With the influx of information being shared daily through the web, a primary role of modern day librarians is assisting patrons in navigating the myriad of information out there. Not only do patrons need access to information, they additionally need a way to wade through the boundless sea of information available and be able to recognize information that is relevant and trusted for their intended purposes. Curation, a practice conducted since the beginning of the librarian profession, is more important than ever in today’s ever-present, digital environment.
Many sites and apps lend themselves to curating resources for patrons. Some of these sites include Pinterest, LiveBinders, and Padlet. Practicing the art of curation in accordance with Jennifer Gonzalez’s (2018) “curation guidelines” from her blog post, “Are You are a Curator or A Dumper?”, I curated a list of resources through Pearltrees that educators can use to teach the concept of food chains to their students. In her post, Gonzalez emphasized the importance of only showcasing resources that were the most beneficial, chunking information into subsections, adding introductions and text to explain chosen pieces of information and guide patrons, utilizing images within curation lists, and making links readable and user friendly. The author compared digitally curated collections to museum collections, giving examples of how curated museum exhibits guide a visitor through the collected information and artifacts in a friendly way that encourages the pursuit of knowledge rather than just dumping a large amount of information on them with no explanation. Through my exploration of the free version of Pearltrees, I found it easy to follow Gonzalez’s guidelines for best digital curation practices. I was able to curate a specific collection, “Food Chains”, that can ultimately be organized within subfolders on my account that can be accessed by patrons. Within my collection, I was able to add an introduction to the collection, order my resources in a logical way, and rename resources to aid users in identifying why each piece of information is useful in uncovering information about food chains. Overall, using Pearltrees was free and user friendly. I could see utilizing this site again in the future to create more digital collections to share with teachers and students. Additionally, its ease in accessibility leads me to believe that it would be a resource that I could ask students to utilize. In another blog post by Gonzalez (2017), “To Boost Higher-Order Thinking, Try Curation”, the author asserts that allowing students to curate their own collections would allow them to learn about specific concepts while teaching them 21st century skills and hitting higher levels within Bloom’s taxonomy of higher order thinking. I believe that allowing students to utilize a site such as Pearltrees to create thematic, digital collections would be a great benefit for students. Not only will they learn about a concept, but they will gain a more in-depth knowledge of their covered topic through tailoring their digital collection in accordance with Gonzalez’s (2018) curation guidelines. Additionally, they will be able to share their collections with other classmates, ultimately increasing intrinsic motivation. I would love to coordinate with third through fifth grade teachers at my school and attempt a pilot lesson of allowing students to curate digital collections. Since Pearltrees allows a “sign in with Google” feature, creating accounts with students should not be difficult when having them access the site through their already utilized Google Classrooms. The possibilities and potential for digitally curated collections are endless. I am excited for my future collections as well as those created by students! Below I have attached a link to my “Food Chains” collections created through Pearltrees. I highly recommend this site as an introductory curation site to try out in your library.
References
Gonzalez, J. (2018, February 4). Are you a curator or a dumper? [blog
post]. Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/curator -or-dumper/ Gonzalez, J. (2017, April 15). To boost higher-order thinking, try curation [blog post]. Retrieved from https://www.cultofpedagogy.com/curation/ Pearltrees. (n.d.) Retrieved from https://www.pearltrees.com/
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AuthorMy name is Mackenzie Wright. I am currently a teacher in the Austin area, and am finishing my Master's in school librarianship through UNT. Categories
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