Step 6: Using Curation Tools As A Connected Educator

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.

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

  1. I currently use Pinterest for curation and sharing. I like Pinterest because I can use it for personal interests like cooking and professional interests like lesson activity ideas. I find it very easy to navigate and discover more. I like how I can save and organize my ideas and follow fellow teachers to see what they are posting. I also like how, after you have used it enough, the app generates pages with pins you might like based on each of your boards. If I have a board on classroom management, the app will show me more ideas related to that. I am interested in trying Twitter and Blogs. Especially blogs, since I know a few teachers personally who have them and they seem to provide more of a portal for direct communication than just Pinterest, which is mostly for “lurking.”

    Reply

  2. So, I have Pinterest and it is a great website for finding ideas for the classroom! I find the best crafts for my preschoolers and it also as great project ideas for the classroom. I do a lot of projects for college where I have to create theoretical assignments for a certain subject abd grade level and Pinterest is a great source to pull ideas from!

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  3. I currently use Pinterest for everything. There are great craft ideas for the class room and a number of DIY activities I am interested in. I have never heard of any of the other ones but out of the list of popular ones I loved Evernote. I could see myself using that daily as note taking is very important to me. I like the idea of creating content and sharing with other teachers through Evernote.

    Reply

  4. https://twitter.com/Price_3rdGrade/status/1239952010474119168?s=20 In this post, the teacher created a sneak peek of her morning meeting! She created this 14 second snippet of her outlining the book that she would be reading for the day. The students were then instructed to head over to her class Flipgrid to hear the story and respond to some questions. I liked this idea because it created excitement about what they were doing that day when school was online and seemed boring and disconnected. This idea still creates a classroom community where students are always looking forward to what comes next.

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  5. I would like to discover more about the resources that pinterest has to offer. I think that by looking and browsing different boards will be beneficial to help spark ideas and different ways to teach different activities.

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  6. An interesting tweet that I found was tweeted by the user @Edutopia. The tweet is found at the following link: https://twitter.com/edutopia/status/1453098610829275136?s=21. I found this link interesting because it provided the viewer with 5 hands-on activities that students or children can partake in outdoors. This is beneficial because of the importance that outdoor learning can offer, and it can be difficult for educators to come up with ideas on their own.

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  7. After reviewing the list of popular curation tools, I realized that I only regularly use one curation tool, Pinterest. I utilize Pinterest to get ideas for all sorts of things in my classroom from lesson plan ideas, to bulletin board ideas and even classroom management ideas. I like Pinterest because the more you search, click and save, the more specialized and curated your feed is going to be. I think Pinterest is a great way to get inspiration and ideas for tons of classroom activities and lessons as well as my favorite category, decorating!

    One curation tool that I want to start utilizing more are blogs. I have learned so much about blogs throughout this PLN course and I want to start using them more to learn, while also using them to share my own learning, ideas and perspectives. Oftentimes I am quick to listen to other educators’ ideas but I think I have some insights that could be valuable to other educators as well, so I hope to start using blogs more in those two ways. Blogs allow you to elaborate, structure thoughts and really share ideas, resources and tools so I plan to use more blogs in my future.

    Reply

  8. Curation tools that I currently use: Canva helps me to easily create fun infographics to share with others. Twitter is a very easy way to express myself publicly, save resources for myself, and send interesting findings to my friends. My current account is private so I do not have many privacy concerns since I am in complete charge of who is seeing my tweets.

    Curation tools that I want to try: I saw that many of the comments mentioned Pinterest, and I think it would be neat to look at people’s inspiration posts on classroom design. There are many cheap and easy crafts or decorations I can make that could really lift up the appearance of and comfort of my classroom. Wakelet also looks like a very fun and organized way to share my ideas, that I would like to implement using when I am student teaching next spring.

