On building learning playlists We create them on Spotify and YouTube and iTunes. Before music went digital, some of us made CD or cassette mixtapes and shared them as gifts. With our ability to ethically curate content and unglue it from its containers, and a growing array of digital tools and open education resources, many of us are engaging in a creative new form of the remix. Learning playlists are a thing, and that thing is emerging as a subgenre of digital curation in a variety of flavors. As a librarian, I can’t think of a single Shared Foundation–Include, Inquire, Curate, Collaborate, Engage, Explore–we wouldn’t address in introducing and building playlists. Playlists can be powerful. I create little magazines of continually updated outside reading beyond our texts for my grad students offering them opportunities to explore and contribute. Let’s explore a few playlist possibilities. Differentiation: Imagine creating instruction (face-to-face or flipped) using Google Docs or Slides as your major platform.
*Curation Situations: Let us count the ways Curation is a funny word. When my colleagues and I wrote our Social Media Curation Library Technology Report for ALA, we struggled with a definition. The folks we interviewed across library land curated in several different ways and we used the term curation differently depending on current community needs or where they were in any particular project. Back in 2014, our interviews and surveys led us to a taxonomy of digital curation. K12 digital curation is about getting our users/students/teachers to the good stuff, pointing them to content and resources they might not themselves discover with their own intuitive strategies. Curation allows us to scale our practice and reach our community 24/7 at their points of need. Social media curation efforts can help us fuel participatory culture as we build and connect communities. Curating with kids As students curate, they make decisions about authority and bias. Curating OER Beyond the basketball metaphor . . .
The CRAAP Test - Evaluating Sources - Research Guides at Benedictine University Library CRAAP is an acronym for Currency, Relevance, Authority, Accuracy, and Purpose. Use the CRAAP Test to evaluate your sources. Currency: the timeliness of the information When was the information published or posted? Has the information been revised or updated? Is the information current or out-of date for your topic? Relevance: the importance of the information for your needs Does the information relate to your topic or answer your question? Authority: the source of the information Who is the author/publisher/source/sponsor? Accuracy: the reliability, truthfulness, and correctness of the content Where does the information come from? Purpose: the reason the information exists What is the purpose of the information?
9 Ways to use Content Curation Tools in the Classroom Image Source As the relationship between education and technology continues to grow, content curation become a more essential and useful skill every day. Here are 9 ways that teachers and students can use content curation tools like Wakelet in the classroom. 1. To host lesson resources When research isn’t the lesson objective, content curation tools like Wakelet can provide a platform for hosting resources. 2. The ability to effectively research and filter information is a crucial skill for students of any age. 3. As an educator, you will be continually developing new skills and techniques. 4. Lesson planning is one of the most time-consuming parts of a teacher’s role, but using a content curation platform like Wakelet can make that time fly! 5. Using content curation as an additional lesson resource allows students to engage with a subject independently and explore the areas that interest them. 6. 7. Digital storytelling has a number of uses in the classroom. 8. 9.
*Automation - NYC School Librarian Guidebook Automation is a software application to assist building level librarians with the management of the library catalog, circulation, material and patron activity, as well the production of a variety of reports and statistics. Automation is not just a tool to modernize the job of the librarian; it is a tool that provides greater access to the library’s collection for students, staff, and parents. Physical access to the library collection is a prerequisite to equitable and intellectual access. One of the first benchmarks of the Empire State Information Fluency Continuum is for students to independently locate books on a shelf in a library using a library's catalog.
Tool literacy as a new process I’ve been thinking a bit about the notion of app smashing and the way we introduce learning challenges in our classrooms and libraries. And I am thinking there’s a thinking process going on that we’re not thinking about nearly enough. The Evolution of the Desk by Best Reviews Introducing a tool and saying you are going to use this tool to tell this story is kinda like saying go to page 347 and do exercises three through five. The notion of app smashing was coined by Greg Kulowiec (@gregkulowiec) of EdTechTeacher Loosely, it’s the process of using multiple applications together in order to to complete complex tasks or projects. I think the word process is important. We need to learn how to leverage the tools on our new desks. Affordances are the possible ways a tools could be used by an individual in a particular context. I’ve been engaging in a bit of metaphorical thinking around tool literacy: It’s a bit like building a piña colada out of Jelly Belly jelly beans.
Narrowing a Topic – Choosing & Using Sources: A Guide to Academic Research For many students, having to start with a research question is the biggest difference between how they did research in high school and how they are required to carry out their college research projects. It’s a process of working from the outside in: you start with the world of all possible topics (or your assigned topic) and narrow down until you’ve focused your interest enough to be able to tell precisely what you want to find out, instead of only what you want to “write about.” Process of Narrowing a Topic All Possible Topics – You’ll need to narrow your topic in order to do research effectively. Without specific areas of focus, it will be hard to even know where to begin. Assigned Topics – Ideas about a narrower topic can come from anywhere. Topic Narrowed by Initial Exploration – It’s wise to do some more reading about that narrower topic to a) learn more about it and b) learn specialized terms used by professionals and scholars who study it. Why Narrow a Topic? What you should do: Yes!
Driving Questions in Project-based Learning Join our project-based learning email list to get the PBL Planning Guide, video trainings, tips, and more to help you on your project based learning journey! Share these ideas! Whether you’re a frequent user of project-based learning or a newbie, you know there are a lot of different parts to it. One of the parts that I think often gets left behind is the driving question. The driving question is the question you pose to students in order to get them to investigate a problem or process. Students will learn or practice key standards while exploring the driving question, but the standards do not need to be stated in it – that’s a separate piece of your lesson. Full Training Video Directed vs. First of all, it’s important to understand what type of questions you’re already asking in your classroom. Directed Questions: Have one correct answer.Are based on quick facts.Are necessary, but not appropriate for a project’s driving question. Open-ended Questions: How to write driving questions
HyperDocs and the teacher librarian The concept of HyperDocs is spreading all over edtech land. HyperDocs are perfect opportunities to grow teacher librarian/ classroom teacher partnerships. A true extension of what TLs do or should be doing in a hyperlinked information landscape, HyperDocs are all about curation and collaboration, instruction based on engaged inquiry, as well as our mission to inspire learning communities to think, create, share and grow. While it’s quite possible you’ve been building HyperDocs-like instruction for years on a variety of platforms, we can now connect our work to an accepted model and a growing and generous community! What are HyperDocs? According to the HyperDocs site, HyperDocs, a transformative, interactive Google Doc replacing the worksheet method of delivering instruction, is the ultimate change agent in the blended learning classroom. I recently interviewed the three teachers behind the HyperDocs model. Lisa Highfill, Kelly Hilton and Sarah Landis ask the simple, but provocative question:
The 5 Models Of Content Curation Curation has always been an underrated form of creation. The Getty Center in Los Angeles is one of the most frequently visited museums in America – and started as a private art collection from one man (J. Paul Getty) who had a passion for art. One of the hottest trends in social media right now is content curation – thanks in no small part to the leading efforts of several thought leaders actively promoting the idea. What Is Content Curation? Back in 2009 I published a blog post called the “Manifesto For The Content Curator” which predicted that this role would be one of the fastest growing and most important jobs of the future. Content Curation is a term that describes the act of finding, grouping, organizing or sharing the best and most relevant content on a specific issue. The 5 Models Of Content Curation Content curation is certainly an emerging space and one where more and more thought leaders will continue to share their voices. Interested in learning more about content curation?