Welcome to the sixth and penultimate step in our free professional learning series on building your PLN.

In this activity you will explore:

  1. What content curation is and the benefits of content curation.
  2. A simple framework for getting started with content curation.
  3. A range of different tools that you can choose from to make content curation easier.

What Is Content Curation?

We are living in an era of information overload. There is so much content shared online that we actively seek out people who have good content curation skills to help us “sort the wheat from the chaff”.

A person with good curation skills saves us time by sifting through the vast abundance of content on the internet to select the best, most relevant resources on a specific topic or theme. The curator organizes, manages, and collates for their own use and shares with us.

If you look closely at most educators with a high following on social networks like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, or Instagram you’ll notice that most are great content curators and share excellent resources.

Their sharing and content curation skills helped them build their PLN.

information hydrant
Creative Commons License Photo Credit: Will Lion via Compfight

Video: What Is Content Creation?

This 90 second video provides a useful overview of content creation.

21st Century Content Curation

Of course, content curation is nothing new. It has been an important skill for hundreds of years — think of newspapers, art galleries, museums, or simple storytelling.

Teachers have always been curators too — bringing together the most worthwhile materials to help their students learn. In the past, this might have been limited to books, posters, concrete materials, guest speakers, etc. But of course, there are so many wonderful digital resources available now too.

Content curation has been happening since the beginning of time in some form or another; however, it’s becoming increasingly worthwhile and complex as the volume of information online continues to increase.

21st century content curation can involve finding, verifying, organizing, annotating, remixing, creating, collating, and sharing.

This might sound overwhelming but it doesn’t have to be. Luckily, there are some excellent free digital tools for content curation which we’ll explore in this post.

The Benefits Of Content Curation

The main reasons why educators curate content include:

  1. To find, organize, and manage information and resources on specific topics.
  2. To stay informed about the latest information on specific topics which leads to professional growth.
  3. To learn through the process. As you search for and curate the best resources, you reflect on their value and you may develop new ways of thinking.
  4. To help build their PLN. Networks actively seek and follow good content curators because they save us time.
  5. To learn how to curate themselves so they can teach students how to curate content for research, their interests, and passions. Curation is an important part of being digitally literate.

Learn more about students as content curators in this excellent short video by John Spencer.

The Curation Process

We made this diagram to simplify the process of content curation. Feel free to use it on your blog or share with others.

Read, Editorialize, Share -- The Basics Of Content Curation Edublogs PLN Teacher Challenge

1) Read — Visit your favorite blogs or social media accounts, use curation tools like Flipboard or Feedly, or perhaps subscribe to newsletters. This consumption might mostly include text-based materials but don’t forget podcasts and videos too.

FILTER — Before moving on to the next step, you need to filter. You do not just want to share anything and everything. Check out Are You a Curator or a Dumper? by Jennifer Gonzalez. You also need to verify and make sure you don’t share anything that might not be true.

2) Editorialize — Here is where you need to add your own touches to your findings to help others. This involves considering your audience and what they might be interested in. You might even put together a few similar resources that complement or contrast each other.

CREATE — Before sharing, you might consider if you could create something with the content. This could be putting your favorite quote on a graphic to make your findings more shareable. Or maybe you could make your own infographic to share based on your findings.

3) Share — As we’re discovering throughout this PLN series, you can share with your PLN in a wide range of ways. Commonly, teachers will share with their network via their blog or social media. Sometimes you might want to compile resources together into one location using a tool like Wakelet, Google Docs, or Padlet. Once you share, be willing to interact with your PLN. Invite them to comment by asking questions and don’t forget to reply to any comments. Needless to say, when you’re sharing other people’s work, you should make it clear where it’s from.

Note: we’ll be explaining the tools mentioned above further on in this post. 

Examples Of Shared Content On Twitter

Content curation is not just finding a link and putting it in a tweet. Your PLN is not going to get much value out of that.

As the curator, you can challenge yourself to do a little more from time to time.

Here are some examples of curated work from educators.

Tony Vincent is well known for his graphics he creates for social media. These are always shared extensively.

