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How do you get the most out of social media without letting things get lost in the shuffle?

Being an educator on social media can be both inspiring and overwhelming. There are so many great ideas and resources out there to use that it can be hard to keep up with it all.

It can be frustrating to see something you want to try and before you can make note of it, manually or digitally, it gets lost in the shuffle. As much as tools like Google Keep, Pocket, or simply bookmarking links can help you stay organized, sometimes it's still just not enough to sift through it all to find what you need the most at that moment in time.

Matt Miller recently mentioned in his Ditch That Textbook Podcast how he has started using Wakelet to quickly save those ideas and resources that he comes across on Twitter in just a few clicks (on the mobile app for Apple, Android, or the Chrome extension).

With Wakelet, you can ...

create "wakes" (or collections)

add tweets or other social media posts to them

add more content (like text, images, PDFs and more)

organize everything with headers

share those collections with the world (or embed them on a webpage)

make them visible to as narrow or broad an audience as you want

Check out all the how-to's in these Wakelet tutorial videos.
This is an instant game changer as it helps you save anything with a link to a collection in the cloud, that you can then title, reorganize, add descriptions/notes, add collaborators, and share. What a time saver!

The potential for its use doesn't stop there. (Disclaimer: Before this starts to sound like a sales pitch, let me explain that there is actually no sale to pitch. Wakelet is completely FREE.)

This tool really highlights the power of curation. You've heard of the 4 C's (Critical Thinking, Communication, Collaboration, and Creativity) right? Let's add another C: curation.

What are some practical ways to bring curation into each classroom by using a tool like Wakelet? How can we as educators leverage a tool like Wakelet to grow professionally? We'll start in the classroom.

Wakelet in the Classroom

Student Work Portfolios. Similar to using Google Sites, students can quickly save links to different Google Drive files into a collection in Wakelet. In order to make sure their files are viewable, they can use Alice Keeler's AnyoneCanView extension to change a file's sharing settings in one click. Students can reorder their files and add notes before each one to take users through their journey of a particular unit or the entire school year.

Project Based Learning. If you are having students do a project that requires a lot of research and gathering of resources, Wakelet is a very quick way to save them either with the mobile app or the Chrome extension. You can create categories on the fly as you find and save items to a collection.

Genius Hour or 20% time Project. Hold students accountable and provide structure for what they could produce as a result of a Genius Hour project. They can easily gather research and/or created artifacts to present in a visual and creative way.

Breakout EDU. Lots of teachers have started designing games for students like Breakout EDU to play in order to more fully engage in the content, as well as participate in collaborative problem solving. Create a collection (or wake as it is called) of your favorite digital Breakout EDU games. Or use the tool to build the game itself using different online resources or G Suite apps.

HyperDocs. Similar to Breakout EDU, curate your own collections of HyperDocs and associated resources, build your multimedia text set to link to a HyperDoc, or use Wakelet as your packaging for your HyperDoc. The main perk is that it will already look polished and professional without taking too much time to design and format a Google Doc or Slide deck.

Personalized Learning Menus. Quickly create a collection of different activities, web based or via G Suite files, to serve as a Personalized Learning Menu that allows students to choose how they want to dig deeper into a concept or lesson.

Google Expeditions. Curate your own collection of Google Earth activities for students to choose from in order to explore a specific location. Include your own directions and accompanying G Suite files for activities to complete.

Novel Studies. Create and share different artifacts that could then be added to a wake. Make a My Map to tour the settings of the story (if it takes place in a real place), add a ThingLink of the cover of the book where students can add links of audio or video reflections they made about the design choices. Include anything else that you might have students do for a novel study. You could include smaller HyperDocs for each chapter that they can make copies of and then build into their own collection. Keep it all in one place as you progress through the book.

How-To Math Reviews. Have students pick a math concept, gather how-to videos from Khan Academy and YouTube etc., and then rank order, with notes of explanation, according to which was the easiest to the hardest to understand. Then have them create their own using the best ideas from the other videos using a tool like WeVideo.

