Curation for Learning
Peg French
Content curation is not about collecting links or being an information pack rat. It is more about putting resources into a context with organization, annotation, and presentation. Content curators provide a customized, vetted selection of the best and most relevant resources on a very specific topic.
Beth Kanter, a social media author and blogger, provides this definition of curation in her Content Curation Primer
Content curation is the process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme. The work involves sifting, sorting, arranging, and publishing information. A content curator cherry picks the best content that is important and relevant to share with their community. It isn’t unlike what a museum curator does to produce an exhibition: They identify the theme, they provide the context, they decide which paintings to hang on the wall, how they should be annotated, and how they should be displayed for the public.
If the notion of content curation is new to you, or if you want to brush up on your understanding of the concept, choose from one of the following references to learn more.
- A Blog post about Teacher As Curator by Ted Curran.
- A video explanation – What is Content Curation? (Centerline Digital, 2015)
- A graphic view:
Each of these resources reveal that content curation likely aligns well to what you already do when you design and develop your courses to facilitate learning.
Here we simply reframe the process and identify tools and strategies to assist you.
Extend Activity – Your Definition is This
From your own experience and the resources shared above, develop a response to the question “What is your definition of content curation?”