Shannon McClintock Miller put together this Padlet with ideas of books to celebrate International Dot Day.

Jake Miller regularly makes GIFs to enhance his tweets which are well received by his followers.

Quotes are always popular additions to tweets. Check out our post on quotes if you want to learn how to make your own.

Sketchnoting has taken the edtech world by storm over the last few years. Julie Woodard is well known for her excellent sketchnotes which are a great way to visualize and summarize content. Here’s an example:

BookSnaps are a popular choice for sharing snippets of professional reading. Tara Martin coined the term BookSnaps and you can read more about them on her website.

Here is an example of a simple BookSnap from Jennifer Tod.

Emojis can catch a reader’s eye and make a nice addition to a summary for the time poor.

Digital Curation Tools

There are a plethora of free digital tools you can use to help with content curation.

Tools generally fall into one of these three categories.

  • News discovery tools — Use your preferred news discovery tool to select and aggregate the content. News discovery tools save time by feeding you the most relevant content. Examples of news discovery tools include Feedly, Flipboard, Nuzzle, and following a hashtag on Twitter.
  • Curation tools — Use your preferred curation tools to display your content with context, organization, annotation, and presentation. Examples of curation tools include Scoop.IT, Flipboard, Diigo, Wakelet, LiveBinder, or a blog.
  • Sharing tools — Select which networks you share your curated content on. For example, you might share the content on Twitter and Facebook. Some people will choose to follow your curated content via your curation tools (such as follow you on Scoop.IT, Pinterest, Flipboard Magazine, or Diigo).

Overview Of Popular Curation Tools

Which tools you use, and how you curate, is very personal.

You might have a set workflow that you follow regularly, or you might dip in and out of using different tools depending on your mood and needs.

We’ll now provide a snapshot of how some of the more popular curation tools work. These include:

  • Blogs
  • Wakelet
  • Nuzzel
  • Pocket
  • Diigo
  • Evernote
  • Flipboard
  • LiveBinders
  • Pinterest
  • Scoop.it

Blogs

Blogs posts are a popular way of curating content because:

  • You can dive deeper and write a detailed elaboration. You may find that the act of writing helps to transform your vague ideas into well structured thoughts.
  • You can customize and organize vast amounts of information in meaningful ways.
  • You might write a post about a single article you’ve read, or create a round-up post. This is where you share links to great content from multiple sources about a specific topic. Ideally, you’d add your own short annotations too.

Refer to Silvia Tolisano’s post on blogging as a curation platform for more information.

Check out these examples of educators who curate content using blogs:

For those who are new to blogging, we recommend you work through our personal blogging series. This series takes you step-by-step through the process of setting up your own personal educator blog.

Wakelet

Wakelet allows you to save, organize and tell stories with content from around the web.

This is a relatively new tool that is becoming very popular with teachers.

You can sign up for free or create a quick collection without signing up. There’s also a browser extension to save links from the web.

Your collections can be public or private. You can also embed collections on any blog or website.

Here’s a simple example:

Find out more about Wakelet including how to get set up and how to use it in the classroom in this post. 

4 steps to getting started with Wakelet by Kathleen Morris

Nuzzel

Nuzzel logoNuzzel is a ‘news monitoring and research tool’.

If you’re on Twitter or Facebook you might have found that it can be serendipitous in nature. You sometimes just ‘see what you see’ and there are no guarantees that you won’t miss the most interesting or important stories.

When you sign up for a free Nuzzel account you can get a curated email sent to you daily with the top stories from the people you follow.

This is really handy to stay abreast of important stories. You can then explore those links and decide whether they’re worth sharing with your PLN.

With Nuzzel, you can curate your own newsletter for your followers too. You can include stories you find interesting and add a personal touch with a headline and comments.

Your PLN can subscribe to your newsletter and you can share it on social media like Troy Hicks has done here.

Pocket

Sometimes you’re browsing the web or social media and you come across an interesting article, video, or link. You’d like to read it but you might be short on time.

This is where Pocket comes in. You put that item ‘in your Pocket’ for later.

