Chapter 4: Curation in School Libraries | Valenza | Library Technology Reports The school librarians featured in this chapter describe the value of curation to a school’s learning culture. Their efforts ensure that their investment in e-books, databases, and homegrown instructional content is scaled, embedded, and discoverable whenever students need it. Their efforts support flipped and hybrid learning. They use new strategies to display and juxtapose books and other media face-out in imaginative genre gatherings perhaps never before physically arranged. Curation for Students Shannon McClintock Miller, Van Meter (IA) School (May 22, 2014) Teachers and librarians see the value of developing and modeling the creation of dashboards of resources or launchpads for their learners. SMM: Symbaloo, the amazing digital social bookmarking tool, has become one that we cannot live without at Van Meter School. Ann Yawornitsky, Wilson School District, West Lawn, PA (February 25, 2014) BB: How do you define curation? Why reinvent the wheel? Curation for Students and by Students K.
Learning the art of Digital Content Curation | LinkingLearning It is undeniable that we live in a world of information overload. Check out Internet Live Stats to be truly ‘infowhelmed’! Just one second of internet traffic…. As busy people, it is often at precisely the wrong time that we find that fascinating article, or when we are looking for something else that we discover a great resource for the future. Using these tools effectively requires skills in ‘content curation’. This sounds more complex than it is. Content curation has always occurred in schools – resources were always gathered around the topic of teaching, in order to support and extend student understandings. Students too can benefit from learning effective curation skills as being able to quickly and critically evaluate a range of information sources, and then curate these into a meaningful collection is a vital research skill. She describes these traits as the following: Keep in mind that not everyone will like every tool. The right tool for the right purpose. Like this:
8 High-Quality OER Collections -- THE Journal Resource Spotlight 8 High-Quality OER Collections Finding high-quality open educational resources used to be a challenge, but a number of curated OER collections have made the task much easier for educators. 1. CK-12 Foundation is a nonprofit organization that offers free, standards-aligned content in STEM subjects, including digital textbooks and simulations. The content reportedly works across all platforms and devices, including iPads, Chromebooks and Android tablets. CK-12 also offers tools to help teachers flip their classroom by creating groups, assigning content and monitoring achievement through a teacher dashboard. An interactive simulation of centripetal force from CK-12. 2. Founded by Sun Microsystems more than a decade ago, Curriki became an independent nonprofit in 2006 and is one of the first sources of open educational resources for the K-12 community. Its corporate sponsors include AT&T, Chevron, and Oracle. 3. 4. 5. 6.
Chapter 3: Curation in Public Libraries | Valenza | Library Technology Reports We encountered a refreshing playfulness and a willingness to experiment and create in our public library conversations. Interviews with Billy Parrott of New York Public Library’s Picture Collection and with Amy Sonnie, Teen Outreach Librarian, and Meredith Sires, Teen Services department intern, of Oakland Public Library, reveal how social media curation, particularly using Pinterest and Instagram, can highlight areas of the collection and engage communities. Billy Parrott’s curation involves items that are not actually in the collection but are related to it and designed to create conversations around it. He demonstrates the role personality plays in social media curation, showing that your brand has the potential to reach well beyond your initially conceived audience. In addition to engaging teens with their creative social media curation efforts, the OPL TeenZone librarians value the professional collaborative efforts they see in the youth services community. BP: Do what you love.
Teaching Content Curation Skills To Students In my last piece, I discussed why content curation was an essential skill and discussed ways teachers could use Pinterest to curate content for students. Modeling this skill for students is important, but giving them the knowledge to do it themselves is crucial. The ability to sort through many sources for high-quality information was always the goal of library time and research notecards, but today’s students need tech-based content curation skills. Many of the best and most popular programs for this are widely available for free online. Students can learn to manage information with Pinterest Pinterest can be an excellent place to begin teaching students to do their own content curation, though the site’s minimum age requirement of 13 can interfere with younger students’ ability to use this technology. In addition to actively engaging students in learning, this method also ensures that specific student needs are being addressed. Diigo: the No. 1 content curation tool for educators
OER Commons OER Commons forges alliances between trusted content providers and creative users and re-users of OER. In addition to content partnerships, OER Commons, and its creator, ISKME, builds strategic relationships with organizations, consortia, states, districts, and others, in order to develop innovation and new research focused on OER, to advance the field of open education, and to build models for its sustainability. Supported in part by the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, ISKME, the Institute for the Study of Knowledge Management in Education, created OER Commons as part of the Foundation’s worldwide OER initiative. From content, to infrastructure, to policies, many individuals and organizations work to make open content for all a reality.
