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Here is a link to my website with links to all the book discussions.

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Teaching and learning | Elizabeth Hutchinson School Libraries

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Elizabeth Hutchinson, School libraries: teaching digital and information literacy, reading for pleasure, literacy and supporting learning across the curriculum.

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Teaching students to legally use images online

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Teaching students to legally use images online

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This is something we could discuss. I think it is something we need to teach teachers too..

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As our students create more and more digital products -blog posts, videos, podcasts, e-books-they should be using images to enhance them. Images grab an audience's attention, they can illustrate key concepts, set a certain tone, and present a more complete understanding of the ideas you're putting out there.

And the internet is absolutely teeming with images students can grab and use in a matter of seconds. But in most cases, they SHOULD NOT GRAB. Despite the fact that these images are easy to get, using them may be illegal.

Does this Matter at School?

Is legal image use really a big deal with school projects? If our students are just using images to enhance assignments for class, it might be easy to shrug off the technicalities, since most of these images will never be seen by audiences outside the classroom.

Two things to consider:

1. Even if your students are working within a tightly monitored, password-protected, closed online environment, there's no guarantee that the products they create will always remain private. Proud parents might share their child's work on social media, a student might place their work in a digital portfolio for future use, and household guests might ultimately view things inside that "closed" environment. So it makes sense to operate under the assumption that all digital products could eventually become public.

2. Why not prepare students for the day when these rules will carry more serious consequences? As students move out of school and into professional contexts, being trained in the proper, legal use of images will serve them well. And legal use of images is also closely tied to ethical habits and plagiarism.

So in the spirit of complying with the law and preparing the next generation to participate responsibly online, let's review the different approaches students can take to add images to their written work, blog posts, videos, presentations, and other digital products. We'll start with the safest, most affordable option.

Disclaimer: I am not a legal expert. My goal is to raise awareness of the complexities of online use of images and get teachers to pass on that awareness to their students. If you find inaccuracies, please point them out and I will make corrections.

Option 1: Make Your Own

If students create their own images, then they own the copyright and can use them without having to pay any money or get permission (unless the photos are of someone else...but we'll get to that).

ILLUSTRATIONS

When I first started this website, I couldn't afford to buy nice photos, and I didn't want to use the same free ones I saw everywhere else online, so despite the fact that my artistic skills are nothing special, I just created my own doodles in MS Paint, like the one shown above. This is a great route to take, because you can get started right away, it's free, and there's no copyright to worry about.

Students can create their own illustrations in two ways:

Handmade: Students can draw or paint an image on paper, create a paper collage, or even build something in 3D like a sculpture, then take a picture of it and use that photo for whatever digital product they are creating.

Digital: Using simple programs like MS Paint for Windows, Paper by 53 for iOS devices, or web-based tools like Google Drawings, Adobe Creative Cloud Express, Canva, Autodraw, Piktochart, and Sketchpad. On any of these platforms, students can create just about any illustration they can think of, save it as a PNG file, then add it wherever they like.

PHOTOS

Students can take their own digital photos and upload them in a heartbeat, using sites like PicMonkey and Pixlr to edit or enhance them for free. When using photos they take themselves, students should keep the following rules in mind:

When You Do NOT Need Permission
Although it's always considerate to ask people permission before you use a photo of them online or in another public space, sometimes it's not possible, and in these cases, it's not legally necessary:

If you took the photo at a public event and the photo will be used for journalistic purposes (to simply describe the event, for example)

If the person is not recognizable in the photo (their face isn't showing, for example)

When You DO Need Permission
Have the subject sign aphoto release form in person or, if that's not possible, have them copy the language from a photo release form into an email. If the subject is a minor (under 18 in the U.S.), you need permission from their parent or guardian.

If you're going to use the photo for commercial purposes (to sell something) or promotional purposes (to promote a product, service, or idea), you need permission from the subject.

If the photo was taken on private property, even if it is not the subject's property, you must get permission from the subject to use that photo.

If you are holding an event, like a festival, party, or concert, and you plan to take photos that you might share with the public, you should get permission from attendees. Event organizers often use crowd release forms at the point of registration: They'll require attendees to check a box giving permission to use photos of them. Another approach is to hang up crowd release signs at the event itself. Learn more about event release forms in this post from SLR Lounge and this one from Mark Schaefer.

When You MIGHT Need Permission

If you are taking photos of students at school, it's likely that the parents or guardians of those students signed a media release form at the beginning of the school year, giving the school permission to use that student's image in various non-commercial publications throughout the year. These permissions may also extend to student photographers, as long as you are using the images for school-related projects. Students should check with their teacher and administrator to make sure.

If the photo contains an image of a store or business logo. Some businesses have rules about using images of their facilities or that prominently feature their logo, so if you are going to be taking photos that will include any kind of business logo or store, get written permission from the business owner first.

If the student has a job that includes taking photos, photos taken as part of the job may actually belong to the employer.

Option 2: Use Creative Commons Images

Creative Commons is an organization that has made it much easier for people to share artwork. They have established a set of licenses that artists can place on their work that automatically gives others permission to use that work in their own projects under specific terms and conditions.

A photographer, for example, might use a Creative Commons licenses on a collection of her photographs, so that anyone who finds them online can easily check the chosen license and follow the restrictions of use specified in that license.

If your students want to use images they find online, they should look for images that have Creative Commons licenses. You can learn about all of the licenses here, but the safest bet is to steer students toward pictures that have the two least restrictive licenses:

CC0: Creative Commons Zero
This is the least restrictive level, and the one students should look for first. Items marked as CC0 can be used by anyone, for any purpose without having to get permission or give credit to the artist. In other words, an image licensed with CC0 is the same copyright-wise as an image in the public domain .

CC BY: Attribution
Items with this license can be used for non-commercial OR commercial purposes, and all the user has to do is give credit to the original artist.

[Both license images above came from Creative Commons and are licensed under CC BY 4.0]

WHERE TO FIND CREATIVE COMMONS IMAGES

Free Stock Photo Sites
These fantastic sites curate free, high-quality images that are all CC0 licensed. Simply search for what you need, download the photos you like, and use them. Unfortunately, many free stock photo sites contain adult content, so unsupervised students should not use them, but if your students are working under adult supervision, they should try these sites. Here are a few good sites that don't appear to contain inappropriate content:
StockSnap
Good Free Photos
Foodiesfeed (all food-related)

Flickr Commons
Flickr is where thousands of photographers store their photography for public display, and many of these photos have CC0 and CC BY licenses.

