Curating Good Stories on Scoop It

 When Twitter crashed the floodgates, educators using digital media were inundated with links to innovative practices, etc. etc.  Many of us saw two options: turn off our machines or develop proficiency in curation.  I feel both are essential.  Quiet reflective time restores the sense of value needed to curate, and good curation reduces the volume pointing to the most valuable resources.

While curation may sound like a new term, for many of us it’s really an old friend.  Mostly in my right hemisphere are stored very positive memories of museum visits.  For example, the post-impressionist exhibitions at the National Gallery’s East Wing, were made more meaningful and enjoyable through curation: the arrangement of works of art and the commentary in the brochure and audio recordings.  Often the curator even noted the issues of selection and explained reasons without distracting from the art itself.  The art of curation might be minimalist; like art, it’s easily over-explained.

So I’ll briefly comment on the curation of Good Stories 246 in Scoop It.  Try navigating the exhibit through the tags.  I’ve tagged items that are included using labels that point to major themes: Story (storytelling, nature of story, Seuss, and teaching narrative), Digital Media (digital media, nature of DM, DM production, photography, and gaming), and Social Justice (social justice).  Near the top of the GoodStory246 main page, Scoop It has a button for “Tags.”  When you click on that button, you will see the tags just named.  When you select a tag, you pull up all items I’ve tagged with that label.  I’ll be asking members of the class to select one item from nature of story, one from nature of DM, and one from DM production.  To some extent, this encourages participants to self curate.

Try it.  You might like it.