Content Curation World

New interesting tools make it possible to create online courses and full online learning programs, by drastically simplifying the design process while providing simple tools to curate and bring together valuable existing content already published online.

The first I'd like to bring to your attention is Classmill, which makes it very easy to create online courses by providing a very simple and intuitive interface and allowing the author to add with ease his own texts, as well as images, links and video clips coming from elsewhere on the web. Anyone can publish an online course and make it visible to everyone. Only those who register and join in can see the full contents and can participate in the integrated discussion area for the course.

The second one is Learnyst, which goes one step beyond Classmill by facilitating the creation of a full online school with multiple courses and the ability to charge for selected ones. 

Both tools are extremely easy to use, and allow the assembly of existing materials, whether owned or produced by others. 

This is an interesting trend as in the past most tools to deliver educational content relied on the author creating and posting only his own materials. The fact that you now can easily include valuable content published by others opens up the gates both for the curation of lots of existing content into useful learning courses as well as for the issue of whether and how to compensate curated content from others. 

This economic issue though, does not preclude tons of free high-quality content to be re-used and showcased in many new free learning courses and it provides those who want to learn with even more non-commercial alternatives to master their favorite topics. 

Takeaway: You are going to see more of these tools and more subject-matter experts create valuable learning resources by bringing together key relevant content produced by others while adding tangible value, perspective and context.

If you have a strong passion or expertise it's time to start thinking about building your own online school. 

Check out these two tools:

- Learnyst

- Classmill

Other curation tools for learning moving in the same direction:

- Gibbon

- Learnist

- Educrate

More content curation tools organised in categories:

https://contentcuration.zeef.com/robin.good 

HackDesign is a great example of content curation at work. The team of design curators behind this site, targeted at people interested in digital/web design, has curated the very best articles into a series of lessons and the top tools into a well-categorized toolkit.

Each lesson is per se a collection of annotated pointers to existing quality articles on the topic, and the tools are individually reviewed and organized across different application areas.

The official intro: "We've asked some of the world's best designers to help us curate the best and most useful blogs, books, games, videos, and tutorials that helped them learn critical elements of design. We're organizing them all into a digestible and iterative lesson plan so you can apply this knowledge to your own projects."

A model for anyone interested in creating a learning hub on any topic by curating the best content already available online.

Must-see. 9/10

Free to use.

Check it out now: https://hackdesign.org/ 

The curators: https://hackdesign.org/curators 

Martin Smith, Chief Revenue Officer at Noodle, has written an interesting article highlighting how the future of universities is about to be completely transformed, and how, similarly to what is happening in the music industry, curators, or those organization acting in such role, will play a dramatically important role in the future of higher education.

Key factors that will make this a reality are:

• The price of content will freefall over the next seven years.
  
  
• The supply of learning content will swell.
  
  
• Education will increasingly be personalized.
   

"Universities will be masters of curation, working as talent agencies. They’ll draw royalties and license fees from the content professors create and curate.

In many ways, the role of the best universities will become even more focused on identifying, investing in, and harvesting the returns from great talent."

Insightful. Right-on-the-mark. Must-read. 9/10

Full article: http://qz.com/223771/universities-are-the-record-labels-of-education/ 

See also: http://www.masternewmedia.org/curation-for-education-and-learning/ 

An excellent showcase of best practices in curating content in education while using different tools and services.

Sue Waters pulls together a great number of very good examples, of how curated content can be effectively used in education.

The analysis includes relevant statistical data on the use of content curation tools, and several chapters providing examples of how different types of content curation tools have been effectively utilized within an educational context.

Tools covered: Storify, Slideshare, Scoop.it, Pinterest, Tweetdeck, Flipboard, Popplet, Mindmeister.

Content types covered: Blog posts, Visual notes, Infographics. 

Resourceful. 8/10

Full report: http://theedublogger.com/2014/06/12/curation/ 

Reading time: 6'

GEDB, the Global Education Database, is a great and extremely useful curated collection of the best apps, web tools, gadgets and moocs now available online for educational purposes.

Anyone can register to GEDB and submit any valuable resource or tool by filling out the dedicated form.

Submissions are reviewed for factual accuracy and integrity and approved and published within 24 hours. Readers and contributors can in turn rate the review and share it online.

This is a great educational resource, simple to consult and well organized. A treasure trove of qualified resources for anyone wanting to teach and learn with new technologies.

Free to use.

Try it out now: http://www.gedb.org/ 

Ben Betts provides a useful framework for understanding how to leverage the potential of content curation both at the organizational and at the individual level.

In his vision, content curation takes up four broad roles that help us learn.

These are:

1) Inspiration - curation done by others outside of a formal learning framework

2) Aggregation - same as inspiration but done within a formal learning context

3) Integration - what is referenced as PKM (personal knowledge management) (see Harold Jarche for more info).