Photos for Class
This is a handy search engine for finding school-appropriate images. My only hesitation with recommending this site is that it automatically adds attribution to each photo. Although this could be seen as a good feature, I feel it doesn't really teach students how to give appropriate attribution, because it does the work for them. Also, students may not always want the added black bar with the attribution information at the bottom of each image, and they may be tempted to simply crop it out, which would defeat the whole purpose.

Google Image Search
Although a Google search will pull up plenty of images students don't have permission to use, the search can be filtered so that the results only show images that are licensed for re-use. Just be sure to open up the Tools after you search, and check one of the options under "Usage rights" that will remove all of the photos that have not been labeled for some kind of reuse. Checking "Creative Commons Images" should give you images that have the least amount of restrictions.

HOW TO GIVE PROPER ATTRIBUTION

If students use an image that requires attribution, students should simply add a line of text underneath the image providing four pieces of information (Creative Commons recommends using the acronym TASL to remember these):

T = the title of the image
A = the author (or artist)
S = the source (or where it is located online)
L = the license for the image

Ideally, the attribution should be placed fairly close to the image, so that those who view it connect the information to the picture. Here are some examples of properly attributed images:

Online
If you use the image in a blog post or on a website, you can place the attribution in the caption or on a line of text below the image:

In the above attribution, I included the title, "Blood Orange Shine," the name of the author, Derek Gavey, and the code for the license. Because the image will be displayed online, I can include the location by just hyperlinking the title to URL of the site where the image is stored. I can also hyperlink the author's name to his page on Flickr, the photo sharing site where the photographer stores his photos, and the name of the license to the license page on the Creative Commons website.

In Print
Because print publications don't allow hyperlinking, I would need to add the URL information to the attribution:

Blood Orange Shine (https://www.flickr.com/photos/24931020@N02/14995800960/) by Derek Gavey is licensed under CC BY 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/)

If doing this right by the photo would make my product look less attractive, I can add the photo credit to the bottom of the page or on a page of photo credits.

In a Video or Slide Presentation
Attribution can be placed in small print right on the slide or frame where the image appears. Because giving full attribution, including URLs, would take up a lot of space and could interfere with the enjoyment of the image, one solution is to place an abbreviated attribution where the image appears (giving the title, author, and license code), then add full credits on a slide or frame at the end.

Here's what an on-slide attribution could look like, using a simple black rectangle at the bottom with a white-font text box on top of it:

And here is what the photo credits page might look like at the end of the presentation or video:

Option 3: Buy Images

Although it's not necessarily within most students' budgets, they do have the option to actually purchase high-quality stock photography and illustrations. When making these purchases, students should read the licensing agreements carefully: In general, the more widely a user plans to distribute the product, the more the image will cost.

On graphic design sites like Canva, where users can create their own designs with drawing tools and free images, there's also the option to buy photos and illustrations to use in a single project for as little as $1. If the student wants to use the image in multiple projects, the fee for a single image can go as high as $100. Learn more about Canva licensing here.

Other sites, like iStock, sell the images without the graphic design tools. These images can be quite expensive depending on how they are going to be used and distributed. Learn more about iStock licenses here.

Don't Make This Rookie Mistake!
When doing general searches for images, paid items will come up in the results. The way to identify a paid image is if it has a watermark: a translucent design that covers the image but doesn't prevent you from seeing the picture behind it.

These watermarks are only removed after someone actually pays for the image, but it is possible to download a watermarked image, and people will sometimes do this without realizing that they are basically stealing the image AND broadcasting that fact to the world.

Teach your students not to do this.

Making a Good Effort

With all of this said, using images correctly can be an inexact science: Sometimes you can't always contact a person for permission. Sometimes it's nearly impossible to find the name of a photographer. The best rule of thumb is to make a good effort to give credit where it's due and ask for permission as much as possible. If we can build these habits in our students from an early age, we will be helping to make the internet a more respectful and cooperative place.

Want a Ready-Made Lesson on Image Use?

I've pulled the concepts from this post into a ready-to-use lesson you can teach tomorrow. Using Images Correctly includes a beautifully designed PowerPoint (also available in Google Slides), two student handouts that summarize the key points, and a Team Challenge students can take to test their knowledge of appropriate image use. Come check it out!

To Learn More

The Copyright Laws website is a great place to read more about these issues. They even have a course you can take on legally using images online.

All of the images in this post that have no attribution are licensed by CC0 or were created by the author.

There's more where this came from.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration-in quick, bite-sized packages-all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. You'll get access to my members-only library of free downloads, including 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half the e-booklet that has helped thousands of teachers save time on grading. Come on in!!

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Teaching Students to Legally Use Images Online

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As our students use more and more images to enhance their digital products, they need to learn how to respect other people's creative ideas and privacy.

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Book title suggestions from Barbara Band 

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Book title suggestions from Barbara Band 

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Rather than adding this list indiviually I thought it would be best to add the whole thing as a Pdf then if you want to save a copy you can.

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A blog post by Kay Oddone on how we can help students in their digital literacies
https://www.scisdata.com/connections/issue-105/supercharge-students-digital-literacy-skills-with-content-curation/

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Make it Stick: The science of successful learning 

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Make it Stick: The science of successful learning 

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Includes an interview with author Peter Brown

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Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning
by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel
336 pages, Belknap Press, April 2014

This page contains Amazon Affiliate links; if you purchase from Amazon after going through these links, Cult of Pedagogy receives a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Listen to my interview with Make It Stick author Peter Brown (transcript):
Remember college, when you'd crack open your textbook, pop the top off your brand-new highlighter, then start smearing that sucker across line after line of text, making the important stuff stand out so you could reread it and reread it some more? Lots of people call that "studying," but it turns out it doesn't really work so well. So why do so many people do it?

This phenomenon is explained in our summer 2015 book pick, Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning. Citing recent research in cognitive psychology, the authors take our beliefs about learning and turn them upside down. Some of the most common practices in classrooms, music studios, and athletic fields-things like repeating an action over and over to reinforce muscle memory or distributing a review sheet of key points to students before an exam-are actually pretty ineffective ways to learn. The authors explain how the brain responds to these methods, why they are less than ideal for building enduring learning, and what we should be doing instead.

Although the reading can sometimes be challenging, the concepts are illustrated beautifully in a series of anecdotes from sports, the military, music, and even corporate training to demonstrate how learning in any field is still learning; the principles hold up no matter where they are applied. And knowing that real learning is sometimes difficult (discussed below in principle #3) made it easier for me to accept the times when I wasn't totally grasping something.

