Tools and Tips for Curating Learning Resources

Tools and Tips for Curating Learning Resources

The evolution of human interactions enabled by technology has shaped the way students consume and produce information, and the learning landscape itself is evolving at a rapid pace. The shift from structured, individual, local learning to self-directed, collaborative, global learning is the key hallmark of modern learning environments, with evolving technologies opening up options for where, when and how we deliver learning.

The traditional approach of delivery-focused, instructor-centered, scheduled learning has taken a back seat to more informal approaches: ongoing, learner-centered, decentralized learning solutions that focus on results. Our students have the freedom to explore whatever resources they choose, so how do we leverage this opportunity to explore, curate and deliver the resources we know will address their moments of learning need?

As a result of the plethora of content for our learners to search through, content curation has become an integral part of the learning experience design process. Within the modern learning context, the content curation process has developed into an iterative flow of searching, filtering, embedding and contextualizing learning assets to meet a defined purpose, theme or community.

Faculty, course developers, and instructional designers have taken on the role of content curators. In this role our responsibility is to understand the scope of learning before the curation process begins and to always keep the learners and purpose in mind while filtering and selecting learning assets to share. As more Open Educational Resources (OERs) become available, the search and filtration processes become necessary skill sets to master.

The exploration and content selection process requires an expert eye, and here is where technology comes in most handy. Curation technologies and applications that use artificial intelligence engines and algorithms browse content published on the web and allow us to create filters using keywords, phrases or top influencers. These automated tools bring in a wide range of results and are updated on a regular basis – sometimes within seconds.

The value of these results lies in the time and care put into developing these intelligence engines in the first place. The process involves thinking about the needs, interests and goals of our learners and setting up search parameters that will bring us the most relevant results. From there, it takes a human touch and a certain level of expert judgment to filter and find the best results. The key to successful filtering is remembering that curation is an ongoing task, and selecting the keywords, influencers, tags and topics that drive the intelligence engines should be an ongoing effort.

As the learning landscape evolves, content curation tools and applications will become more seamlessly integrated into learning management systems, social media platforms and OER development tools. These technologies will make it easier for us to search, filter and share appropriate content.

In this workshop, we will explore these tools, with a focus on how we, as faculty, students, course developers, instructional designers, and administrative stakeholders can leverage the benefits of content curation within the learning landscape.

At the end of this express workshop session, attendees will be able to:

• Identify curation tools and applications for finding OERs and other learning resources.
• Explore and curate relevant OERs and other learning resource on key topics.
• Access OERs and other learning assets shared by thought leaders across disciplines.
• Establish a methodical curation filtering approach.
• Apply further filtering approaches to refine automated curation engine results.
• Augment curated learning resources with commentary, annotation, and citation.
• Share their learning resource curation strategy with other team members.