Thing 6: Curation Tools

I'm a big fan of curation tools - but yikes! There are so many of them!
One bookmarking tool I tried to use is Symbaloo. I have to say, I was not terribly impressed with the results. Perhaps I am not using it correctly, but I found the searching function tedious, and I was annoyed that Symbaloo couldn't pull an image from the site itself. Also, it didn't display the entire name of the site (that I had to type in). I do think it looks funky, but the kids don't know what they're clicking on. All-in-all, I'd say this is just a fancied up way to share bookmarks with kids, but it doesn't seem to be as kid-friendly as I want it to be. Here's the link to the symbaloo I made.

I have also spent some time playing around on Pinterest. I do like how visual it is, and I have gotten many ideas. I am a little uncomfortable with the legality of Pinterest. Are we sure that everything that is pinned is, well, pinnable? Does everyone want their wonderful, creative ideas shared for free? Also, it just makes me realize how awful my handwriting is. :)

Thinking about this, I definitely see the value in teaching students how to use these tools. I do wonder, though, about using some of these tools with young students. I feel like it's really easy to just click and add, and make something that looks pretty. I worry that young students will just collect and collect without really thinking about the information. Do I sound like an old fuddy-duddy? Maybe. But I feel the same way about Google customizing my search results based on my history. I don't want to be limited by what I've searched for, or by where I am. I don't want to rely on a curating tool like paper.li or Flipboard to filter my twitter feed, necessarily. There is so much information out there, I can see how it would be tempting. I don't know. Maybe I'm just feeling like I want more control over what I find.

I am definitely interested in spending more time with MentorMob and Learnist.