Anyone who teaches anything would benefit from reading this book: coaches, tutors, classroom teachers, parents, even corporate trainers. Instead of doing what we've always done and wondering why some learners just don't get it, we can take a different approach that's based on research, even if it seems counterintuitive.

What Teachers Need to Know

Make It Stick introduces quite a few guiding principles about learning. Here are a few important takeaways for teachers:

1. We should add more low-stakes quizzing to our instructional plans. Regularly quizzing our students on the material is one of the best ways to help them learn it. Many teachers give regular formative assessments, but most don't realize that the process of trying to retrieve skills and information from memory reinforces the learning more effectively than simply reviewing it. Quizzing yourself on something actually helps you learn it better. The good news is that it's incredibly easy to add this kind of retrieval practice into our teaching: Set aside 3-5 minutes of every class period for a quick quiz, including something students just learned and something from earlier. Whenever possible, avoid providing the answers in the form of multiple choice or true/false; the learning will be better if students have to try to recall the information instead of just recognizing it.

2. Repeating one skill to perfection is not the best path toward long-term learning. When we practice a skill or try to remember information, common sense tells us to just keep repeating it until we have it down pat. But the research cited in this book tells a different story: Our learning is actually more durable if we mix it up with other skills or information before we master it. That "mastery" feeling we get from massed practice is really just our short-term memory hanging on to stuff. To entrench learning in long-term memory, we have to space out our practice and mix it up with other things. In the classroom, that means we're better off giving students shorter, spaced out practice on a regular basis, rather than clumping it all together (so 5 math problems every day is better than 20 all at once).

3. Real learning doesn't always feel good. When our students struggle to master a concept or skill, it's natural for teachers to get nervous and start looking for other approaches. Although ineffective teaching strategies should be abandoned, an awkward crawl to mastery isn't necessarily a sign of poor teaching. According to the authors, easy learning is not long-lasting; it's the effort required to learn that results in true retention. So when you have given students a challenging task and they complain that it's too hard or they don't get it, consider your response carefully: Is it a poorly designed task or lesson that will never result in good learning, or are students experiencing healthy growing pains? Having another teacher look at your lesson materials may help you make the call.

4. We must be transparent in our approach. When we apply the principles from this book, it's vital that we share our thinking with students. If we add daily quizzing to our teaching or make students struggle a bit before mastering a concept, students will be less likely to resist it if we explain that these methods will ultimately help them learn better, even if it isn't as fast or doesn't feel as satisfying.

This is just a preliminary list; to learn more and really understand the thinking behind these principles, a thorough read of the book is important.

A Few More Goodies...

Video Reflections
As I read this book, I created my own series of video reflections on the chapters. You can watch these here.

How to Use Retrieval Practice to Improve Learning (PDF)
Written by a team of cognitive psychologists from Washington University, including two of the book's authors, this 11-page guide offers teachers clear, step-by-step instructions for adding retrieval practice to their classroom instruction. Click here to take a look.

The Retrieval Practice Website
On Retrieval Practice, teachers can learn about why having students recall information is a more effective strategy than simply continuing to pour the material into their brains. Specific retrieval practice strategies are given, along with links to books and articles about this practice.

The Testing Effect: Illustrating a Fundamental Concept and Changing Study Strategies (PDF)
This study, published by the Society for the Teaching of Psychology, compared the memory of two groups of students: One group simply read and re-read their material, and the other group read it and then tested themselves on it. The "testing" group retain the content better when tested on it a week later. All students who participated in the study were shown the results and resolved to add more self-testing to their studying regimens. See the study here.

What do you think?

This review is just the beginning of our conversation about the ideas presented in this book. In the comments below, share your thoughts and questions. I am especially interested to hear whether you plan to make any changes to your teaching based on what you learned in Make It Stick. And if you find this months or years after it was originally posted, add a comment anyway-the ideas in this book will last a long time.

Looking forward to learning and growing with you. ♦

There's more where this came from.
Join my mailing list and get weekly tips, tools, and inspiration - in quick, bite-sized packages - all geared toward making your teaching more effective and fun. To thank you, I'll send you a free copy of my new e-booklet, 20 Ways to Cut Your Grading Time in Half. I look forward to getting to know you better!

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Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning

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Make It Stick: The Science of Successful Learning by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger III, and Mark A. McDaniel 336 pages, Belknap Press, April 2014 This page contains Amazon Affiliate links; if you purchase from Amazon after going through these links, Cult of Pedagogy receives a small commission at no extra cost to you.

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After reading Leading in a Culture of Change Michael suggested we read this.

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A blog article on how to integrate technology into your work

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Conclusions?

Digital literacy is difficult.

You can buy people equipment but it's unrealistic to give every colleague training in how to use everything. You can create a training programme, but if it doesn't address practical skill gaps or lead to any activity it can be pointless. And it may be better to exploit the free training resources out there on blogs and Youtube rather than pay for an expensive service.

When surveyed at the end of the project, however, 75% of staff were satisfied or very satisfied with our investment in new technologies and skills training, with 25% neutral. Of the options for future training, these were the three most popular options:

1. Time for independent exploration (trial and error) 62%

2. Monthly group workshops (i.e. the Digital Den) 55%

3. One-to-one support from colleagues ('mentoring') 55%

To ensure we keep on top of things in future, we will be:

coordinating a training programme that addresses skills gaps identified through annual digital skills surveys. The majority of our sessions will be practical.

Reviving our managerial coaching. I've committed to monthly coffee mornings with both museum directors. We're hoping that booking it into the diary and getting us out of the museums will force us into the routine.

Abandoning Skillshare and compiling a list of free resources instead.

continuing with our Digital Skills Induction survey, which allows us to see how we can train new staff. You can see a copy of our survey here.

Engagement

At the beginning of this project we had heady dreams of doing the kind of exciting public projects people usually talk about at conferences.

We realised very rapidly that none of our colleagues had any spare time, we ourselves are definitely not community engagement experts, and that we're much better at boosting other peoples' projects and doing proofs of concepts.

The case studies below scratch the surface of 18 months which included being an accidental IT support team for the museums, running social media and our websites, assisting with other events and dealing with the million day-to-day things which pop up.
Going 3D
As part of our equipment cupboard we bought a Lulzbot Taz 6 3D printer, with the idea of exploring how 3D prints could help those with sensory impairments.

