Jing

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Thing 8 Curator Tools

Well this is my second attempt at writing this entry.  The first one disappeared when the draft failed to get saved on the blog.  I did not scream, there was just this gentle moan as I  now have  to remember everything I said before.  It will teach me to do manual saves more frequently and not rely on the automatic ones.

Anyway I had been talking about the types of curation tools that I have come across and the ones that I now use on a regular basis.  The one that I seem to use most is Pinterest, possibly because it is very easy, lots of images etc enable you to pin them and it is a great way of putting together images for work and for leisure interests.  Mine tend to be for courses I have done, libraries, books I want to read (great to have the visual key) and I think I am going to try recipes as well.

The other tool that I use quite a lot is Diigo, which is a bookmarking tool that allows me to collect together references about the same or related topics; you do this by the tags/keyword you assign to the link. Very quick and simple to use.

I was interested in the two other tools that have been mentioned on Thing 8 and I had not used, so I went and had a go to see how  they felt.  I have signed up to Flipboard as I think that it has possibilities and helps bring a range of articles to my notice that I might have missed otherwise.  I had heard of Storify and I know a couple of colleagues have used it successfully but  it is something for the future maybe.

Two other tools that I have on the computer and I am just starting to use are Scoop.it and a little red armchair for a tool called Readability.  Scoop.it trawls the internet for articles and references to subjects that I have nominated, but it will also allow me to capture information that I come across from a variety of sources.  Readability is something I had almost forgotten about but I have just given it a try and it is great for saving documents to read later and even to send to your Kindle.  Somehow reading a report whilst curled up in a chair is better than sitting at a computer.  Finally I am going to mention Jing and Screencast.com  which shows as a small sun shape at the top of my computer screen.  It allows me to capture images, pages or even video and then save it to my computer.  It is great for saving pieces of information that you want to read later.

Given the amount of information that we are inundated with it is so useful to have curation tools that are easy to use and help keep a track of information for both professional and personal interests.

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ICT in Education

I have already discussed the growth in the number of MOOCs available for people to engage with, especially courses that link to the work within the education field.  I am currently working through some new courses that might be of Interest and they are

Web 2.0 Tools                             University of Houston       USA

ICT in  Primary Education        Institute of Education    London

Both of these can be found on the Coursera website and are aimed at teachers and librarians, as well as other interested parties.

The Web 2.0 course looks at a huge range of ‘Tools’ that you can put in your digital toolbox and divides the materials into a series of segments such as

  • Collaboration,
  • Communication,
  • Creativity and
  • Lifelong Learning.
  •  Whilst it dealt with some tools that I had come across before it also introduced me to many that I had never seen.  It also gave me ideas about how they can be used in the classroom.

With this course one of the great finds was a tool called Jing, linked with Screencast.com.  this is on my dashboard and enables me to highlight an image  or piece of text and then copy and paste to a file.  It has already proved invaluable as it is so easy to use.

The ICT in Primary Education is particularly good as it is from a UK based institution and more examples relate to our experience. Subject areas include

  • 21st century school                                                                             2015-05-07 09.21.24
  • ICT making a difference
  • Pedagogical changes through ICT
  • Technology Opportunities
  • Inspiring examples and implementation concerns

I am currently only part of the way in to this but it is proving very  useful.  What I am finding is that the more courses I do about modern technologies the more they start to overlap and I get to use a particular tool in different ways. One of the real discoveries was a package called ThingLink.  This enables you to take a picture and then pinpoint areas of interest which can have information, links to websites, video or photos attached to them.  Unfortunately  I cannot have the software on this site as it is a third party software, however there is great potential for a whole range of topics.

Futurelearn is just finishing a course on

Cyber security                 Open University

and will soon start a course on

Childhood in the Digital age, also run by the Open University.

The former was really intended for adults and there was an emphasis on personal and business security.  However the information is relevant to all of us and I think that elements would be extremely useful for teens as they start to use the web in a different way, e.g. online banking, in the workplace.

The forthcoming course look at the effects of technology on young people and asks what the benefit and dangers are.  It also looks at the world of education and how much should the digital impact on the classroom.  It should make for a fascinating follow on to the previous courses.  I am looking forward to starting in a couple of weeks.