Jason from Salem State showed xtranormal, a web-based animated video tool, which he uses in his instruction classes. One movie he demonstrated was an introduction to his services. (He mentioned he had one on databases, but didn’t show it.)
He showed the process of making an xtranormal video, including customizing the backgrounds, characters, and adding text that the characters will speak.
Chris from Providence College showed Prezi.
Rosalyn from Wheaton demonstrated Jing. She noted that the Pro version (which costs $14.95/year) allows you to download the videos so that you don’t have to worry about the Internet being unavailable. With the Pro version you can export the files in a number of formats which then allow you to edit them. She then uses MPEG Streamclip to edit the files.
Chris from Providence College demonstrated MindMeister, a collaborative mind mapping tool. Rosalyn from Wheaton demonstrated ManyMoon, a social task management tool. She noted that it’s a good way to keep track of what needs to be done, and users can add notes to the tasks.
There was a question about problem tracking tools, and Rosalyn recommended Basecamp.
Bonnie from Brown demonstrated the lightboxes that come up when users click on the locations in the Josiah catalog. The boxes are from Fancybox.
Chris from Providence showed the Wiki they’ve been using courtesy of their IT department. They’ve added some library-related materials to it. It is also possible to lock pages so that only internal users can access the information.
Sheau-Hwang from Bridgewater State demonstrated the LibX toolbar, which is a free tool that can be configured to search your library’s catalog and databases. She showed how they use it to substitute for a federated search tool. Young-Joo (also from Bridgewater) discussed some of the outreach she has done to encourage use of the toolbar.
Amanda Izenstark
Reference & Instructional Design Librarian
University of Rhode Island