We also wanted to explore the potential of these objects for public workshops, so we went to a science fair at Highdown secondary school to try out three things:

Exploring authenticity using a real object, a 3D-printed object and a 3D virtual model

3D scanning objects using iPads

using 360-degree images in Google Cardboard headsets, showing Reading Abbey Ruins during conservation

You can read more detail in our blog from the time, but what we found out from this group is that people prefer real objects but enjoy virtual models, would rather 3D-scan their friends rather than objects, and find VR the most exciting thing on the planet.
#rdg21
Our Museum Studies student Gracie Price took museum social media by storm when she ran the #museum30 campaign, where people on Twitter and Instagram shared photos on different themes each day.

We paid Gracie to run a similar campaign for Reading called #rdg21. The campaign was very much left up to Gracie, as we were interested in seeing whether the success of #museum30 could be replicated with the people of Reading.

We got in touch with local influencers, made a splash and did pretty well, with 2147 posts on the hashtag.
Digital Takeovers
We ran the second ever MERL Late, which are a series of evenings aimed at 18-30 year olds, with live music, cocktails, activities and talks.

We invited colleagues working in digital humanities and with digital technologies from the University of Reading to come show off their stuff, as well as people from the town such as our local hackspace, rLab. The event was a success, and we ran a second Late in 2018.

While they are very hard work we're keen on making them regular, as well as running the same event in Reading Museum. They are great for putting a flag up for your communities to say 'we're interested in doing this kind of thing with you'.
The Brewup
Our next step up from the Digital Late was directly involving people in the town with artistic and technological interests and skills.

On a Saturday in March 2018 we ran a day-long workshop where we got 28 people into teams, bounced ideas around the theme of animals in our collections, and awarded prizes based on the resulting project proposals. These included creating new narratives around objects on social media with young people, running geocache-esque scavenger hunts advertised through Reading Buses and running 3D workshops based around the collections.

The planning of our NPO has thrown a spanner in kicking off these projects properly, but the plan is to meaningfully involve people with technical and artistic skills in running interesting projects and making interesting things from our collections more regularly.
Berkshire Show and Brexit
When trying to think about projects where the MERL and Reading Museum could work together best, the theme of town and country made most sense. In particular we felt that both urban and rural people tended to live in their own bubbles, and that the museums could help puncture those.

We worked with volunteers from both museums on an audio project exploring issues that cut across the rural and urban. Our first opportunity was the Berkshire Show, and the themes we settled on were 'what does the countryside mean to you?' and Brexit.

We brought in local artist and audio expert Felicity Ford, who trained us and the volunteers in interview technique, how to record audio properly and then how to mix, edit and finish a proper piece of audio.

The resulting piece can be heard below, and featured in a community display exploring Brexit at the MERL in 2018:
Bird Trail
One thing we rapidly realised was that we needed to work with people who knew what they were doing, rather than teaching ourselves everything.

We don't know how to do augmented reality. We'd done a little using the free app Aurasma (now HP Reveal), but nothing standalone.

Step forward Luca Ottonello, a PhD student at the University of Reading who makes robots, 3D models and holograms in his spare time. He whipped us up some augmented reality in Unity where, when you pointed a camera at a trigger image, a 3D model of a bird popped up. It's simple, straightforward and rewarding, and we've used it as both a garden and gallery trail with both families and adults.

Now all we need to do is buy some android tablets and create a system for loaning them out to the public.
The Reading Museum Blog
One of the simplest but most rewarding things we did was give Reading Museum a blog - something we otherwise wouldn't have had the resource to do.

Thanks to a Digital Den series of blogging workshops led by Anna Faherty, we had a strategy, we knew who we were writing for and we had a suite of skills for honing in on key blog formats, ways of writing and making interesting titles. We hold blog meetings every two months, have a blog buddy system for checking over each others' work and organise all of our blogs on a Trello board.

The best thing about the blog is that staff have really bought into it, we have a variety of voices and we have a whole new way of communicating with our audiences.
Our websites
Both the MERL and Reading Museum have recently built new websites, and our project brought extra funding for things like Reading Museum's blog and the MERL's upcoming online exhibition feature.

What it also brought was the capacity to consider how we manage our websites, how we involve staff and to push through a user-centred approach. We now regularly run user testing sessions to make changes to both websites, enforce the writing of alt text and are preparing a clearer system for staff access to the website.
Accessibility
Our only Sprint of the project was to suss out how we could make our museums more accessible to those with mental or physical impairments. We discovered that the most useful and simple thing we could do was to make Accessibility information clearer on our websites, and particularly for those on the autism spectrum.

We worked with various children and adults with ASD as well as the Centre for Autism at the University of Reading to create:

A social story of the museum, with images showing every area of the museum, what to expect and what activities there are

A Sensory Map showing the different light levels, the level of noise and the interactive elements of the museum

A Google Streetview Tour, made with a Ricoh Theta S camera and the Google Streetview app, which shows every public area of the museum except the first floor store (see our blog)

Once the Reading Abbey Ruins are open and current renovations of Reading Museum's galleries are complete we'll be doing the same on those websites.
Absolute Unit
It wouldn't do to not mention the absolute unit, our Twitter viral sensation of April 2018. You can read a lot of the detail in this blog about how one sheep and a subsequent campaign got us 23 million impressions, 1.5 million engagements and 24.5k new followers.

One of the best things about the absolute unit was that it proved that social media could accomplish the mission of the MERL in a way almost impossible to replicate onsite. It also demonstrated in itself why there needs to be room in our strategies for a bit of fun and humour, and how being more human can pull people further along the ladder of engagement from Awareness to Advocacy.
You can download my report on the Unit here. Traineeships
Last but not least are our diversity traineeships. Neither museum had done a traineeship where we specifically recruited for two new colleagues according to Arts Council England's definition of diversity.

The two people we recruited, Nitisha Ramrekha-Heeramun and Charlene Marriott, were the exact people we were looking for: keen learners, enthusiastic and friendly. Nitisha originally studied Law and had worked and volunteered at the MERL for some years already, and Charlene was brand new into the museum sector.

We knew the importance of making these traineeships co-led, and we ensured that both our trainees had time in different areas of the museums, archive and library before focusing on their areas of interest. Both also attended courses on the University of Reading's Museum Studies undergraduate degree programme. They also, of course, helped with the entire project's activity, and wrote regular blogs too.

Giving Nitisha and Charlene ownership over their traineeship was essential - the confidence the process gave them meant by the end of the project both were independently running public workshops and events. All of us, however, believe we could have done with a bit more of a formal structure and programme so they knew what to expect over the whole project.

We also did not tackle the idea of diversity well enough. We acted as though their existence was enough to make the museums more diverse, when in fact we should have been empowering them to diversify our content and programmes and effect change in the museums. In the latter half of the project we explored the issues of diversity much more closely with our trainees, with franker discussions of its importance and how we could improve.

