Content Curation

As the article linked later in this post suggests, there are many terms that have surfaced in the field of education. There is one term that I would like to focus on in this entry: content curation. 

Entering "definition of content curation" into the Google search box, I get the following result:

"The process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme."

Source: Content Curation Primer - Beth's Blog

www.bethkanter.org/content-curation-101/

In the article Understanding Content Curation the author discusses the difference between collecting information and curating. She includes an excellent graphic that compares the two concepts.

Souce: Understanding Content Curation by Nancy White

Innovations in Education - Reflections on Learning

She goes on to say that rather than just classifying information, the curator must use higher level thinking skills in order to organize the content in a meaningful way. Taking this idea a step further, content curation can become an educational and informative intermediate step in the research process for students. It can help them to better select and understand the resources that are the best fit for their end product.

So in this post I'm sharing Web 2.0 tools that can be used by both teachers and students for curating the vast amount of information out there.

Blendspace: The website touts "create lessons in 5 minutes". Better yet, have students create their own resources, reviews, and more. With teacher created blendspaces, you can add assessments and track student progress. Click on the Gallery link on the toolbar for examples. There's also a Teacher Resources link. Content is available on any device with an Internet connection.

LiveBinders offers an easy way to organize a lot of information. Click here to see a really interesting example of how a teacher used LiveBinders for his classroom. LiveBinders has apps for IOS, Android and Chrome.

Pearltrees is described as "a place to collect, organize and share everything you like". Click here for an example on the subject of chemistry. The blue circles (example shown to the right) indicate embedded Pearltrees. This tool has apps for IOS and Android.

Pinterest: You most likely have heard of Pinterest, and maybe you've done some pinning of your own. Click here for a board on Pinterest for Teachers. I have not quite gotten the knack of pinning, but obviously many people have. 

Scoop.it! lets users quickly curate web content into a visual, online publication. You may have noticed in the article above that the author created a Scoop.it! on Curating Learning Resources. Scoop.it! has apps for many devices and programs.

Storify: With Storify, you use the web to tell a story. Content can be from just about any source - Twitter, videos, images, links, text and more. Users can also add their own content or narrative. Take the tour to learn more. Check out this Storify on using this tool in a journalism class. 

A number of these sites have "bookmarklets" (sometimes other terms are used). A bookmarklet is a small software application. Typically it adds a button to your browser that will allow you to quickly add content from the current web page to a specific application. This option is very handy when curating web content.