    Reply

  10. 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?
    – The only tool I currently use is Pinterest and I use it for finding classroom set ups, classroom poster designs and classroom management strategies. I plan to try evernote or flipboard because I recognize those names so they are probably more popular and more used which means it would be easier to find what I am looking for. I don’t have any other tools to add.

    Reply

  11. I currently love using pinterest for inspiration in my classroom. Pinterest can gives me ideas for lesson plans, classroom design, and it also keeps me motivation to keep going when teaching gets difficult. I use pinterest to think of creative ways to keep students engaged, ideas for posters around my classroom, as well as get ideas for different worksheets and games to enhance the learning of my student.

    Reply

  12. 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!

    https://twitter.com/CUNEathletics

    Everytime one of the athletes does something good in their event, they post a “gif” to go along with their post. This always shares the information in an interesting way by immediately grabbing the readers attention.

    Reply

  13. I would like to look into using Symbaloo. I could use Symbaloo to share out resources with others in an easy to update way. I feel like this would be something that could benefit me when trying to get information out there.

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  14. I always hear the science teacher in my school talk about Flipgrid, so I focused on Flipgrid for this lesson. I discovered there are a bunch of activities that can be done on Flipgdird, even having Professional developments on Flipgrid have been done. Flipgrid shares other teachers lessons and activities on their feed and have events that engage the Flipgrid community to make and share more content, thus broadening everyone’s PLN.

    https://twitter.com/Flipgrid

    Reply

  15. I currently love using pinterest for inspiration in my classroom. Pinterest can give teachers ideas for lesson plans, classroom design, and it also gives teachers motivation to keep going when teaching gets difficult. I use pinterest to think of creative ways to do seating charts and posters around my classroom, as well as get ideas for different lessons and worksheets.

    Reply

  16. I have been using Pinterest as a form of social media for years, but, I have not yet utilized Pinterest as a curation tool for my 9th grade English Language Arts classroom. Now that I understand how Pinterest can be applied as means of curating content, I would like to create boards, image collaborations, and spark inspiration in my students with positive quotes and photos. However, Pinterest can also be used to store ideas, teaching techniques, graphic organizers, and content-area specific materials; I did not know that I could implement Pinterest into my teaching this way, but I am excited to see how I can help curate content through one of my most-visited phone applications.

    Reply

  17. I was surprised to see that out of all the popular curation tools, the only one that I seem to use is Pinterest. I currently use this tool for discovery, curation, and sharing. When looking for different ideas I will search the various images on Pinterest, pin the ones that interest me to my board, and share them with my followers. I can even share ideas with different individual users on Pinterest. The curation tool that I would like to try is LiveBinder. We do Genius Hour in my class, and I think that a tool like this could be especially useful in organizing a central hub for information and resources. This is a tool that I am going to try this year. A couple of other curation tools that I have used in my classroom are Padlet and Symbaloo!

    Reply

  18. Pinterest is my “go to” curation tool for education and my life outside of the classroom. I get most of my ideas for games and classroom themes for units from Pinterest. It is easy to use and full of great ideas from educators. Recently, I needed to find a way to review our first unit with my classes before Common Assessment. I found a “Glow Games Bingo” review and turned my room into a bingo hall using black paper, glowsticks, and glow paint. This was a Pinterest success for my students and myself. I was wanting to think outside of traditional reviews and Pinterest was more than helpful. I will continue to use Pinterest for review game ideas and more ideas for my room.

    Reply

  19. After looking at the many different curation tools, Pinterest is definitely my go to to keep my ideas fresh and engaging within the classroom I use this tool for making things more brighter. I also use this took for personal reason such as fashion designing and even home decor ideas. Teacher pay teacher is another one I use from time to time but it is not free.

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  20. After looking at the many different curation tools, Pinterest is definitely my go to to keep my ideas fresh and engaging within the classroom I use this tool for making things more brighter. I also use this took for personal reason such as fashion designing and even home decor ideas.