We would definitely do a traineeship again. However, we would be more realistic about the time and resource they require, make it a more formalised programme and do more to directly tackle our problems with diversity with our trainees.
Conclusion
The most important thing this project gave us was time and capacity.

Without either, we would probably have continued adapting ad-hoc to the digital world, leading to a messy reckoning further down the line.

Having had the capacity and time, it is hard to pontificate to those with neither. What I hope we can do instead is to show where we have made mistakes so others won't make them, and how to get the most value with the least effort.

What we can say is that we reached the majority of our intended outcomes, both museums are in a stronger place, and we can continue our work in our National Portfolio consortium. For more detail, have a look at our full evaluation report by Christina Lister (or the executive summary).

Here, though, are my broad points for others trying to grapple with going digital:

Involve your whole organisation in deciding what 'digital' means to you, and how it can help achieve your aims.

Invest in equipment. If you're going to do digital content properly it has to look decent, but that doesn't mean you need the Adobe suite and the best DSLR - very often, a mid-range smartphone camera and GIMP will do.

Take the time to attend conferences and training days, and don't always send the same people. If you can afford neither, lurk on the Museums Computer Group list, follow people working in digital and social media on Twitter and read their blogs.

If you don't have the expertise, look for it among your local residents, your stakeholders and your volunteers. Never be afraid to ask for help.

The work is never done. The most important thing to change is the mindset of yourself and your colleagues. Be adaptable, evaluative, iterative, collaborative and communicative.

(And don't fuck it up)

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Going digital is bloody difficult - Adam Koszary - Medium

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Conclusions? Digital literacy is difficult. You can buy people equipment but it's unrealistic to give every colleague training in how to use everything. You can create a training programme, but if it doesn't address practical skill gaps or lead to any activity it can be pointless.

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Surviving and thriving in school libraries in the information age.

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the indispensable librarian: surviving and thriving in school libraries in the information age

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library & information science - school media

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school libraries - united states - administration

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language arts & disciplines / library & information science / general

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language arts & disciplines / library & information science / administration & management

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language arts & disciplines / library & information science / school media

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library & information science - administration & management

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school libraries & young reader services

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The Indispensable Librarian: Surviving and Thriving in School Libraries in the Information Age

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Buy The Indispensable Librarian: Surviving and Thriving in School Libraries in the Information Age 2nd Revised edition by Doug Johnson (ISBN: 9781610692397) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.

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Readicide by Kelly Gallagher

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Reading in the Wild...the followup from Donalyn Miller

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Library design and spaces: https://www.amazon.com/From-Campfire-Holodeck-Creating-Environments/dp/1118633938

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Something shared by @sam_bruzzese

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By Alec Couros and Katia Hildebrandt
Those of us who grew up in a pre-Internet world probably remember passing through grocery store checkout aisles lined with copies of the National Enquirer and other tabloids, with outrageous headlines proclaiming "BAT CHILD FOUND IN CAVE," "HILLARY CLINTON ADOPTS ALIEN BABY," or "DOLPHIN GROWS HUMAN ARMS." Even as children, it was easy to distinguish those fake stories from real news, not just because of the sensational claims but also because of the telltale fonts and the obviously manipulated or fabricated images. Looking back, the division between fake news and authentic journalism seemed quite clear.

In today's world, however, the line between real and fake seems increasingly blurred and uncertain. False stories are no longer relegated to tabloid publications but instead have infiltrated more mainstream media sources and social networking services. While the ludicrous claims of tabloid fare were meant mostly to entertain, today's fake news is a more insidious specimen; in many cases, there is a sinister intent to its creation and dissemination. Indeed, the dictionary.com definition of fake news reads: "false news stories, often of a sensational nature, created to be widely shared online for the purpose of generating ad revenue via web traffic or discrediting a public figure, political movement, company, etc " [emphasis added].

For many of us, the rise of fake news has become inextricably linked to the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Data now shows that in the lead-up to election day, the top twenty fake news stories outperformed the top twenty mainstream (legitimate) new stories on Facebook, with the former netting about 1.4 million more engagements (shares, reactions, and comments) than the latter. And the creation and spread of the plethora of fake news stories was undeniably intentional; for example, reports emerged after the election about a small town in Macedonia in which a number of teens specialized in creating false, pro-Trump news articles for the purpose of generating ad revenue. Interestingly, the teens were not necessarily Trump supporters but rather had discovered that disseminating these articles was highly lucrative (earning tens of thousands of dollars in a country where the average monthly salary is $371 USD). While the Internet has often been touted as a democratizing force where all voices can be heard, clearly there are both benefits and drawbacks to a world when anyone can publish anything.

Fake News in a Digital World

Why is fake news so much harder to deal with today? One of the major changes is the prevalence of easily accessible digital tools that allow anyone to create realistic but false messages, videos, and voice recordings. For instance, in the last year, a human image synthesis technique called DeepFakes has gained infamy online; the technique uses Deep Learning (artificial intelligence) algorithms to find patterns in facial photographs in order to add someone's face to an unrelated video. While the technique is fairly new, there has been great fear about the potential misuse of the technology for the use of fake political messages or revenge porn.

As well, there are new tools on the horizon that threaten to further complicate our ability to judge what is real and what is fake. For instance, Voco, an experimental tool from Adobe, has been touted as "Photoshop for voice;" if released, the tool would enable the use of existing voice samples to copy anyone's voiceprint in order to create new messages. Additionally, in recent weeks Google demonstrated the Assistant feature at a conference, illustrated how the soon-to-be-introduced technology would allow personal bots to communicate fluently with others over voice using artificial intelligence. It is not difficult to envision myriad ways in which these new technologies could be misused in order to trick or mislead unsuspecting audiences.

Thus, while fake news is certainly not new, and there have long been mechanisms for creating deceptive and misleading artefacts, we are now entering a brave new world where the truth is more and more difficult to uncover. Thanks to sophisticated tools, the deeply ingrained maxim that "seeing is believing" has become a liability; instead, we have entered an era in which fake news has truly become an information validation problem that will require new strategies for discerning what is real. Moreover, this challenge is only exacerbated by the sheer volume of information (both true and false) being circulated. Indeed, Garry Kasparov, the chess Grandmaster and political activist, notes, "The point of modern propaganda isn't only to misinform or push an agenda. It is to exhaust your critical thinking, to annihilate truth."

Why Don't Our Traditional Strategies Work Anymore?

