll find that there\u2019s a lot of overlap between these categories.)\u00a0\u00a0 Scribble on whiteboards with SyncSpace, share files with Dropbox, and play a game of multidimensional tag over Skype.\u00a0 (No, I\u2019m not sure exactly how that would work, but it would be fun to figure out.\u00a0 Laser pointers?)<\/p>\n
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Ms. Hennig covered a lot of other interesting elements of the app revolution, but the other important one for all of you out there is the concept of content ecosystems<\/i>\u2014in other words, the idea that the things you create on apps can be synced up across all your devices, allowing you to travel freely between your phone, tablet, and computer(s) without losing anything.<\/p>\n
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It\u2019s also worth mentioning that apps have incredibly positive implications for accessibility\u2014a lot of them have features built-in to assist people in using them, and there are many that are designed precisely to help people better navigate the world.\u00a0 There are apps that identify currency for the blind and that help disabled teens learn.\u00a0 That sounds like a revolution worth supporting, right?<\/p>\n
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So that\u2019s that for our first foray into the realm of apps.\u00a0 Check back in the future when I dig into some specific reviews and recommendations. Thanks again to Nicole Hennig for her awesome presentation (you can check out more about her here<\/a>).\u00a0 I hope you\u2019ll join me in exploring these and other amazing curious on the media and literacy landscape.\u00a0 And get in touch if any of this has struck your fancy and you\u2019re itching for app-based library programs!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Hi! I\u2019m Alex, the new Adult Services Librarian here at PYPL.\u00a0 I\u2019d like to use this blog space as a way of talking to you, our library public, on topics of interest that you might be a little leery about.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[42,59,60],"class_list":["post-877184","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adult-services-blog","tag-apps","tag-digital-literacy","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877184","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=877184"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/877184\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=877184"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=877184"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pypl.stls.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=877184"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}