    Reply

  21. As an educator just beginning to build my digital PLN, I quite like the concept of Feedly and expect to make it – for the time being – my primary curation tool. There is so much content being created on a daily basis; it would be a significant benefit to have a tool that can sort through the noise and show me what I think is important. I would like to cultivate Feedly in such a way that it brings me three things: (1) the education news that will be most useful to me in the classroom, (2) science news that can be directly used in my biology classroom, and (3) science news on topics I am personally interested in, but might not be able to use in the classroom due to complexity or not quite merging with state standards.

    Reply

    1. I utilize Pinterest as a curation tool. Coworkers talk about how they use Pinterest to learn about lesson plan ideas, educational activities, time management strategies, and classroom management strategies. Pinterest organizes content based on my educational interest and then shows me similar pins based on the pin that I click on. Pinterest is time-effective. I am to quickly locate content about the topic that I am searching for.

      Reply

  23. I use Pinterest to create boards based of ideas and use ideas from others to better enhance my interests. It’s very useful and I have many boards.

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  24. Looking at the digital curation tools, the one I use is Pinterest. I like this tool because it keeps my thoughts and saved pages organized and clean. I use Pinterest right now for classroom ideas, wedding, food, recipes, etc. Pinterest brings everything I search and pin together on my home page which is very pleasing. I would like to try Flipboard because it brings all social networks into one location and keeps things organized.

    Reply

  26. After reviewing the list of popular curation tools, I discovered that I only use Pinterest on a regular basis. I get many ideas for everything in my classroom from Pinterest. I not only use Pinterest for my classroom, but for also home decor ideas, recipes, tips, etc. Within my educational career, I’ve used Pinterest for lesson ideas, bulletin board designs, door and classroom decorations, even center time ideas, and worksheets. The more you pin, Pinterest starts to add things that are similar to what you like on your feed. Pinterest, in my opinion, is a fantastic resource for finding inspiration and ideas for your classroom.

    One curation tool that I want to start utilizing more is Evernote. Evernote allows you to collect information, curate resources, search your resources, and share with others. It is also beneficial that Evernote allows you to organize your notes, web clips, files, photographs, and voice recordings into folders, tag them, annotate them, edit them, add comments, search them, and access them from ANY device. Even when you’re not connected to the internet, Evernote allows you to view, input, and modify data. Evernote seems easy and resourceful, so I plan to use it in the future.

    Reply

  27. I used to use Evernote for organizing my own life. I should probably still use it, but I got out of the habit. I never thought to use it for teaching. The note about changes to the free plan in 2016 makes me want to avoid it. That was probably the year that I used it last. It seems like LiveBinders is a good option for me. I like the way it is organized, although I have never heard of it before. Most of the resources listed here are new to me, so I might as well start with the curation of them!

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  28. I’m not sure how to leave the link but I created a Scoop.it account. If you look up “Emma1341” as the user, you should be able to find me.

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  29. A curation tool that I am currently using in my 7th grade Language Arts class is Pinterest. I have Pinterest installed on my school computer, as well as an app on my phone. I mostly use Pinterest to create an engaging atmosphere in my classroom with motivational images and videos. The creations that I choose from Pinterest interests the students and motivates them. I strongly believe that Pinterest contributes to my growth as a teacher in the classroom setting.

    Reply

  30. https://twitter.com/bethderbyshir18/status/1442940568904953856?s=21
    This Tweet is advertising an Instagram page that offers tips on educational technology. The Tweet included a scannable code that takes you right to the Instagram page. I think this is a great idea to not only promote your material, but it’s also efficient and appealing. It saves your viewers times and will encourage them to follow you. I think if more people added a scannable code like this into their tweets they could gain more views/followers.

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  31. Currently my most-used curation tool is Pinterest. I’m already familiar with how to use it, I like the visual aspect, and it’s becoming easier and easier to organize pins (which was initially its main drawback for me).

    I have not heard of Nuzzel before, but I like the idea of it, and I think it would solve some of my issues with Twitter to have a curation tool that prioritized the information I wanted to find. I’m going to try it out soon.