For many years, we have relied on checklists in order to determine the quality of online information. Most of these checklists take the form of an acronym; for instance, three commonly used tools for evaluating information are RADCAP, CRAAP, and CARS. Unfortunately, these tools are no longer adequate for navigating the current media landscape. On a basic level, using a checklist to deal with the sheer abundance of information available is simply not practical; as Mike Caulfield notes, "In reality, most literacies are heavily domain-dependent, and based not on skills." In other words, it's no longer enough to know how to check the date on an article or search for the name of the author; instead, in a world where every piece of information is suspect and potentially falsified, we need to be able to apply web-specific knowledge, such as understanding the implicit biases of various news sites or knowing which fact-checking sites are trustworthy.

Simply put, the checklist models are no match for the sophistication of today's fake news - they were designed with a simpler media landscape in mind. If we take the idea of authorship (also referred to as authority or credibility), for example, we can easily see where these models break down. The checklists would suggest that we can evaluate a piece of media by looking at its origin. However, the authorship of an artefact can easily be falsified; on social networking sites, for instance, we have seen how both bots and paid "trolls" can masquerade as "reliable" sources in order to spread false information and then amplify it through (bot- and troll-generated) shares and retweets. (For a deeper analysis of the shortcomings of checklist models, see Caulfield's site.) As well, in our current political era, legitimate authorship is no guarantee; for example, a checklist model would likely give a U.S. president a pass on credibility, but President Trump is known to have spread falsehood both online and off (so much so that Politifact has compiled a lengthy list of the false statements he has uttered). And in the Canadian context, on the other side of the political spectrum, sites like TrudeauMeter take on a similar, non-partisan function in assessing the Prime Minister's performance related to election promises. Complications around the very concept of authority, and the notion that authority equates to credibility, make it impossible to use un-nuanced checklists in order to assess the truth.

New Strategies and Techniques for Dealing with Fake News

Given the shortcomings of existing tools for evaluating information, we've compiled a few suggestions for dealing with today's fake news.

1. Develop and employ investigative techniques: Rather than relying on a checklist, it's important that we develop the capacity to employ more sophisticated techniques and strategies when assessing information. These techniques include:

Knowing about and using available web tools - There are multiple tools and sites that are available to help deal with false information, and an important part of tackling the issue of fake news is to be aware of these resources. For instance, it's helpful to know about reliable fact checking sites such as Snopes, Politifact, and FactCheck.org. These sites assess news stories and claims that are circulating and then rate each one for accuracy. Another helpful tool is Google's reverse image search, which allows you to search for a picture to determine where the image originally appeared and whether it has been altered. As well, VerificationHandbook.com is an excellent source of information that details how to verify particular types of media including images and video.

Reading like a fact checker: It's also important to understand how professional fact checkers read and evaluate online sources, in order to emulate their strategies. A 2017 study observed 45 individuals (10 PhD historians, 10 professional fact checkers, and 25 Stanford undergraduate students) as they evaluated live websites. The researchers found that both the historians and the students were easily influenced by false elements of websites, including logos and domain names (both of which are easily manipulated). Importantly, these individuals employed the practice of reading "vertically," that is, staying on the same site in order to assess it. On the other hand, the professional fact checkers read "laterally," meaning that instead of evaluating the site itself, they searched outside sources for corroboration. This is a key technique for evaluating sources, especially given the many strategies and tools available for generating a scaffolding of falsified supports around any given fake site or article.

Understanding and identifying biases: Finally, it's important to learn how to read critically in order to assess the biases of particular sources. This is sometimes a matter of knowing which resources are available to help determine biases; for instance, this chart does an excellent job of laying out the media landscape according to political leaning and general reliability of reporting.

2. Use rich examples: When it comes to helping others understand the complexities of fake news and how to deal with this important issues, it can be very helpful to use rich, real-life examples of falsified stories or images. Of course, there are many pre-fabricated examples of fake artefacts, and over the years, we've seen teachers making great use of "fake sites" designed to help students develop information literacies/skills, including DHMO.org, Save the Endangered Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, Feline reactions to bearded men, and BuyDehydratedWater. But while these are still great resources that can be used with some success, given the abundance of fake news and internet scams that inundate our digital society, there are plenty of opportunities to use fresh and authentic examples in class.

For instance, take this image of Hillary Clinton on the campaign trail, purportedly standing next to a woman wearing an "I'm with stupid" t-shirt that points to Clinton. The image circulated on Facebook in July of 2015, with the criticism that Clinton was "too into herself to notice a t-shirt." As an activity, we might try to use the techniques listed above to determine whether the photo is legitimate. In this case, we could use the aforementioned Google reverse image search to find the original photo, which would quickly tell us that earlier versions of the photo included a plain white t-shirt without writing on it. A reverse image search would also lead us to the Snopes page dedicated to the image, which provides additional details about the spread of the hoax. In today's fake news world, similar examples are readily available for use as authentic case studies.

3. Nurture a Critical Disposition: Ernest Hemingway once remarked that "the most essential gift for a good writer is a built-in, shockproof, s*** detector;" in today's fake news world, the ability to detect lies and nonsense is essential not just for writers but for readers as well. For better or for worse, however, we humans often seem inclined to believe what we see, hear, and read. As such, a third key strategy for dealing with fake news is the development of a critical disposition. Essentially, one of the key challenges of the current age is the need to retrain ourselves to look at the world with an attitude that demands that we question everything, not so that we are paralyzed by uncertainty but so that we are liberated, freed from a world of mistruths and able to assess "reality" in order to create a more accurate picture of the world than the one that is being presented.

Alec Couros is a Professor of educational technology and media at the Faculty of Education, University of Regina. He has given hundreds of workshops and presentations, nationally and internationally, on topics such as openness in education, networked learning, social media in education, digital citizenship, and critical media literacy. His graduate and undergraduate courses help current and future educators understand how to use and take advantage of the educational potential offered by the tools of connectivity.

Katia Hildebrandt is a Ph.D. candidate and instructor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Regina. Her doctoral research is in the area of social media and anti-oppressive education. A former middle years and high school educator, Katia now teaches undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of curriculum, pedagogy, and educational technology.

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Developing Critical Literacies: What We Need to Know in a "Fake News" World

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By Alec Couros and Katia Hildebrandt Those of us who grew up in a pre-Internet world probably remember passing through grocery store checkout aisles lined with copies of the National Enquirer and other tabloids, with outrageous headlines proclaiming "BAT CHILD FOUND IN CAVE," "HILLARY CLINTON ADOPTS ALIEN BABY," or "DOLPHIN GROWS HUMAN ARMS." Even as children, it was easy to distinguish those fake stories from real news, not just because of the sensational claims but also because of the telltale fonts and the obviously manipulated or fabricated images.