You can save directly from your browser or from apps like Twitter, Feedly, or Flipboard. You can view it again when you’re ready — from your computer, phone, or tablet. You can even view the item when you’re offline.

When you’ve reviewed the items you’ve saved, you can then decided if there are any you’d like to share with your PLN.

The ad-supported version of Pocket is totally free.

Watch how this user reads his saved articles on the Pocket app.

Diigo

Diigo is a free social bookmarking tool that allows users to share online resources like websites, articles, and online tools in a private or public group format.

The benefit of using a social bookmarking tool is it allows you to organize and store your bookmarks online rather than in the browser of your computer.

This means you can log into your account, on any device, at any time, and easily find your bookmarks.

Watch the following video by Ms. Lamm to learn more about Diigo.

Check out these examples of how these educators use Diigo:

  1. Vicki Davis
  2. Vicky Sedgwick
  3. Anne Mirtschin

Evernote

Evernote enables you to collect information, curate resources, find your resources, and share with others all from the one workspace.

With Evernote, your notes, web clips, files, images, and voice memos can be sorted into folders, tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched, and accessed whenever you need them on any of your devices.

Evernote also enables you to view, input, and edit data even when offline.

Watch this short overview by Lindsey Maczynski about curation using Evernote.

Note: While there are still many teachers who enjoy using Evernote, changes to the free plan in 2016 resulted in some educators switching to other options. 

Flipboard

Flipboard was originally designed as a social network aggregation, magazine-format app for iPad in 2010. It’s now the most popular of the magazine-like content aggregation apps.

Flipboard’s strength is you are able to bring your social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn into one location alongside your favorite news sources and anything else you like to read, or watch (like YouTube). On top of this, it’s easy to share your favorite content with your social networks and easy to curate your favorite content into Flipboard magazine(s).

Watch this video to learn more about Flipboard.

Flipboard is a powerful tool for curating your favorite content into magazine(s).

The benefits of using a Flipboard magazine include:

  1. Quickly curating and sharing articles you like directly to your own magazine from within Flipboard (or using the Flip It bookmarklet in your web browser), while also sharing the articles with your social networks at the same time!
  2. Other Flipboard users can subscribe to your Flipboard magazine(s) allowing them to easily read the articles you like to share.
  3. Anyone who clicks on a link can read your magazine using their web browser regardless of whether or not they have a Flipboard account.

Here are links to some example Flipboard Magazines:

Watch this video to see how Sue Waters uses Flipboard.

You’ll find detailed step-by-step instructions on how to set up and use Flipboard here.

LiveBinders

LiveBinders is your digital binder for all of your online content and learning.

With your LiveBinder, you can create a central hub full of resources on a topic that you choose. Almost everything that you can think of can be added to your LiveBinder – links to websites, YouTube videos, Flickr images, PDF/Microsoft Word documents, and QR codes are just some examples of rich content for your LiveBinder.

Check out Joy Kirr’s Genius Hour LiveBinder to see how Livebinder can be used for curating resources.

Click here to open this binder in a new window.

Refer to the Educator’s Guide to LiveBinders to get started.

Pinterest

Pinterest is a virtual bulletin board or pinboard that allows you to find and curate images, videos, or websites.

The visual aspect of Pinterest is a key reason why it’s captured the interest of so many.

You add items to your Pinterest accounts using pins. A pin is a visual bookmark which could be an image, video, slideshare, or a web clip of a site.

When you click on a pin it takes you to the site where the pin was sourced from so you can learn more.

Some people think of Pinterest as a social media platform but it’s really more like a search engine. Pinterest calls itself a visual discovery engine.

Watch this video tutorial to learn more about Pinterest.

You can check out how we use Pinterest here.

Examples of educators using Pinterest to curate and share:

  1. Eric Sheninger
  2. Larry Ferlazzo
  3. Vicky Davis
  4. Cult of Pedagogy

Scoop.it

Scoop.it allows you to create a web page to share what you find interesting with the world.

It does this combining clever curation tools that make it easy to gather content in one place with a wide range of sharing functionalities to let people know about your Scoop.it page.

Watch this video to learn more about Scoop.it.

