When creating a PLN, the sheer amount of content that you interact with can be mind-boggling. You read a great tweet that has content you want to remember for always! You stumbled on a blog that has realistic suggestions that you want to incorporate into your classroom. You find an article that was meaningful and full of insights that you relate to.You found a rock star blogger and you want to read every single thing that they write! Oh, what to do with all of these knowledgeable people and their amazing resources? How do you organize or curate the content that you want to keep?
There are three tools that could be very useful in the curation of content from your PLN; Feedly, Diigo, and Google Keep. Each tool has definite strengths and depending on your needs, can be used in isolation or together for maximum, professional librarian style curation! Feedly and Diigo offer a free basic account for users, but as always, there are upgraded accounts available. Google Keep is a free component of G Suite.
Feedly: www.feedly.com – At its core, Feedly is an old-fashioned news aggregator. Select websites, blogs and Youtube channels that interest you and add them to your news feed. Instead of having to remember to visit your favorite websites and blogs each week, you can instead just visit Feedly and review everything you missed since the last time you checked in. What makes Feedly so useful though are the ways you can customize your feeds by category. Your feeds can be categorized into topics such as edtech, innovation in education, classroom management, or frosty beverages to make after a really long day at school. Feedly also has a cool feature called “Boards.” Boards are digital spaces where you can pin material from your current feed or directly from the web using the “Save to Feedly Board” chrome extension. These boards are great for when you are working on an initiative and you want to put all of your research material in one place. With the free account, you can create up to three boards. No more desperate searching for that article or blog that touched your soul but disappeared when you accidentally closed your browser! Feedly will keep it all in one place for you.
Diigo: www.diigo.com – Diigo, which stands for “Digest of Internet Information, Groups and Other Stuff,” is a tool that allows the user to store, organize and annotate content found on the web. By using the bookmarking and tagging system in Diigo, you can create an online library or collection of material that is useful and meaningful to your projects and personal learning. Whether the content is from a blog or webpage, you can simply use the Diigo chrome extension and save it to your Diigo library. When saving material, you have the option to add tags for easy organization and retrieval. You can even mark the item as “Read Later” which will then show it as new content when you login to your Diigo library. One of the best features of Diigo is the ability to annotate any content that you find online. Once material has been saved via the extension, Diigo provides tools for the user to highlight specific phrases or content and add personal sticky notes. If you want to do more than just collect URLs, then Diigo is an excellent option for your curation needs.
Google Keep: keep.google.com – Google Keep is a multi-use app that has recently seen some upgrades which could make it a valuable curation tool! Every G Suite user already has a Google Keep account, and you might have even used it in the past to make a to-do list or jot down some important information you didn’t want to forget. Keep’s sticky note feature is excellent because within each sticky note you can copy and paste links, add images and type in your own material. Individual notes can also be shared with collaborators in the same way that Docs, Sheets, and Slides can be shared. There is even a new feature where you can load your Google Keep notes as a side panel in Google Docs. This will allow you to drag and drop items from Google Keep right into the flow of your writing. (See this article by Eric Curts at Control Alt Achieve for more on this). But what makes Keep an excellent curation tool is your ability to save web content to Keep by using the “Save to Keep” extension. After you have found an article or blog that interests you, click on this extension and then “add a label” so that you can easily find it in on your Keep board later. As your PLN grows, you can add new labels to Google Keep at any time! And since Google Keep is always free, you will never need to worry about your curated content disappearing. For more on Google Keep, visit my earlier posts, Google Keep – The Gift That Keeps on Giving
Whether you choose to use one of the three suggested tools or decide to travel down your own path, curating your PLN content is valuable and worthwhile! You just never know when you are going to want to revisit something you read, and falling down the black hole of Google trying to re-locate it can be a very frustrating experience! Happy curating!
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