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I came across this great blog today. Lovely insight into how teachers think, feel and the support they need.

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I'm not entirely sure what spurred this post to be written; usually I have them whirling around in my head for a few days but this morning I woke up early, turned the computer on and out it came. So here's my A-Z (with the exception of x) of Twitter for teacher CPD, part encouragement to join twitter, part advice for newbies to twitter.
a - ask
If you ever need resources, ideas or some inspiration for a topic or lesson, all you need to do is ask. There is always at least 1 person willing to share. In addition there are so many knowledgeable people willing to support, guide and offer advice. You just have to be willing to ask.
b - bookmark blogs
There are an incredible number of education bloggers that tweet or tweachers that blog. Finding the time read them all can be hard. I highly recommend making use of a bookmarking app such as pinterest, flipboard, google bookmarks or similar to keep track of them for when you do have downtime to read them.
c - connect
Twitter has been a source of connecting to others during my hardest of times. It stopped me from feeling as alone as I could have. Personally I've made some incredible friends as a result of twitter and whilst I may not work directly with people, some feel more like colleagues than online acquaintances. Try it.
d - debate
Now this one can be a challenge. Debates sometimes can lead to arguments on twitter. It's difficult to put across what you want to say in so few characters and as a result debates can quickly turn into arguments, particularly in the school holidays. But don't let that put you off. It's good to have your thinking challenged. You don't even have to get involved in debates and discussions; being a bystander can be as much of benefit as being involved providing you are willing to listen to all sides of the debate and challenge your own thinking.
e - engage
It's all well and good signing up to twitter, you can find plenty of inspiration and ideas by merely following people but to get the most out of twitter for your own CPD purposes you need to engage with others, conversations etc. Start by liking a tweet or two, then respond, then share your own resources, links etc.
f - feedback
Provide feedback to those you borrow ideas from, firstly it helps both of you to develop your practice as a result of the reflection process and secondly it feels great to receive feedback on a resource or idea you've worked hard at.
g - give
As great as twitter is for borrowing ideas, it needs us all to give as well. If we leave the giving to a small handful of people; ideas run dry, practice stagnates, contempt sets in. For every resource you borrow/steal/magpie etc. give something back whether it be a link to a useful article, offering an idea or giving out a copy of your own resource. We all need to give a little back to those that share profusely.
h - hashtags
Hashtags are great for sorting your tweets, highlighting content of your tweets and most importantly to create a sense of community. Most subjects have their own #Team tag such as #TeamEnglish #TeamGeog and #TeamRE to name a few. As well as hashtags for communities there are plenty of education chats as well. Here's a link or two to get you started
a) Hashtag list
b) Edu-Chats
Unfortunately you'll find some educators on twitter believing they are the epitome of what the rest of us should be like; don't let them fool you. Ignore these behaviours and don't let them make you feel like you are not worthy of your job title. If you really don't like what some people have to say or their behaviour, follow the advice you'd give students and report and/or block them.
It's hard not to become jaded when you see the amount of amazing ideas some people share; you can end up feeling like you are not good enough, that you don't have any original ideas, that you don't work hard enough. Don't worry, you are doing great. Some people (I was once included in this) work too hard, whether a result of personal desires or workplace demands; they also tend to have few responsibilities outside of work and therefore have the time. Do not feel you have to work harder, longer, more creatively etc. Make the most of twitter by borrowing what you can to reduce your own workload, just remember to give back.
k - knock-on effect
What you discover through twitter has a knock-on effect in your classroom and hopefully school. Be sure to share what you find with others. Perhaps highlight a piece of good practice you've stolen from twitter with others as part of department/leadership meetings, as a message at the end of emails or through a weekly bulletin.
To get the most from Twitter for CPD purposes, you'll want to ensure you keep an open mind and are willing to explore/discuss new ideas. Allow yourself to keep learning, keep being challenged. Learn from the experience and make the most of the opportunities to update your understanding of pedagogy, teaching and learning and education.
One of my favourite terms picked up from using Twitter has to be to 'magpie'. In order words, steal, borrow etc. ideas and inspiration from others. I loved it so much I even set up Magpied Pedagogy to try and collate as many of the fantastic ideas out there. It's even a term I use in the classroom 'time to magpie' - students fly around the room stealing ideas from others before returning to their own work and adding to it.
As with engaging with others and sharing your own work it's also important to offer ideas, advice and resources if possible when others ask. By doing so we reduce each others workload that little bit and help to develop the community of educators; it's a kind of pay-it-forward scheme.
p - PLN
A PLN is a personal learning network; this being the connections you create with those that help you to develop and learn in a professional (and possibly personal) context. A PLN is about sharing ideas and resources, collaborating and learning.
q - question
There are so many resources and ideas being shared, it's hard to know what to use sometimes. Ensure you always question the purpose, the application and how applicable is it to your learners. I must admit that initially I tried to use everything I saw and liked; but that lasted all of a few months when I realised a) it was unsustainable b) they weren't always suitable for my learners/my style. There's no harm in trying new things, just don't try everything. Question them to decipher what's worthwhile for you and your classes.
r - research
I could spend hours on twitter researching particular areas of focus there's so much out there; I often find it quicker to find research material on twitter than on google. Simply type in the search bar your topic and you'll find either people involved in the field of study, hashtags or tweets associated. From there I find what's relevant and take it from there; sometimes it might be taking the name of a university lecturer from the field and then googling them to find their work or even just simply opening a link from a tweet. Also you can easily ask others for pointers on where to find relevant research and information.
Sometimes when we are stuck in a classroom/office for the majority of the day, it's hard to feel like we are a community of professionals with a voice. Use twitter to stand up for what you believe in. The more noise we make as a collective, the further the message spreads. I personally do a lot on teacher wellbeing, workload and mental health as a result of my own experiences, I know others stand up for LGBT rights, minorities and women in education.
t - tweachers
Once you start tweeting about education and teaching, you officially become part of the community of 'Tweachers', I'm afraid there's no fanfare or certificates but you can take pride in the knowledge that you have joined the ranks of teachers that tweet.
u - Universities
Follow universities on twitter for education and subject specific academic research, articles and links. They are a great source of information to develop you pedagogical and subject knowledge.
I know of a number of educators, teachers and school leaders that have organised school visits via twitter. Twitter is useful for connecting to teachers and schools; seeing the good practice out there and creating connections. Make the most of it by creating networks and communities with schools in your area or further afield.
w - wellbeing
Twitter has been my biggest support for managing my own wellbeing. I got involved with #Teacher5aday back in December 2015; it has given me a support network as well as incredible friendships. It's important to look after your wellbeing (that includes not spending hours on Twitter looking for teaching ideas), allow your twitter friendships to support you to make sure you switch off from work.
x - I've got nothing for x. Sorry!
y - year-round CPD
Twitter for CPD is year-round, really you can't get away from it so try to be 'strict' with it, otherwise you can constantly be thinking about work. Disconnect from twitter now and then or at least disconnect from the education based conversations, remember you are a human first, a teacher second. But whilst we are on the note of year-round CPD, check out this list of CPD events through out the year from Pete Sanderson - Edu-Conference National Calendar.
z -ZZZZs....
Too many teachers are burning out. You must look after yourself. Beg, borrow and share resources on twitter; by doing so you reduce your workload and the workload of others ( here's an article I contributed towards on the topic). Avoid burnout by asking for help, ideas and resources; share what you can and make sure you get plenty of ZZZZs (so avoid twitter before bed, it's too easy to get caught up in something).