Chapter 9: Conclusion: Issues and Trends | Valenza | Library Technology Reports Should we accept them, librarians have unlimited opportunities for leadership in social media curation, functioning as guides, information brokers, interpreters, storytellers, innovators, teachers, marketers, networkers, and connectors. What Maria Popova calls “an increasingly valuable form of creative and intellectual labor, a form of authorship” is an area we cannot ignore. In our areas of expertise, for users we know so well, we should not be abdicating these activities to others. In his Fifth Law of Library Science, Ranganathan embraces the notion of agility. Social Media Curation Is a Thing Our conversations with librarians across ALA’s divisions point to potential. Our relevance is connected to our roles as content filters for our communities—professional and institutional. Our case-study interviews point to the notion that social media curation liberates librarians from levels of editorial restraints. Our digital efforts transform brick-and-mortar practice. Keeping It Fresh
What is content curation? Why does it matter to teachers? The term "curate" has become a buzzword in education. I've seen it referenced in TEDx Talks and tossed around in Twitter chats. A few years ago, the term "curation" would have conjured up images of art galleries but now I associate it with conversations about the future of education. And yet . . . I'm really drawn toward an archaic definition of the term. It originally had a much more earthy, even gritty, connotations. Over time, this word morphed into an intense care and love for a particular subject, knowledge, or set of artistic works. This is something often overlooked in the conversations about education and curation. While I see some validity in this sentiment, I think it proves that now more than ever, teachers need to be curators. What does curation typically look like? Content curation begins with an intense love of the content. Curators have a holistic, connected knowledge combined with thoughtful commentary. Favorite Education Curators Favorite General Curators
VR, PBL, and OERs: Four High Hopes for Learning with Edtech in the New School Year Using technology in schools is no longer just about preparing our students for college and career. Not only do they need the skills to navigate and utilize technology, but they need to understand how technology can connect them with people, places, and resources that were previously unreachable. In 2014, I wrote about strategies for edtech success in the new school year, and in 2015, I wrote about edtech teaching trends for the new school year. Well, I’ve spotted some tools and strategies that have amazing potential to empower students and teachers to engage and learn more with the world beyond their school. High Hope #1: Student-Created VR (Virtual Reality) and AR (Augmented Reality) Where we are: The buzz around virtual and augmented reality is hard to ignore. My high hope: Why not show students how to create with VR and AR? High Hope #2: Project-Based Learning That is Real-World High Hope #3: Coding Can Break Out of Technology Classes Where we are: Since the U.S.
The 5 Models Of Content Curation Curation has always been an underrated form of creation. The Getty Center in Los Angeles is one of the most frequently visited museums in America – and started as a private art collection from one man (J. Paul Getty) who had a passion for art. One of the hottest trends in social media right now is content curation – thanks in no small part to the leading efforts of several thought leaders actively promoting the idea. What Is Content Curation? Back in 2009 I published a blog post called the “Manifesto For The Content Curator” which predicted that this role would be one of the fastest growing and most important jobs of the future. Content Curation is a term that describes the act of finding, grouping, organizing or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue. The 5 Models Of Content Curation Content curation is certainly an emerging space and one where more and more thought leaders will continue to share their voices. Interested in learning more about content curation?
5 Reasons you need to be a Content Curator | Big Ideas in Education No doubt about it, Content Curation is one of the most important digital skills of our time. The basic fact is that Curation is a strategy that we need just to begin to implement and sift through all of the information online.The following explains the top reasons why we need to engage in quality content curation as educators and as learners! Content Curation and Information Literacy The Top 5 Reasons to be a Content Curator. 1. We have the technology. 2. We need to be curators to manage the deluge of information on the internet. 3. Content curation is more than just social media and keeping tabs of friends and trends. 4. Creating content on the internet is at an all time high. 5. We ask our questions, we research, and we make connections that had never existed before. Regardless of the curation tool we ultimately use, the core skills remain the same. Deborah McCallum c 2015 Like this: Like Loading... Related Information-Processing in the Digital Age: Beginning with Content Curation
OER Commons HyperDocs and the teacher librarian The concept of HyperDocs is spreading all over edtech land. HyperDocs are perfect opportunities to grow teacher librarian/ classroom teacher partnerships. A true extension of what TLs do or should be doing in a hyperlinked information landscape, HyperDocs are all about curation and collaboration, instruction based on engaged inquiry, as well as our mission to inspire learning communities to think, create, share and grow. While it’s quite possible you’ve been building HyperDocs-like instruction for years on a variety of platforms, we can now connect our work to an accepted model and a growing and generous community! What are HyperDocs? According to the HyperDocs site, HyperDocs, a transformative, interactive Google Doc replacing the worksheet method of delivering instruction, is the ultimate change agent in the blended learning classroom. I recently interviewed the three teachers behind the HyperDocs model. Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton and Sarah Landis ask the simple, but provocative question: