For teachers looking to include digital resources in their lessons, there are two choices: create the content yourself or curate content others have created. Both of these options have their benefits and drawbacks and deciding which is best for you depends on what you hope to achieve with the content.
Let’s take a look at what it means to curate content. For any topic you can think of, there is an overwhelming amount of content available from a quick web search. Anytime you gather information created by others to use for your lessons, you have curated the content. This can be as simple as saving a few images to illustrate a point or as complex as finding video, audio, images and text to include in a lesson or activity.
For those of you who use Pinterest, this is the quintessential example of curating content. Pinterest allows users to create pinboards of images to share with others or use as inspiration for future plans.
Once this found content has been shared or saved, you have curated the content. By doing so, you have saved the time and energy needed to create your own content. You have used the power of the web to share content other’s have created.
However, did you stop to think about how to properly cite your sources?
Whenever students use information they did not create in a project or paper, they are expected to provide references. As educators, it is important to model this behavior for students.
Any content that you have not created yourself should be viewed through this lens. If a student where to use it for an assignment, would you expect them to cite the source? If the answer is yes, be sure to cite the source yourself.
This can easily be done by adding your curated content to your MediaCAST system. When content is added, you are given the option of adding metadata such as copyright date, author, publisher, etc. Additionally, the Fair Use Compliance Checklist allows you to decide if your intended use of the content falls under Fair Use.
Once you have loaded your curated content into MediaCAST, you can create a playlist of all your content so that you can easily find it when you want it.
Curating content is a quick and easy way to supplement lessons and make them more engaging. Using MediaCAST, you are able to model proper citation to your students and show them that they are expected to do the same.
What ways have you found to curate content through MediaCAST?