Parent Newsletters. Create a collection of resources, how-to videos, a link to your class webpage (or embed the wake into your site), and anything else that might be helpful to inform parents of the learning going on in your class and how they can help reinforce it at home. Tell parents how they can download the Wakelet mobile app and follow your class profile to see a new wake for each week's learning. It can then serve as a database for reviewing concepts before major assessments or at the end of the year. Here is an awesome example from Brandi Reams (@b_reamswpa) that shows just how much you can curate for your students and parents. Now imagine for a moment if every teacher in your grade level, or in the entire school had a Wakelet page. You could then have a page for your school with links to each class page. What a great way to create your own website in very little time and not to mention share your school's culture and story!

Wakelet for Professional Development

Podcast Playlists. As long as you can get a specific link to a podcast through your podcast app or if there is a web page associated with the episode, you can add them to a wake and essentially generate your own custom Podcast Playlist. This is great for introducing your colleagues to podcasts by giving them a curated sampling to choose from, or give them a series of different episodes from different podcasts that all focus on a common topic. This is a great way to collect your favorite podcast episodes to refer back to if needed.

Social Stories & Reflections. Curate a Twitter Chat you participated in and/or various reflections made in a Voxer group or Flipgrid. Again, as long as you can get a specific link to something, you can save it in Wakelet. With this in mind, Jarod Bormann (@jbormann3) demonstrated this awesome idea that takes this to the next level as a way for educators to submit their artifacts for grad credit and/or online PD. I have included a link to his tutorial video in the Wakelet mentioned at the end of this post. You should also check out his awesome book study for Professionally Driven.

I came across this idea thanks to a tweet from Dr. Randall Sampson (@RandallSampson) who is also a big fan of using Wakelet to share your story.

He had this to say about it: "The goal is for teachers and students to become authentic authors of their experiences."

If you are responsible for developing PD opportunities for your site or district, you may want to consider using Wakelet for participants to gather their artifacts and evidence of learning. They can even post a link to their wake in Google Classroom as it has that feature built right in when sharing. Check out this awesome wake from Dr. Sampson on How to Create Your Personalized PD Experience.

One more idea in regards to curating tweets or hashtags. As great as it is to have a social media presence for your class or your school, you have to remember that not all parents are on social media. And even those who are might miss some of your posts because they just get lost in the shuffle of everything else they are following in their feeds. By using Wakelet, you can bring all of your tweets front and center. You will actually engage more parents in your social media presence, regardless of whether or not they have an account.

These ideas are barely scratching the surface of what is possible. To give you a better sense of how it can be used, I have created a Wakelet called Understanding the Power of Curation. I have included some links to things mentioned above as well as some great resources to help you better understand the role that curation can play in your classroom.

If you would like to design your own custom banner for a wake that you create, you can use this template ( bit.ly/wakeletcovertemplate) to minimize how much you might need to crop an image to fit. Simply add whatever content you want to the Google Drawing and then go to File > Download as > JPEG, and then upload your image to your collection.

For other pro tips and ideas, check out @Wakelet and @WakeletSupport on Twitter.

I'd like to give a special shout out to Misbah Gedal from Wakelet, for sharing some great ideas with me and being so passionate about making the best possible product for teachers and students that he and the rest of the team there in Manchester can make. Look for more exciting features to come!
Disclaimer: Neither Paul West, Matt Miller nor Ditch That Textbook has any relationship (financial or in exchange for services) with Wakelet. We just like using it and have found it to be very helpful! For notifications of new Ditch That Textbook content and helpful links: Interested in having Matt present at your event or school? Contact him by e-mail! Matt is scheduled to present at the following upcoming events:

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12 curation ideas for students AND teachers with Wakelet

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How do you get the most out of social media without letting things get lost in the shuffle? Being an educator on social media can be both inspiring and overwhelming. There are so many great ideas and resources out there to use that it can be hard to keep up with it all.

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Create amazing collections using articles, videos, images, tweets, text & more. Also on iOS & Android. wakelet.com

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How to Use Wakelet in the Classroom by Holly Clark

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How to Use Wakelet in the Classroom by Holly Clark

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Wakelet has helped me become a better educator, and I can not stop using it!! It is changing how I curate and share resources- and more importantly how students I work with can organize their learning. Can I get a woot woot?

To get started: Check out this Wakelet collection on using Wakelet

What is Wakelet? It is the newest, hippest curation tool out there and it can help change the collaboration, creation and organization of learning in a classroom. Wakelet makes it 'easy to capture, organize and share multi-media resources' for both the teacher and student. If you have not done so, take the time to quickly learn this easy to use tool. I think of it as a more powerful version of Pinterest.