Check out these examples of how Scoop.it can be used:

For more information on Scoop.it refer to how to keep your content fresh with Scoop.it.

Curation Pitfalls

Kay Oddone created this diagram based on a presentation by Joyce Seitzinger.

It summarizes some of the pitfalls you want to avoid as a content curator.

Content Curation Pitfalls
Image by Kay Oddone

The Hoarder: a curator who collects everything indiscriminately, who doesn’t organise their content, and doesn’t share – this is really closer to simple aggregation than curation.

The Scrooge: one who, similarly hoards their information – although they may organise their collection, they don’t share either; one of the key purposes of educational content curation!

The Tabloid (or National Enquirer): a collector who indiscriminately collates everything together, and generously shares this aggregation, whether others want/need it or not!

The Robot: a curator who uses tools to shares automatically, with no context related additions or value adding; in this case, the curation is really no better than providing a list of Google search results.

Avoiding these pitfalls is what differentiates the effective content curator from those simply ‘collecting’ content.

Visit Kay’s post to learn more about content curation.

Create Your Own Workflow

Remember, while there are tools that can help with the aggregation and organization of all the great resources you’re coming across, technology can’t do the curation. This is the job for a human who knows their audience (their PLN).

We encourage you to try out the following process if you’re ready to give content curation a go:

  1. Find the tool(s) that you prefer to use for news discovery, for curation, and for sharing.
  2. Curate the content that helps you, and is helpful for others.
  3. Make it part of your routine to curate and share content.

As you get going and try different tools, your wants and needs might evolve. You’ll figure out the pros and cons of different tools as you use them.

Stick with it and you’ll begin to develop your own workflow that works for you!

Want to see an example of a workflow?

Richard Byrne is a master curator, keeping hundreds of thousands of teachers in the loop on a daily basis. Watch how he uses Feedly and Google Keep together.

Watch David McGavock’s video to see how he use Netvibes, Scoop.IT, and Diigo as his curation and learning tools.

Your Task

It’s now time to take action!

We’d like you to add your voice and ideas to our ongoing conversation about PLNs by undertaking one or more of these challenges:

  1. Review our list of popular curation tools. Leave a comment on this post to share what tools you currently use (and why) for news discovery, curation, and sharing. Tell us which of the curation tools you plan to try and why. Do you have any other tools to add that you’ve tried or heard about?
  2. Set up an account. Choose one of the popular curation tools such as Flipboard, Nuzzel, Scoop.it, or Pinterest. Sign up and leave a link to your account so others can take a look and follow you.
  3. Interesting tweet. Find an example of a tweet where someone has curated and shared some information in an interesting way. Maybe they included a summary, visual, sketchnote, GIF, or quote. Share the link to the tweet so we can take a look!
  4. Write a post on your blog. Share your own thoughts about curation. Please include @edublogs if you tweet your post so we can share your post with our network. Leave a comment with a link to your post so we can read it! In your blog post, you might like to cover topics like:
    • What do you see as the advantages of curating content?
    • What tips do you have for newbies?
    • What did you learn about content curation that you didn’t know?
    • What are your future goals for content curation?
    • How could you teach your students something about content curation?

Also feel free to leave a comment to ask any questions or share your tips.

How to leave a comment: Scroll down to find the comment box. Write your comment, then enter your name and email address (email addresses are not published). Enter the anti-spam word. Press submit and we will moderate your comment ASAP.

609 thoughts on “Step 6: Using Curation Tools As A Connected Educator

  1. Curation tools that I currently use are blogs and Pinterest. I read different blogs to learn about various topics and I use Pinterest to find ideas mainly. In the future I plan on looking more into Wakelet and Diigo, as well as other curation tools. I also plan on creating blog posts myself instead of just viewing others.

  2. Pinterest is a platform that has a lot of people posting their ideas and different solutions to different “issues” in the classroom. However, as time goes on we see more and more current teachers migrating to platforms like TikTok or Instagram, and with those platforms, people can build their ideas off of another teacher’s TikTok or their Insta post, which I have yet to see Pinterest do, but Pinterest can be good for inspiration, but TikTok has teacher directly saying what they are doing and how they’re doing it.

