Learning to curate information for your classroom

The term “curate” has become a buzzword in education. I’ve seen it referenced in TEDx Talks and tossed around in Twitter chats. It’s easy to write off buzzwords as trendy. But what if an idea is trending for a reason?

We live in a world of instant information, where ideas go viral without much thought regarding accuracy and validity. It’s a place where content is cheap. Cheaper to make. Cheaper to share. Cheaper to consume. The traditional gatekeepers are gone, which is great for students. They can create and share their work in ways that were previously unimaginable. But there’s a cost. The best stuff doesn’t always rise to the top and, if we’re not careful, we mistake the speed of consumption for the depth of knowledge.

Source: Getting Started with Content Curation in the Classroom – John Spencer

The internet, for all intents and purposes, is infinite. With this vastness comes a responsibility to learn and to teach how to select the best content for our needs. I try to limit the actual searches student use because of the fear of them falling down the rabbit’s hole. Not that I don’t teach search skills, but there are plenty of times I give the students a set of websites to use for information instead of having them search for it.