This week in our EME 6414 class we have been reading about and discussing the concept of online curation or social bookmarking. Our instructor defines this as the "organized and purposeful collecting and sharing of annotated online content". It has got me reflecting on the many years that I have spent trying to organize all of the digital resources that I have come across in the various contexts that I use them. It started for me when I was a teacher. I taught elementary aged students with learning disabilities. The Internet was just starting to explode as I began my teaching career. I would constantly think, and say out loud, how lucky I was to be a teacher in the internet age. That in the past many teachers had to spend much more time coming up with unique and novel ideas for lesson plans, engaging students, organizing classrooms, etc. They had to spend time directly discussing these things with other more creative teachers, spend money on books of ideas and inspiration or time at the public library looking for this information. Now a simple Google search could bring up a plethora of resources, ideas, printables, graphics, worksheets, you name it. The ideas began to outpace and overwhelm those searching. Enter the idea of annotation which I took a lot of time to do. I now know this is/was just one part of the process of curation because I was finding, assessing, choosing, and explaining (annotating) online content and tailoring and sharing that collection via various tools. Too many resources were out there and I found myself trying to find a way to organize the best ones for ease of later access. So, my first attempt at basic digital curation was a site called IKeepBookmarks. I had a blast curating resources here. It allowed me to not only curate but to use my beginning html skills to add some visual elements. I was then able to share these with other educators. I then went on to create several websites that I could keep a more select and carefully chosen set of curated resources on. One for teachers only and one for my students so that they could easily link to the online tools I was using to engage them and extend their learning. For example, I actually had a page called Using Web 2.0 Tools in the Classroom in which I linked to and described (or annotated) some of the tools that I found especially helpful. Teachers don't really have the time for endless searching and my intent was to save those who might see my site some time. Imagine how I felt with the advent of Pinterest, which is a tool for exactly that. I swear was one of the first people on it. The Chrome extension and mobile add share function make it so easy to use and post to. Boards make it even easier to organize and I love that there are secret boards for the things that you want to save that you may not want to share. After I left teaching, I found myself in need of collecting the resources I needed to more effectively do my job at the Department of Education. I did this via my own wiki page with sections for certain areas. I curated/annotated the resources here with explanations. I also added PDF files that I knew I would need to access in the future. The difference with this that I didn't intend for this resource to be shared but I did want it to be public because they were very helpful resources. As a representative of the state department of education I could not have the resources seen as being official as many weren't vetted and were informational for me (so I used a fictitious name and added a disclaimer just in case and only shared anonymously). Of course now I have multiple tools for organizing online content and do it almost as second nature. It's interesting to look back at the ways that I have participated in digital curation without even realizing that's what I was doing. Can you look back at ways that you adopted methods or tools for your own social bookmarking attempts? Also, if you are curating tools for yourself with no intent to share (such as secret Pinterest Boards) would that be considered curation? Or just annotation?
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7/16/2017 12:38:04 pm
I really need to curate and annotate my bookmarks XD. I have a couple of folders, but it is all a mess of a mix of school related things, and general/funny, or general/helpful areas to give to fellow students are friends. I would say that secret boards is still curation, you are just doing it for yourself! and if people are looking for suggestions, you can just go through your files and give them the links!
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About this blogA simple exploration of Web 2.0 and social media and their applications to education; an attempt to learn how prosumers are shaping the internet and how educators can capitalize on it. ArchivesAbout MeNature grrl; loves dogs, books, traveling, clouds, technology, thrifting, break beats and good beer. |