Exploring Tools of Curation

 

For a moment visualize this: What would an earthquake- hit library look like? Pile of books everywhere. They all are rich source of information and knowledge .Even though you may pick any book but will it help you in getting desired information?

 

‘Curation comes up when search stops working’ says NYU professor Clay Shirky. People start curating in order to synchronize the information because the content abundance on the net is overwhelming. I think that of all the advantages of curation, few important ones are:

1. It helps in organizing good resources on a particular/specific topic in one place.

2. It helps in gathering the resources on same topic with different perspectives. So finding out pro/con on same topic becomes pretty easy.

3. It helps  in building ‘community of learning’. (While curating we get to know other bloggers and curators)

I had the opportunity to curate the information (in my last graduate course) in my Twitter feed to get Tweeted Times and Paper.li. At that time, out of the two, I found Paper.li much better because of its aesthetically appealing layout.  It gave me a feel of reading a newspaper.  But when I signed up for Scoop.it, and explored how to use it to curate, there’s no looking back! It’s just like scooping any information that I may find interesting on any website. The Paper.li curates the information  in the Twitter feed (based on who we choose to follow) whereas  Scoop.it provides ample freedom to personalize the information from any website.

I chose Scoop.it for curation because of approbation it received from some of my classmates in my grad class. They had used it extensively and found it much better than other curation tools. I was eager and curious to use it since then. So as soon as I got an invite from my professor, I jumped at the opportunity. I found that scoop.it not only allows us to scoop extensively from variety of websites; it also allows us to ‘explore’ the information from variety of curated topics’ pages. After curating with scoop.it I feel I’ve more control over my topic page. On the other hand, I find Paper.li a better option than going through all tweets on my twitter. It provides a visual, summarized version of information, which is quite easy to glance through and decide which one to read in detail. For me, both are very good resources  for the classroom. The students can use the teacher curated information quite appropriately to work on their projects or complete other assignments.  I don’t think that students should be given a free hand in this sphere, as chances of inappropriate use are high.

Irrespective of the curation tools usage in the classroom, it is known to us that creation and curation go hand in hand. We all also know that the Gen. Z learners are creative and  believe in sharing their creation with the whole world,therefore curation tools will come in handy for all of them.




References:

• Clayman,M. (2011) Let's Talk About the Advantages of Content Curation.Retrieved Oct. 27,2011 from http://www.margieclayman.com/lets-talk-about-the-advantages-of-content-curation
• Information Overload [Picture] Retrieved Oct.27,2011 from http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/images/results.aspx?qu=overload&ex=1&ctt=1#ai:MC900234649|
• Rosenbaum,S.(2010) Why Content Curation Is Here to Stay. Retrieved Oct. 27,2011 from http://mashable.com/2010/05/03/content-curation-creation/