Having engaged for some time now in social learning, I have developed a number of strategies for coping with what is often referred to as information overload. One of these is curating or collecting stuff. But unlike that kitchen drawer we all have, the shoe box, the filing cabinet with no files; curation in the digital sense, allows you to organise by tagging. Retrieval for me is so much easier because of the visual way I curate.
What is Curating?
What is Curation? from Percolate on Vimeo.
Different Approaches
During the #BYOD4Lchat this week on curating I discovered new curation tools but more importantly what people were doing with them and why. I could so easily have been in the very 'information overload' position had I focussed just on the many tools. Rather than try and absorb them, I zoomed in on a handful. I was intrigued by the number of people talking about Evernote, Flipboard and Zite. These given the ongoing conversations are now on my list to explore!
Its always good to hear about a product by recommendation. But..that's not to say everything this community suggests will be right for everyone, though it is a good starting place. My colleague Sue Bamford raves about Pearltrees but I'm afraid it just didn't enthuse me despite creating a 'tree' or two and adding my pearls of information. Why I wonder? Was it the look and feel of the tool? It was simple to use. I think it's a bit like buying a car. Taking away the price tag, every car has four wheels, doors and an engine. The most basic car can get us from A to B. It can do its job. But we all know we make preferences with regards to shape, size and colour. For me its the layout of the pages when I look for information.
Terese Bird and Anne Nortcliffe talked about Mendeley. Could this be a replacement for Diigo? Again something to explore and help me organise academic papers and books. I'd like a tool that would pull in the book cover. That would help me recall what I had read.
What I choose for myself, I tag and put into Mendeley, and sort into folders.... Ready for referencing,bibliography #BYOD4Lchat
— Terese Bird (@tbirdcymru) January 29, 2014
I was pleased to see Flea Palmer share a paper on curation and the link as a core competency in digital and media literacy education. The paper 'explores the concept of curation as a pedagogical tool to embolden critical inquiry and engagement in a digital age' (Cohen 2013). It comes with a rich list of references and I now have some excellent pointers to articles on this fascinating topic to read. Thank you Flea! I think there is a lot more about this topic I have yet to learn about.
Might be of interest:'How curation can be used to teach critical thinking, analysis & expression online' http://t.co/ij3SL7KtSe #BYOD4Lchat
— flea palmer (@fleapalmer) January 29, 2014
Don't discard the JISC list
This is still a good way to send and receive interesting gems of information. There are many lists out there so you do have to be selective or risk an overflow of emails! (A JISC list is an email discussion lists for the UK Education and Research communities).
Andy Miah has curated a list of social media tools through crowd sourcing. He put the call out via a JISC list he created and also on Twitter, and now has an excellent collection of social media tools on his blog he calls the A-Z of Social Media for Academia.
I personally keep a private blog of social media stuff tagging it as I gather. It works for me as I know I can go back in and find things.
However we curate, collect and store doesn't really matter so long as it works for you. I am grateful for being part of such a wonderful open sharing community as the combined efforts have certainly helped me to filter out what I don't need to see and focus on what I do. I curate what is of interest to me through the shared interest of others. Just in this short space of time I have learnt so much from everyone participating in BYOD4L. It has also given me the opportunity to go on and discuss what I have learnt, raise questions and along the way answer questions for others. We have together built a learning community.
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