Week 3: Mobile Technology and Gamification

Jan. 26 - Feb. 1

This week's reading and discussion centered on Mobile technology and Gamification, two topics that I am somewhat familiar with, although the definition of Gamification is little more in depth than I was expecting. I knew it was related to gaming but there was a little more to it than I thought. After the reading about it, I thought of  the whole 'Pokemon GO' craze of last summer, that was a great example to me.

During this week's activity, I discovered that many libraries around the metro Atlanta area where I live do not have Mobile Library Websites (MLW). My local library system and employer does not have a mobile website and while I never visited the website from my phone or mobile device, I just assumed that they would have one. Although there is a library app, it is only available for iOS users and it is not very popular or widely publicized on the library's website. I remember years ago, maybe 2008, when there was talk of it. This was when the iPhone and Apple products were all the rage. However this app is there but not many library staff are even aware of its existence. I just happened to find out about it when I was doing an assignment for another course last year.

This week's activity was to create a mobile website using the a mobile website builder called DudaMobile (https://www.dudamobile.com/). I chose to use the website of a local library system, not my employer, and for copyright reasons I cannot post the link to my site and I decided not to mention the name of the library system either.

This activity was definitely an interesting learning experience and as I have never created a mobile website before, it was a relatively easy process. It was simple enough to navigate and apply different layouts and color schemes to enhance the appearance of the sites. I definitely liked this activity a lot, because it was a fun learning experience.