4) Application - how to apply insights derived from curation process into daily work or activities. 

For each one of these, the author provides a good description, examples and insight into its usefulness and value and into how organizations can use it.

Some delightful insights include:
 

• inspiration - curating community feedback and insights
   
• aggregation - curated resources are better than courses
   
• integration - curation & critical thought core to teaching and learning processes
   
• application - curation as a personal "learning locker" 

Valuable reading for anyone interested in understanding more about the value of content curation for learning.

Insightful. Useful. 8/10 

Full article: http://www.ht2.co.uk/ben/?p=527 

A great collection of key articles on curation prepared by David Kelly to support his ASTD 2013 session on Curation: Beyond the Buzzword.

The curated list includes nearly 40 selected articles divied into four groups:

a) Specific Session Resources

b) Curation-Themed Writing
c) Curation Examples
d) Additional Resources

Very useful. Good selection. 8/10

Full resource page: http://davidkelly.me/2013/05/curation-beyond-the-buzzword-resources-shared-at-astd2013/

Presentation on Slideshare: http://www.slideshare.net/DavidKelly3/curation-beyond-the-buzzword-astd2013-21430067

Paul Mihailidis, has an interesting essay on "Exploring Curation as a Core Competency in Digital an Media Literacy Education" in which he offers "a prospective attempt to build curation into the media literacy conversation..." by analyzing the analyzing effective curation practices, and six highly relevant teaching points for using a news curation tool like Storify in the classroom.

His essay "seeks to encourage instructors, particularly on secondary and tertiary education levels, to bridge the gap between informal learning outside of the classroom with formal learning to create a more dynamic place for students to advance critical inquiry, dialogue, and engagement through new forms of content creation, curation, and dissemination."

He writes: "Through student-driven, creation-driven, collective and integrated teaching approaches to curation, the framework aims to build towards savvy media consumption and production, critical evaluation and analysis, and participation in local, national and global dialog.

The framework also addresses the ability to see diversity and civic voice as core competencies in the curation process.

As students learn to build cohesive stories and ideas from a wide variety of sources, they can learn about the diverse types of content that inform a story, and the avenues they have-through social media tools and platforms-to be part of the discussion."

Curation can be an extremely effective approach to develop critical thinking skills and practices, as it forces students to evaluate, vet, verify and decide what really matters.

"When students develop a credible list of professional and personal sources around an issue and/or event, they must acknowledge how much subjective weight they place on a tweet, a blog, or a Facebook post and in relative comparison to an advocacy group, cable television operation, or news service. Arguing for the credibility of a myriad of voices online forces students to build valuable justifications for what they choose to believe, and why."

Informative. Examples-rich. Educationally useful. 8/10

Full essay: http://www-jime.open.ac.uk/jime/article/viewArticle/2013-02/html

This article points out in multiple ways and with some interesting supporting data how big is the problem for schools and educational institutions in trying to identify relevant tools to adopt in absence of expert trusted guides that they can rely on.

The Hechingerreport writes: "...school leaders on this new frontier face a daunting challenge: from the slew of highly touted new products, how do they pick the right ones?

“It’s hard for our people to know what all of the choices are,” said Penny Hodge, the assistant superintendent of budget and finance in Roanoke. “Maybe there were even better choices and we weren’t aware.”

Today’s school leaders must navigate a market with little trustworthy evidence to show what works. Billions of dollars are being spent while educators try to untangle a maze of sales pitches."

The problem of identifying the most appropriate tools, services or products is not a problem limited only to the education sector. Just about anyone who is not an tech-expert in his area would have a hard time today finding the most appropriate tools in the midst of so many offerings and so little trustworthy information about them.

"Part of the reason is that credible evidence often isn’t available. Only one-third of school technology directors surveyed said that education technology companies offer reliable data on their products, according to the survey."

The solution to this issue is already starting to emerge in the form of both non-profit and commercial companies who will devote their time and resources to scout, test, verify and review tools while providing the means to search, filter and compare them easily.

Graphite.org, Edshelf are just two among many emerging examples of "reputable curation websites, with professional reviews and a social media component" that provide a one-stop solution for those in need of an expert and trusted guide in the tools for education area.

Must read for anyone interested in better understanding where we are headed when it comes to choosing tools.. 9/10

Full article: http://hechingerreport.org/as-market-surges-schools-struggle-to-find-the-best-tech-products/ 

Check also this excellent head-to-head comparison between Graphite and EdShelf: http://www.psla.org/blog/edshelf-vs-graphite/ 

Image credit: Shutterstock

Ibrar Bhatt, shares some of the insights he has been been able to discover in his research work for his forthcoming PhD thesis ("A sociomaterial account of assignment writing in Further Education classrooms") for the University of Leeds.