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  32. After reading through this step, I realized I do not use many curation tools. However, I do use Pinterest, and it helps me discover and curate images, videos, and other items.
    I use Pinterest to get different ideas for my lesson plans and other activities. I also like that the more I search and save on Pinterest, the better my feed will be.

    I would also like to try Flipboard. Flipboard will allow me to curate content into a magazine. If I use Flipboard, I also like that I will be able to bring Facebook, Twitter, and other social networks into one location.

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  33. I currently use a Waklet account to curate SEL content. I like to have lots of ideas for infusing Brain Breaks in my lessons. I also like to include content in weekly lessons to gauge my students social emotional well being. Waklet is a great place to curate and search for SEL activities and lessons.

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  34. I currently use pinterest and have used LiveBinder in the past. I need to increase my curation of educational articles but I have been so busy with college classes. I want to try pocket because I need to blog this semester for internship.

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  35. I just created a Wakelet account. The name on my account is the same as my twitter handle, @giftedkidsrock. I look forward to curating collections on all things elementary gifted education!

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  36. I have realized that throughout this course as well as additional online courses that although I thought that I was doing a good job of using the technology that was available to me that I was only just knocking at the door of technology. Technology can be used for many different purposes, and I have found that I have not been doing a great job at using the tools for curation that I have available. I tend to share through Facebook the recipes or articles that I find to be interesting so that I can go back and find them at a later date. Throughout this course and others, I have realized that I tend to stay in my comfort zone instead of exploring new forms of technology. I have had a Pinterest account for over five years and am not actively using it because I never actually immersed myself into it’s functionality so I just allowed the account to go stagnant. I believe that Pinterest could be an excellent place to keep my thoughts organized, not only for my classroom and classroom activities but also for recipes that I would like to or have tried that my family has enjoyed. Additionally, I have recently signed up for a Twitter account and although I would like to praise all the work that I have done there, again I have not fully immersed myself into the app. I have made a point to set up a calendar reminder to set aside time to really look at the technology that I have available to me and be specific about spending time learning all that they offer to myself and others.

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  37. After reviewing the list of popular curation tools, I realized that I only regularly use one curation tool, Pinterest. I utilize Pinterest to get ideas for all sorts of things in my classroom from lesson plan ideas, to bulletin board ideas and even classroom management ideas. I like Pinterest because the more you search, click and save, the more specialized and curated your feed is going to be. I think Pinterest is a great way to get inspiration and ideas for tons of classroom activities and lessons as well as my favorite category, decorating!

    One curation tool that I want to start utilizing more are blogs. I have learned so much about blogs throughout this PLN course and I want to start using them more to learn, while also using them to share my own learning, ideas and perspectives. Oftentimes I am quick to listen to other educators’ ideas but I think I have some insights that could be valuable to other educators as well, so I hope to start using blogs more in those two ways. Blogs allow you to elaborate, structure thoughts and really share ideas, resources and tools so I plan to use more blogs in my future.

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  38. As I was reading though this step, I realized I do not use many curation tools. I do use Feedly and Twitter now as I have just set those up through this course. I have enjoyed what I have been able to find on there so far. I also do use Pinterest for educational purposes. On Pinterest, I have various boards including classroom themes, grade level teacher, icebreakers, math class, daily five resources, and summer school ideas. I enjoy Pinterest because although it is just an image, websites and additional resources are attached to expand your findings. As I continue my journey, I will definitely be investigating more through Twitter and Feedly.

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  39. I have used Pinterest for personal use for a long while, but I have not utilized it as a PLN before. I like the visual aspect of Pinterest and that it will take you to the original source so users are able to vet it as credible before saving or reposting. I have started an education board so I can begin to curate different strategies and resources that will be useful in the classroom. I already found a pin that describes additional versions of the jigsaw method that I had never known about!

