Content Curation.

My introduction to curation was happenstance as I stumbled upon Scoop.it and Paperli a few years back. I’d teach kids that content curation was a good way to keep abreast of headlines on their assigned topics such as subsistence farming, world religions, and so forth. I’d introduce curation to explaining to them that it was similar to a museum curator. They’d submit a topic to a curation tool and in turn get a thread of information about that topic. I think for the most part, the students found it to be useful and enjoyed using it. In 2012, that was the extent of our use for it in the library. It was another resource for information.

Fast forward to now, I see that I’m a little behind on how it has evolved and how people are using it.. This week I am having to expand my idea of what new tools can be useful for curating. One article that I found promised 50 Killer Curation Tools. I’ve used tools without thinking of them as curating tools. I’ve taught kids how to use Thinglink, but never presented it to them as a way to curate even though they were gathering resources around a common theme. In a way, it was overlooked opportunity to discuss curation using that tool. I am looking forward to future conversations that are more expansive and progressive about content curation. I’m also looking forward to making clearer distinction between my activities as a content creator versus a content curator.

I’ve decided to use this opportunity to combine curation with ebooks in school libraries. This topic has been so controversial and the trend has had a slow start. I’m curious because I personally don’t read paper books anymore. People have a hard time reconciling my profession as a librarian and using paper books. I understand their confusion. It’s just my personal preference. I don’t think I’m endangering paper versions. My most prolific student readers despise ebooks.

Flipboard is a tool that I’ve used and let fall by the wayside. But this week’s reading for this unit by Aaron Tay has me more than interested in taking a second look at Flipboard. He too is a librarian and he makes a compelling argument as to why it’s a good fit for him professionally. I like the way he outlines his path to Clipboard.

I enjoyed this comic strip highlighting the inability some people have in defining content curation.