In his short blog analysis he first comprehensively defines the new emerging content curation space, and then he highlights 

the relevance this may have, once it is validated and acknowledged, in allowing students to explore the creation of reports and the development of new work assignments in a new light.

Here a few brief excerpts:

"These processes are, ... about anthologising older content to produce new content and creating a new experience for readers, by giving a new life (or new ‘reality’) to an older text.

This is curation as a digital literacy practice."

"...prolific Web users have often made themselves effective digital curators by searching and locating information, then creating a new experience by re-contextualising it."

"...Digital curation therefore is not just about finding relevant material, although that is a significant part of it, but is also about creating a specific and unique experience by utilising the resulting materials which then become contextualised within a new space.

A curator, therefore, whether she is a journalist-by-proxy such as Popova or a student completing an assignment in a classroom, not only collects and interprets, but also creates a new experience with it. 

In this respect, curation is a process of problem solving, re-assembling, re-creating, and stewardship of other people’s writing."

Insightful. Resourceful. Informative. 8/10

Full article: http://ibrarspace.net/2014/05/21/curation-as-a-digital-literacy-practice/ 

Reading time: 11'

Blendspace is a web-based content curation tool, designed specifically for educators and teachers. Blendspace sits somewhere between Pinterest and Storify as its power and simplicity make it easy to search multiple sources, import content and visually display it and organize it into boards.

Its unique strength resides in:

1. Multiple layout pre-sets
2. Presentation-mode
3. Collections are embeddable
4. Easy drag/drop reorganization of boards
5. Team collaborators (upcoming feature)
6. Works across all computers and devices

Very easy and intuitive to use, makes the research and collection task intuitive, and organization, presentation and publishing very effective.

I really like how Blendspace works and the results it produces. If you are looking for visual tool to create collections of resources on a specific topic for your class or training program, I'd give Blendspace a try.

Try it out now: https://www.blendspace.com/ 

Added to Curation Tools for Education inside Content Curation Tools Supermap 

Here's a valuable resource on content curation, "distilled" by the students of the DCurate MOOC lead Martin Couzins and Sam Burrough which organizes over 60 different articles, guides and tools on the topic.

This resources collection is presented in the form of a Pearltrees interactive map, organized into eight sections:

1. Why Do We Need Curators

2. What Is Digital Curation

3. Aggregation vs. Curation

4. It's All About Audience

5. How Do We Find Valuable Content

6. How Do You Decide What To Curate

7. Curation Tools

8. Contributions from participants

If you are new to content curation this is a good resource to bookmark and keep as a reference.

DCurate MOOC sign-up: http://www.curatr3.com/portfolio-item/how-to-be-an-effective-digital-curator/  

See also: http://sco.lt/99a09Z 

Free to use.

Explore the guidemap: http://bit.ly/digitalcuratorguidemap 

See also: https://gibbon.co/RobinGood/content-curation-guide  

If you are interested in taking curation onboard in your learning or teaching program, here is a collection of the best web curation tools and services specifically designed for the education world.

Whether you need to pull together a collection of relevant books and reading resources for your next class, or want to push your students to collaborate on creating relevant information collections on specific topics, here are over the best tools that can be used for this task.

*Curation Tools for Education and Learning* Pinterest board: http://pinterest.com/robingood/curation-tools-for-education-and-learning/

P.S.: Please, feel free to suggest new and additional relevant tools that should be added to this collection in the comments here below.

What's the difference between "collecting" and "curating"? How can Twitter be used as a "curation" tool?

What are some examples and ideas to put real-time news curation to effective use for those working as educators?

In this good article by Silvia Rosenthal Tolisano (published 1/2012) of Langwitches.org, you can find lots of useful info about the use of Twitter as a curation tool.

Here for example are a few key benefits of using Twitter for picking, selecting and organizing content on a specific topic:

"

1. Taking advantage of a network of curators working for you (building your own customized network), consuming their curated information
   
   
2. Collecting, organizing, connecting, attributing, interpreting,
   summarizing the vast amount of information that comes across your desk/ feed /books/articles/etc. for YOURSELF
   
   
3. Becoming consciously the curator for others for a particular niche, area of expertise or interest. Disseminate resources, add value, put in perspective, create connections, present in a different light/media/language.
   
   
4. Real time curation allows you to be part of an event, that you physically might not be attending or being on the opposite end allows you to be the bridge for others to participate at an event where you are present, but your network is not."

I think that she's right on the mark.

Well presented article and info. Useful. Good examples. 8/10

Full article: http://langwitches.org/blog/2013/01/03/twitter-as-a-curation-tool/

PDF file reference: http://langwitches.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Twitter-Curation-Tool.pdf