First Meeting for Fall 2011

We briefly review the areas of interest for the group, with these areas scoring highest on our survey:

• iPad and various apps (new amazon tablet?)
• Curriculum resources (new materials, needs and resources)
• Productivity (Bookmarks, DropBox, Google Docs, Outlook, Live Binders)
• Social media: Google+, FaceBook, Twitter

Group members offered to present about QR Codes and an advisery Ning. We will try to have an iPad "expert", perhaps Mary Ann Apple, meet with us in the future. In the meantime, this link to her LibGuide about iPads will be helpful.

We discussed changing the time and frequency of our meetings, but the group consensus was to keep things as scheduled (before school, every other Tuesday). Members preferred an open, less planned opportunity to collaborate informally with other faculty members, perhaps using NICE's "share-a-rama" as a model. One referred to Am Exchange as an "Idea Place".

In that spirit, we investigated a New Tool: Kwout demonstrated by Judy Gressel. Simply download the free tool and then (like our snip-it tool), capture part of a web page and embed it elsewhere. This will give students a more visual link to resources and we experimented with using it in Blackboard. The kwout image retains the link to the original web page and any links included in the capture - like this one:

New Trier Library | New Trier Township High School via kwout

More examples can be found on this recent ClassLinks page created by JudyG.

The next Am Exchange meeting will be held, Tuesday, October 18th at 7:30am in the Library. Agenda topics will include follow-up on Kwout and How to create a Facebook Fan page.

In attendance: Raquelle Brennan, Judy Gressel, Andy Horne, Julia Kessel, Linda Straube and Matt Stuczynski. Erika Immel was at Northfield and unable to attend.