As we head ever further into the realm of 21st Century learning, teachers as well as students must be prepared to overcome challenges and obstacles that a digital learning environment includes. The curation of content by teachers and students is but one tool available to educators to help navigate the educational digital landscape.

What is Content Curation?

Content curation is what we use to organise, maintain, collaborate on and collect information (Valnza, 2011) . You probably use several personal digital curation tools yourself without really realising. Social media applications like Pinterest, Facebook and Instagram are used to create personal content that is relevant to your interests (Flintoff, 2015) delivered straight your fingertips without the need to search for it daily. It is relevant and specific to you and your needs and interests.

It just makes sense that this is a tool we would model and teach our students to use when organising their content from various KLA’s. Students would have access to the best and most relevant information that will allow them to evaluate and synthesise to share new ideas and knowledge.

When it comes to engaging Stage 2 and 3 in Inquiry, which requires research skills, as teacher you can set them up for success by leading them in the right direction by curating the digital content they use to research and in turn teach them to curate content themselves.

Filtering Content and Information Literacy

Back in 2009 Clay Shirky recognised that in the age of the internet and the incredible easy access to gigabytes of information, the amount wasn’t the problem, we needed the tools and skills to filter through it. This continues to be true over 10 years on as the amount of information on the internet increases with no signs of slowing down.

Before students can begin the task of filtering information, they must of course be information literate. Information, or digital literacy, is an important skill for all young people in order to set them up with the skills, knowledge and understanding that will allow them to have a life where they take an active role in social, economic, cultural, civil and intellectual society.

We have moved into a digital learning environment where literacy can look very different (Stripling, 2010), but information literacy operates on the basic principals of:

• locating and evaluating the quality of information
• storing information
• ethical use of information
• applying information to communicate knowledge.

These points have been paraphrased from Catts and Lau’s (2012) article Towards Information Literacy Indicators

Content curation is a way of filtering the content you are asking your students to access. As a teacher, you can curate content easily, for students this can be more challenging as they need to be information literate. There are many resources and quick videos you can use to teach and remind students the key factors of information literacy such as the one below.

Digital artefact created by Melissa Summers for ETL 523 Assessment 1 Part B

At the end of the day, it is information literacy and those valuable skills that will enable students to filter the content they come across. They

 

Curation and Inquiry

 

Inquiry is a process that is cyclical in nature and almost always not linear.

 “…learners going back and forth between the phases of inquiry to resolve new questions and complexities as they arise’ – Stripling, 2010

The Inquiry process needs a tool that helps students to easily collect, organise, transfer and share their information.

The video below explains succinctly why the modelling and teaching of digital curation can be extremely valuable when engaging in Inquiry.

Inquiry may be seen as the best model of learning to teach students how to curate content as they engage in the process. They are locating information and looking for things that are accurate and interesting and then organise this information into new ideas and concepts.

 

Inquiry may be seen as the best model of learning to teach students how to curate content as they engage in the process. They are locating information and looking for things that are accurate and interesting and then organise this information into new ideas and concepts.

 

Teacher Curated Content for Inquiry

Having a bank of resources from which students can access information takes out a lot of unnecessary frustration for both student and teacher. Depending on which curation tool you have decided is right for you and your students, you can begin narrowing the scope of the research taking by listing useful content specific pages designed for school students, kid friendly search engines as well as useful keywords and search terms. The students are still engaging in the inquiry process, they just have a starting point in which to begin curating their own content. Check out this example page that has been set up for a geography focused inquiry task.

Digital Curation and Copyright

With digital curation, like most things that exist online, copyright and ethical use of information cannot be ignored.  Resources like Smartcopying exist that are specific to Australian schools to ensure copyright laws are understood and followed.  Teachers need to model good practise and always credit their information and images to encourage students to do the same.

Click here for access to websites that offer copyright free materials and here for videos to explain these copyright laws to students

Tools of the Trade

So, your students have access to digital information, they are information literate and ready to begin curating the information they are gathering. What tools can you use? Here is a list of online tools that students and teachers can use to being their curation journey. There is no one size fits all approach, you have to use trial and error to use the tools that will work best for you and your students.

 

 

Teacher Resources

Useful Videos for Information Literacy

Kid friendly search engines

 

References

Barger, A. (2018). The next generation digital learning environment in action: a contextualised approach. Educause Review. https://er.educause.edu/blogs/2018/12/the-next-generation-digital-learning-environment-in-action-a-contextualized-approach

 

Catts, R. and Lau, J. (2008). Towards information literacy indicators [Framework paper]. https://dspace.stir.ac.uk/bitstream/1893/2119/1/cattsandlau.pdf

 

Conners, J. [Jaramy Conners] (2020, February 27). What is a credible source? How to evaluate web resources. Who Is Hosting This? https://www.whoishostingthis.com/resources/credible-sources/

 

Flintoff, K., Mellow, P. and Clark, K. (2015) Digital Curation: opportunities for learning, teaching, research and professional development. Transformative, Innovative and Engaging: Proceedings of the 23rd Annual Teaching and Learning Forum 30-31 January, 2015. Perth, University of Western Australia. Retrieved from http://ctl.curtin.edu.au/events/conferences/tlf/tlf2014/refereed/flintoff.html

 

Hague, C., & Payton, S. (2010). Digital literacy across the curriculum [Handbook]. https://www.nfer.ac.uk/publications/FUTL06/FUTL06.pdf

 

Lumen. (2020). Finding materials on the internet. Boundless Communications. https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-communications/chapter/internet-research/

 

Marr, Bernard. (2018, May 21). How much data do we create every day? The mind-blowing stats everyone should read. Forbes. ihttps://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/how-much-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-should-read/?sh=2c13d66160ba

 

O’Reilly, [O’Reilly]. (2008, September 20). Web 2.0 expo NY: Clay Shirky (shirky.com) it’s not information overload. It’s filter failure. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabqeJEOQyI

 

Smart Copying – The official guide to copyright issues for Australian schools and TAFE.

Oddone, Kay. (2010). Learning the art of digital curation. Linking Learning: The Professional Portfolio of Kay Oddone. https://www.linkinglearning.com.au/learning-the-art-of-digital-content-curation-2/

 

Online Library Learning Center. (2018). Evaluating Internet Information. Online Library Learning Center. Retrieved April 12, 2021 from https://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_08.phtml

UTEP Connect. [UTEP Connect]  (2017, March). 4 ways to differentiate a good source from a bad source. UTEPT Connect. https://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_08.phtml

Valenza, J. (2011, September 30). Curation is the new search tool [Blog post]. http://blogs.slj.com/neverendingsearch/2011/09/30/curation-tools-are-also-search-tools/

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