  3. – Pintrest!! I absolutely love pintrest it Is my favorite tool to use it has everything you could ever think of when trying to find a creative idea. A curation tool that I plan to try is blogging I always wanted to write a blog I just never knew where to start or even how to start so now that I have everything to start might as well give it a try!

  4. To share thoughts and opinions about something. To not to be narrow minded because that how gate keeping works on social media. To always be careful of what they post as well because it doesn’t go away even if they delete on their end. It’s also something that gate keeping is foundation on is because there is a lot of hate on social media and there is no going back unless people are willing to think about what they are posting. There are different kinds of tools out there that can help with social media posting and gatekeeping doesn’t necessarily be there if we understand how social media works and every social media. To educate people on different types of things that teachers don’t usually talk about. They can talk all they want about what they are teaching in school. But I think that learning how society works, especially right now when it’s getting harder to live in is important. I think that hands-on learning is always a way to go because it gets kids excited and move around and engage with the activity.

  5. I love flipboard to create digital zines with students. I love any way students can incorporate art into their essays or writing!

  6. I currently have a Pinterest, which I usually use for recreational purposes. However, I went in and looked at some education feeds and found some really cool stuff. I love Pinterest and this will definitely be a tool that I utilize for content curation. I might even create an account completely dedicated to education so that all of my content is in its own world and not clouded by my other Pinterest boards. I love Pinterest because you are able to create multiple different boards for different topics of education, I can have one for English, one for Theatre, one for the focus on LGBTQ+ community in education, one for inclusivity and diversity, and more.

  7. The most common tool I utilize is Pinterest. I use this tool for news discovery and curation. Using Pinterest, I can find other educators ideas, and build off of them to create good classroom ideas and activities for the content in my classroom. In addition, I would like to try Flipboard in the future, because it is another visual curation tool, and I prefer to use visual aspects to discover news and curate.

  8. I personally love Pinterest! Pinterest is such an amazing platform and resource tool for collaborating, gathering, and sharing ideas. Pinterest is a great platform for everyone because it is simple to use, and has endless categories of interests, and areas of content.

  9. I use Pinterest and I love it. You can find great ideas on their and I think it can be really beneficial to educators.

  10. The tool that I use to curate things is Pinterest, and I use it for different categories of interests that I have. I use it to help me visualize ideas that I have that I want to execute. I also use it to save ideas that I want to try in the future. I can see how it can be useful as a tool for curating educational resources.

  11. The tool that i use a lot is Pinterest. I have used it for many years for getting ideas and other events for my sorority! It is very easy to use, and also easy to post one. I know a lot of other teachers use Pinterest as well!

  12. I have a Pinterest account and I think that this would be the most useful one to use because it has so many different ideas from many different people. Also, I think that since there are so many ideas you could create one similar to one you find but change it to make it your own.

  13. A tool that I currently use is Pinterest. It is a create place to get new ideas and share things that you have created with other people.

  14. I plan on trying a lot of these curation tools, because I honestly have not heard of most of them. The only one I am super familiar with is Pinterest. I think these tools are great for educators, and in turn will benefit students. Flipboard interested me right off the bat, because I like how it is a conglomeration of your other social networks. It seems like an easy way to share and connect with others.

  15. I see many teachers use Pinterest. This is where many get their theme ideas for the week, classroom decor, and even cute activities to do with your students. I most likely will use Pinterest as well since I already use it. This is where I figured out what theme I would like my classroom to be and what types of visual signs I want to include within my classroom.

  16. I have heard of some of these tools but I am not super familiar with them. Pinterest is one that I know has been around for awhile and I have seen it used for so many different reasons. This is one that I would like to use in the future. Another tool from the list that looked interesting was Flipboard which looks like a fun way to have people get to know you like when you need to share information about yourself to parents or coworkers in a fun and different way.

  17. A curation platform that I have used is pinterest. It is very straightforward to use and can be a great tool for gaining inspiration within your content area, both inside and outside of the classroom.

