Part Three Digital Learning… Continuing to Uncover Amazing Tools To Curate Digital Curriculum for Students and Teachers

I hope you enjoyed the past post and welcome you to “Part Three” of a series of posts dedicated to those attempting to curate the Digital Curriculum. I have some additional tools and methods to share in regards to digital curation in education. Please enjoy and share this post via email or a retweet. While you are at it, I would appreciate that you take a moment to subscribe to this Blog by RSS or email and follow me at (mjgormans). Also, feel free to contact me about any conference, in-service plans, or PD you might wish to include me in. (mjgormans@gmail.com). You can learn more at the Booking Link. Please continue to network and join me for our special journey into 21st century education, something that is very magical to me. Next few posts include… creativity in the 21st century classroom, twitter in education, along with PBL, STEM, Web 2.0 Integration, and the Common Core. – Mike Gorman (https://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/)

Note… Join me Tuesday, January 8, for a free webinar dedicated to Creativity In The Digital Classroom… Learn More.

Part Three… Continuing To Uncover Amazing Tools to Curate Digital Curriculum for Students and Teachers – Mike Gorman (https://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/

I have shared with you some amazing curation and digital tools that can put students at the center of their learning in the last two post. Feel free to take a look and share with other:

In this post I wish to make you aware of the some other tools I have selected for digital cuartion. When I discuss curation for the digital curriculum I try to accomplish three objectives.

The first includes giving teachers a way to filter the web for the very best digital resources.
Next, I hope to connect educators with each other in order to expand important Professional Learning Networks. This is important in that it allows educators to share the work at both finding and developing high quality digital content.
Last, it is important to find ways to involve students by facilitating their learning through their use of digital tools and content.

When including the last point, educators must be aware of their district Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) and the specific website’s Terms Of Use and Privacy Policy. Also seek district administrative approval and seek parent permission when necessary. At the same time, teachers must provide students with proper education involving digital citizenship that involves proper internet conduct involving privacy, awareness, safety and behavior. With this in mind, let’s take a look at some additional tools.

Scoop.it – Imagine an online magazine filled with stories customized for you. Consider this magazine updated daily and automatically populated based on criteria you specify. This magazine could be shared between educators, or subject areas could be made available to a class of students. Such a tool exists, and is known as Scoop.it. Many teachers are beginning to scoop articles for research, curation, collaboration, and building of tremendous classroom content resources that can be accessed by students. Students, through proper guidance, could curate their own content for research (as always read terms and check AUP). While a lot can be done for free, Scoop.it has recently announced an education version for less the $7.00 a month that does the following:

All the features of the free version (including the mobile App which will launch on iPhone mid-December: stay tuned for more on that)
20 topics/account
30 co-curators/topic

You can learn more about Scoop.it by watching any of these short and informative 23 tutorial videos produced by the people at Scoop.it. You may also wish to look over these Facts and also take a Guided Tour. You may also be interested in the Scoop.it Blog and also take a look at the Terms Of Use. You should also know that along with your regular computer, Scoop.it is also available as an Android and Apple App.

Pinterest.com – The link provided will connect you with various educational Pinterest Boards. Pinterest is a virtual pinboard. It allows users to organize and share all the great resources that can be found on the web. Educators can browse boards created by other educators to discover resources, lessons, websites, tools, and ideas. Pinterest is made up of Pins and Boards. A Pin is an image added to Pinterest. A pin can be added from a any website using the Pin It Button, or images can be uploaded from a computer. Each pin added using the Pin It Button links back to the site it came from. This creates a archive of materials on a specific subject or topic. A board is basically a set of pins. A board can be created on any topic, such as subject area, topic of study, curricular area, PD ideas, or educational tech tools. Users can add as many pins to a board as they want. These boards can then be share with others. Teachers can even search for boards they may be interested in. Keep in mind that Pinterets also includes people outside of education and educators must use descression if including students. Please check school AUP and Pinterest Terms of Use. Want to learn more about Pinterest in Education? Check out the below links:

Edudemic: Straight Forward Guide To Using Pinterest In The Classroom – Great article with Infographic.
Teachers’ Quick Guide To Pinterest – Another outstanding “Getting Started Article” from Edudemic
30 Inspiring Pinterest Pins For Teachers – Some great ideas… be sure to check school AUP and Terms
Pinterest Resources For Teachers – Some outstanding articles and resources including who to follow and great ed boards.
Pinterest For Educators – Great ideas from Edutopia.
Pinterest For Teacher Video Tutorial Part 1 – If you have about 5 minutes you can learn a lot
Pinterest in 90 Seconds Video – Learn the concept fast.

Educlipper.com – Much like Pinterest, the website Educlipper is similar, but built specifically for education. The advantage is that the entire community will tend to have an overall education base. This is a relatively new site and so you will note that it has some issues sometimes found in a beta site. The concept is great and you can explore, build, and share educational resources you find on the internet. You then clip these resources on your own clipboards. You can search for a wide variety of boards, or look at the numerous categories. You may wish to learn more by watching this informational video. With already a nice beginning foundation, Educlipper shows a great possibility as it continues to grow and improve.

Printfriendly.com – I cannot leave out one of my favorite and most powerful archiving websites. Not only is Printfriendly easy to use, it will help your school as it attempts to save both money and trees by going green. The concept behind PrintFriendly is to clean and format web pages for a perfect print experience. PrintFriendly removes Ads, Navigation and web extras, so your school can save paper and ink. In fact, your school can end a lot of printing by converting the end product into a PDF file for posting in a digital archive. Pages can even be edited! Best of all, it’s free and easy to use. Take a look at this short video to learn more about PrintFriendly.

Print Preview: Optimizes and displays content for print.
Edit Before Printing: Remove images, text, and print only what you want.
Print or Save as PDF: Print now, or save for later as a PDF.

Linkyy.com – So many time we copy a URL only to find it is much to long to archive or share with others in an easy manner. This is where Linkyy comes in handy. Just paste that long URL in… and you will get a nice short URL! There are others tools out there that will do the same thing including; Bitly, Tiny, Ow.ly, Goo.gl, and MooURL. Anyone serious about curating and sharing digital curriculum should become familiar with URL Shortening Service.

Enjoy this reading? Pass it on to others through a retweet or email. Also, look at the first two posts in the series.

Note… Join me Tuesday, January 8, for a free webinar dedicated to Creativity In The Digital Classroom… Learn More. (Sign Up Today!)

Thanks for joining me on this journey in 21st century education. Please enjoy and share this post via email or a retweet. While you are at it, I would appreciate that you take a moment to subscribe to this Blog by RSS or email and follow me at (mjgormans). Also, feel free to contact me about any conference, in-service plans, or PD you might wish to include me in. (mjgormans@gmail.com). You can learn more at the Booking Link. Please continue to network and join me for our special journey into 21st century education, something that is very magical to me. Next few posts include… creativity in the 21st century classroom, twitter in education, alonfg with PBL, STEM, Web 2.0 Integration, and the Common Core. – Mike Gorman (https://21centuryedtech.wordpress.com/