Once you discover how easy this tool is to use - you will want to start using it right away! Here are five ways to use Wakelet tomorrow!.

How to Use Wakelet to Activate Curiosity

Curate resources before a lesson or learning scenario for students to explore. This activity should be designed to activate their curiosity and get them ready for the learning experience and to give them the background knowledge they need to understand the content better. Consider curating resources that are high-interest or get them thinking about the ideas that are part of their learning goals. For example - curate Over Simplified History videos (from YouTube) or Flocabulary to get students interested in the content in a fun and engaging way!

How to Use Wakelet to Curate Exemplars

Students need mentor examples or ideas to help them get in that creative mindset. Great examples help stimulate their own ideas and creativity. Use Wakelet to curate really well-thought-out examples of student work into one collection. If you are using Flipgrid - download a great video or two and add to a collection. Using Adobe Spark? Use Wakelet to show off some of the best video, graphic or webpage exemplars for kids to see as they begin making their own learning artifacts.

How to Use Wakelet to Show Off Your Classroom

We all want parents to respect the learning that is happening in our classrooms - but parents don't have time to visit or see what is happening each day. Now, using a Wakelet collection, we can invite them in to witness some of the learning experiences happening with students. To do this, create a weekly Wakelet collection that shows off the classroom work and captures the actual learning experiences. Use your phone to take quick videos of the students in action and then add those to the collection as well as examples of student work! It is time to let the learning pour out of the four walls of your classroom and into the world.

How to Use Wakelet for Student Research

Using the Wakelet Chrome Extension, students can easily curate their research or even their own learning artifacts using the power of a Wakelet collection. As they learn the skill of searching - teach them how to curate that research into a collection so that they can easily stay organized... Even have them take notes in the information section just below the source so they remember the important elements of that resource.

How to Use Wakelet to Share Innovative Teaching Ideas

We all have amazing teachers at our schools who are not on Twitter. No matter how hard we try, some will never join us on our favorite learning adventure by joining. So help them by curating some amazing ideas - each week or anytime you find something really helpful. A great example of this comes from Pam Hubler@specialtechie Check out this Wakelet were she shared #PottyPD with teachers in her district and around the world! Potty PD Wakelet

How to Use Wakelet to Share Playlists

To get students pumped and ready for class, we start our class each period with a song. To get students involved in the process, we invite them to add a song request. To do this, we create a collection, name it and click on the invite button in the upper navigation bar. This creates a unique link that can be shared with students and then students can easily add their submissions. I make a video of how to do the process, and add "Request a Song" to our Google classroom. Anytime during the year they can request. There is another great example of a Playlist class activity in the video below.

How to Use Wakelet to Get to Know the Class

Before school starts (or even as a back to school activity in January) you can invite students to do a Wakelet introducing themselves. Students can learn about each other and build excitement for the coming year as they learn who is in their class. Teachers should make one as well - to introduce themselves to the class and as an exemplar of the final product.

Pro Tip: Send an email with a tutorial video on how students can create their first Wakelet. Just think students will then come to class already knowing how to use this powerful tool.
Watch this video for actual examples of these ideas:
How to Use Wakelet for a Weekly Newsletter

Weekly newsletters have long been a great way to get parents involved in the classroom and create a powerful school to home connection. Consider creating a weekly or bi-weekly Wakelet for this task. The Wakelet could be used to show off student work, provide more insight into whats coming and could offer a place for students (or parents) who want more information about content - additional resources to keep the learning going.

How to Use Wakelet for Student Portfolios

Students in 2020 spend a lot more time online doing work, so they now have links to many of their learning assets. Teaching students to curate their best work during the year into a collection is a great way to help them see their growth over time and take pride in their work.

Pro Tip: Have students edit description section to explain about the assignment and illuminate their learning journey.

How to Use Wakelet to curate a How To-Tech Videos

As we have been using more learning tools in our class, I have created a Wakelet collection with tutorials to helps students who might need more time or have been absent. The number of views on these videos have taught me this was an important resource for them.

Finally, Check out this Wakelet on using Wakelet. This collection is the curation of amazing examples by educators as passionate as me about Wakelet.

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How to Use Wakelet in The Classroom - The Infused Classroom

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Blended Learning can become more meaningful when we incorporate very powerful tools like Wakelet in our classrooms.