  18. I currently use Pinterest as a discovery and curation tool for pretty much everything, including things I’d like to use in my future classroom. I like that pin boards for broader categories can be broken up into smaller sub-categories, like classroom decoration, lesson planning, and classroom management, to help with organization. I’ll also share Pinterest links with others, create collaborative boards, and keep track of what did and did not work for me.

  19. Pocket is a resources that I have used before and found very useful! It is a way to save resources to your “pocket” to use them later. It is really helpful to go look at what you have saved in the past. It is a great way to compile all your resources and be able to go back to them later.

  20. I chose to share my Pinterest account because it is a network that I use everyday. I also have a teaching board where I put my ideas for my classroom onto there. The link to my pintrest is https://pin.it/479GPKr.

  21. The tool I would use the most, and see lots of teachers using, is Pintrest. It is a super creative platform with easy to follow tutorials. It has a lot of inspo for activities to use, crafts for your students, and different inspo for your classroom.

  22. I use Pinterest because it is an excellent tool for curating and discovering educational resources. Many teachers use Pinterest to find lesson plans, teaching strategies, classroom management tips, and other resources they can use in their classrooms. Teachers can easily organize and save the content they find on the platform by creating boards on specific topics or subjects related to Education.
    Additionally, Pinterest allows users to follow other educators with similar interests or teaching styles. This tool creates a network of like-minded professionals who can collaborate and share ideas.

    Overall, if used effectively as a curation tool for educational content discovery purposes by following relevant boards created by experienced educators or creating your own board based on your interests it could be very beneficial for professional development as well as improving student learning outcomes in the classroom.

  23. I use Newsela as a curator. I like using Newsela because my students are linked to it through their own Schoology accounts, and I can directly assign them articles they can read and answer the questions associated with it. I plan on using Flipboard in the future. I will try Pinterest in the future. Of course, I’ve heard of Pinterest, but never used it. Pinterest truly has something for everyone, and not just in education.

  24. I use pinterest to get ideas for anything. It has tutorials, crafts, and quotes. I mostly use it for art and craft ideas for classroom projects or decorations.

  25. I currently use Pinterest to curate Pinterest boards for home furnishing, outfit, visual, makeup, and more inspiration. I can use Pinterest to create my PLN by creating Pinterest boards specifically for educational content. For example, I can create boards for different units, teaching methods, classroom organization, educational technology, and more! I will also search for and follow educators on Pinterest in my content area. This will allow me to see their pins and boards, which can be a source of valuable educational content.

  26. Pinterest is a great tool to use. There are so many ideas, lesson plans, classroom management, classroom decoration ideas, and more. This site allows for educators to quickly find what they need as well as share ideas.

  27. I’ve used EverNote before and they’re really user-friendly to create content. I would love to try LiveBinder because I really love paper binders and so figuring out how I can create that in an online experience would be great. This list could include TikTok because that’s a huge platform right now for people to share content.

  28. I’m interested in using Pinterest and LiveBinders to organize the online content that I find that I want to save to read later or for inspiration.

  29. The only tool that I currently use from the list is Pinterest. I love Pinterest I use it to plan out mood boards, look for inspiration, and they have something for every subject. A couple tools I would like to try are live binders and flipboard. Live binders are really cool to me I have never seen anything like it. It allows students to keep all their information in on spot online and I think students would really enjoy keeping a live binder. Flipboards allow students to keep articles, photos, and connect across social media platforms.

  30. One tool that I currently use is Pinterest. Pinterest is great for sharing lesson ideas for all grades and subjects. One tool that I plan on trying is live binder because it seems like a great resource to stay organized digitally.

  31. One tool that I currently use quite frequently is Pinterest. There are so many different things that you can find and discover on Pinterest, from news, to funny pictures, tutorials, quotes, school problems, and much more. I use it mostly for art ideas and tutorials, but recently I have been using it to look for teacher tips and tools. Fun ways to study and learn new teaching techniques. As well as advice from other teachers around the world. Another curation I would probably try would be Live binders. It seems like a great way to find new activities and any resources you may need to complete those activities and assignments. it is a great information hub for students and teachers, who can also share any websites, YouTube videos, PDFs and other documents about any topic.

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