A picture of the York Castle museum. A corner of a room with artifacts arranged (think victorian upper class)
York Castle Museum Exhibit by Christine Matthews, CC BY-SA 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0, via Wikimedia Commons

This week in class, we explored the topic of educators as curators. We were asked the question “should educators be content creators?”. I think so – educators can create new resources, but also create collections (curations) of activities and lesson plans. I see that the arrangement of activities, information and teaching points into lesson or unit plans as a creation.

The concept of curation very much so resonated with me and I am familiar with many of the tools introduced.

My top picks include:

Pinterest for finding lots of fun ideas (and recipes) and organizing them into categories

I picked this tool because it has lots of ideas and inspiration and it it easy to organize the ideas into boards to look back over. I use this tool for the gathering phase of curation. I pin anything I find interesting and then can look back at it more critically and decide if it is actually something useful. What do you use Pinterest for?

Google Keep for quick notes, to-do lists and pasting links and photos to come back to. I also love that it is integrated into Gmail.

I picked Google Keep as it is my go-to for on the go note taking and for my ongoing to do lists. I have the app on my phone which makes it easy to jot things down and then the cross-device connectivity means I can also access my notes on any computer or device I am logged into.

Check out my breakdown of the features of Google Keep here.

an example of using Keep for a to-do list

OneNote is great for more thought out notetaking. I also appreciate the file printout function. This is great paired with my touchscreen computer- I am able to write on and around the file printout.

I use OneNote as my go to note taking app for any university notes. I particular I like that I can organize my notes in to classes, and import file printouts and images and write directly on them. I have a surface book and appreciate that my pen and touchscreen are integrated.

an example of note taking in OneNote on the zone of proximal development and gradual release of responsibility models

Padlet for organizing and communicating collections

Padlet I chose due to its organization features. Padlet allows for me to organize my thoughts, and resources into a coherent form. I am new to Padlet and would love to hear any tips or tricks in the comments!

I am excited to teach my students the art of curation. I think this is a key research skill and extremely relevant to 21st century learners.