Access is one of the key elements in the process of leveraging the power of EdTech in your teaching and for your professional growth. It’s true the web is teeming with all kinds of educational content, and like fishing in an ocean, to access the riches of the web you need the right strategies to help you search for, curate and access what you need when you need it and with the minimum time and effort possible. This is where digital curation techniques come in handy. There are multiple strategies you can use to curate EdTech resources to use in your instruction popular among these is the use of social media websites such as Twitter, Facebook, Google Plus and Pinterest, to mention a few.
One of the strengths of these websites for digital curators is the use of hashtags. Anyone can easily search for curated content related to any topic by simply typing in the relevant hashtag. For instance, try out typing the hashtag #edtech in any of the social media platforms mentioned above and you will have access to hundreds of user-curated links of resources covering different EdTech topics. Alternatively, you can use web platforms that are specifically designed to facilitate and enhance digital curation. Besides empowering you with the tools to curate, organize and save relevant web content, these platforms will also provide you with access to great digital collections other educators have curated. The list below features four excellent digital curation platforms created by teachers for teachers. We invite you to check them out and, as always, share with us your feedback. Enjoy
1- Edshelf
This is one of our favourite platforms in this collection. Edshelf is ‘a socially curated discovery engine of websites, mobile apps, desktop programs, and electronic products for teaching and learning. You can search and filter for specific tools, create shelves of tools you use for various purposes, rate and review tools you’ve used, and receive a newsletter of tools recommended by other educators.’
2- Graphite
‘Graphite is a free service from nonprofit Common Sense Education designed to help preK-12 educators discover, use, and share the best apps, games, websites, and digital curricula for their students by providing unbiased, rigorous ratings and practical insights from our active community of teachers.’
3- Scoop.it
Scoop.it is another excellent digital curation tool for teachers. It helps you find out content related to your topics by ‘reviewing your suggestion lists and the topics from other curators’. You can also use its integrated search functionality to search for EdTech resources or filter your searches using topics. For instance, when you click on ‘Education Technology’ in the Categories section you will have access to this curated collection of web resources.
4- educlipper
educlipper is a very good social learning platform that allows teachers to curate and share educational content. Some of the interesting features it provides include: ‘Explore top quality education resources for K-12, create clips from the web, Drive, Dropbox, use your camera to capture awesome work that you create in and out of the classroom, create whiteboard recordings, create differentiated groups and share content with them, create Personal Learning Portfolios, create Class Portfolios as a teacher and share Assignments with students, provide quality feedback through video, audio, text, badges, or grades, collaborate with other users on eduClipboards for class projects or personal interests’.
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