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  40. Being in the area of the Visual Arts I often have used curation tools for technology integration. Art museum websites have had a powerful impact on student learning in my classroom. Curators assist in understanding trends and realize that art creates an historical record. These artifacts and art processes can be disseminated through the expertise of an actual curator. Not only does the art area have curators, but many fields of study have experts in the field who serve as curators to the classroom. The curation process is inclusive and productive to learning. Content curators collect information but bring in a unique perspective on their own to influence others by combining and extending thought. Being a content curator is the beginning of becoming a thought leader.

    Here is one of my favorites:

    National Gallery of Art: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OFkMEGHR2Ek

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  41. I use Pinterest all the time and I do not think that will ever change. There are endless amounts of resources for almost all things within one platform. I plan to try Flipboard as I am always hearing other educators discuss it.

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  42. I use Pinterest for a curation tool, there are many ideas and activities that teachers can use in the classroom. It is easy to organize different things by creating different folders and pins.

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  43. Two of the most used curation tools that I use personally are YouTube and Pinterest. I found Pinterest through my sister, and I found that it was a great and easy way to collect and organize things that I thought were interesting to me. I have been using YouTube for a long time, and I think that it is cool that the video sharing website recommends videos to you that relate to other videos that you have watched. I also like the fact that you can subscribe to channels and be kept posted on when they upload videos.

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  44. I am currently using Pinterest, Twitter, Facebook, and Flipboard for curation, news, discovery, and sharing. I tend to use Pinterest and Facebook the most, only because I am comfortable with them. I just created my own Twitter and Flipboard account while completing this course, so I’m sure I will start to utilize them more once I am more comfortable with them. It is nice to learn about/see all the tools out there. I am happy I took this course.

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  45. The only tool I use is Pinterest because I like making boards of different activities and diy projects. I think it would be cool to make boards for different school activities and lesson plans though. The one tool I would like to use is Nuzzel because it would be nice to have a newsletter every week that shows you all of the stuff you missed during the week.

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  46. I use several sites for curation. My primary ones are Instagram, Youtube, and Pinterest. They work really well for discovering and sharing information. Pinterest is probably my favorite for finding inspiration and ideas overall. YouTube I find best used for information and tutorials. Instagram I primarily using for the sharing and collecting ideas/information.

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  47. Sources that I use currently for curation, news discovery, and sharing are Instagram, Facebook, and Pinterest. All three of these sources mainly Instagram and Pinterest are great sources for sharing and curation. People are able to have a museum of work that they have done and people comment thing to encourage them for future projects. I think that these apps can easily take peoples work and bring them to the forefront for other teachers to use the ideas.

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  48. The most used website that I use would be between YouTube and Pinterest. I love seeing all of the different ideas that all of these educators come up with and how they will share all of these amazing ideas with us.

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  49. Out of the curation tools mentioned the one I use the most is Pinterest. I love how so many ideas are available on this tool and you can search for exactly what you need. I also read blogs every once in a while. These have a ton of ideas as well but they are not as widespread as Pinterest ideas can be. I do like how if I tend to gravitate towards one’s ideas, a blog allows me to continue to stay current with the new posts. One curation tool I really want to try is Evernote. The organization and curation that comes with this sight would be beyond helpful.

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  50. I think curation tools might be extremely useful for people who are “well connected educators.” It is like cleaning and organizing your desk at the end of the day. It makes your tomorrow’s work easier. While I think it is beneficial, I think I will wait a bit before I subscribe to any of them. I am just starting to learn how to use social media for professional reasons and I am only following a handful of people and organizations.
    In the future, when I get more comfortable with using social media, I would like to join Pinterest. I think the visual aspect of this tool is what I would appreciate. Flipboard sounds interesting as well.
    For this step challenge, I decided to share a link to a tweet with curated content. It is a summary/list of 50 things to say to encourage a student by TeachThought. I thought it was neat and encouragement is so important.
    https://twitter.com/teachthoughtpd/status/1383872220628283399?s=21

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