What would you add to encourage other teachers to use twitter for CPD?
Your thoughts are welcomed.

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Mrs Humanities shares... A-Z of Twitter for Teacher CPD

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I'm not entirely sure what spurred this post to be written; usually I have them whirling around in my head for a few days but this morning I woke up early, turned the computer on and out it came. So here's my A-Z (with the exception of x) of Twitter for teacher CPD, part encouragement...

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Principles of instruction: Research based strategies that all teachers should know 

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Principles of instruction: Research based strategies that all teachers should know 

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Thought we should check out if there were any we didn't know about.

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Exploring Children's Literature Reading with pleasure and purpost

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Exploring Children's Literature Reading with pleasure and purpost

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This was published in 2013 and I've just heard that there is a new edition on its way. We should wait for the new edition but thought I would add it here so I don't forget.

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Capturing those golden nuggets of information 

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Capturing those golden nuggets of information 

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Article on content curation

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Where do I save stuff?

I always used to save items of interest that I happened upon online as favourites. However despite creating folders, in using this system I found retrieving something became harder and harder and I was not always able to find what I was looking for. Add the fact that I tend to use commuting time to and from work to access information via my phone, I was initially sending items by email, to then have to add them as favourites once I got back to my desk top. A further issue was that those favourites were only accessible if I was at that PC. I had another collection on my laptop!

My solution to this issue came about as I began to read about 'digital curating'. This is a way of being able to select, organise and present online content. This curated content can then also be shared with others. Equally you can benefit by looking at content curated by others. Typically content is organised by themes or topics.

Some simple ways to curate information on social media include:

Liking posts on Twitter: Click or tap the heart under the tweet and it will turn red, confirming that you've liked the Tweet. You can revisit these by going to your home page and clicking on Likes.

Creating lists on Twitter: A list is a curated group of Twitter accounts. You can create your own lists or subscribe to lists created by others. Viewing a list timeline will show you a stream of Tweets from only the accounts on that list. To create a list click on your profile icon to show the drop down menu, and then on Lists.

Saving items on Facebook: When you save things on Facebook, they'll appear in your Saved Items that only you can see.
To view the things you've saved: Go to Facebook.com/saved or click Saved in the left menu of your homepage after you've saved something. Click a saved category at the top or click a saved item to view it.
To save an item see the image below for the different icons to look out for.

However there are a growing range of curation tools that can be used to curate information in other spaces. I have captured a selection of tools on my Curation page, and below share some of my most used curation tools.

Scoop.it: http://www.scoop.it
Scoop.it allows you to create boards of curated content based on topics you choose, share your thoughts on that content within a text box, and connect with others who have similar interests by following others' topics.

Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com
Pinterest is described as a visual bookmarking tool that helps you discover and save creative ideas. In truth you can bookmark anything that has an image on the page. It is also considered a social network that allows users to visually share, and discover new interests by posting (known as 'pinning' on Pinterest) images or videos to their own or others' boards (i.e. a collection of 'pins,' usually with a common theme) and browsing what other users have pinned.

Diigo: https://www.diigo.com
Diigo is a social bookmarking tool and has the ability to create cloud based bookmarks that can have tags applied to them. Additional tools allow users to add notes and highlight. Collections can be private or shared publicly.

Where do I find stuff?

As many others do, the Internet is a great source of information, but it can also be quite overwhelming for many. Over time I have developed a network of professional connections in various social media spaces. These include LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter and Facebook. These trusted connections share useful stuff in the form of short updates which may also include links to articles, books, websites, videos, podcasts, visual representations in the form of sketches, photos, diagrams, mind maps and more. They act as a filter in a sense as we have shared interests. Of course within my wider array of connections there is still information I need to sift through. Key to successful curation is collecting the right stuff. Don't fall into the trap of curating everything with the thought you will go back and tidy this up! Organise the information you curate into meaningful topics. Many of the curation tools allow you to have multiple boards or the means to organise topics in folders.

A curation check list

Marc Rosenburg wrote an excellent post on curating titled From Content Creation to Content Curation: The Importance of Curation which highlights some of the challenges curation can bring. He starts by asking these questions: " So assuming people can find the content, the question is, was the search beneficial? Is the content worthwhile?

Here are 10 problems Marc suggests you should rule out as you curate your content:

1. The content is wrong; it never should have been posted in the first place, or it became incorrect and should have been updated or removed.

2. The content is inauthentic; it's correct, but not relevant to the users or the work they do.

3. The content creator is not reputable; the credentials or expertise of the individual(s) who created the content are called into question.

4. The content is incomplete; much is missing, and the content is fairly useless without additional information.

5. There is too much content; information overload creates user confusion and mental exhaustion, making it difficult to find what's really useful.

6. The content is biased; it reflects the author or creator's viewpoint in a way that is inappropriate for the designated use.

7. The content is of low priority or value; the overall usefulness of the content is questionable.

8. The content is painful to read or learn; the design, formatting, writing style, etc., of the content is not matched to the users or their needs.

9. The content conflicts with other content; it is hard to know what is correct and what is incorrect.

10. The content is due to expire; if the content is outdated or due to be replaced, it may not be prudent to maintain or revise the current version (we'll discuss this more in part three of this series).

What we curate is a personal choice and can relate to our personal interests, professional development, useful resources for our students - and equally can be learning tasks we ask them to complete. Curation is a useful skill to develop. Where you curate your information again is also a personal choice. I'd love to hear about your favourite curation tools.

About Sue Beckingham

A National Teaching Fellow, Educational Developer and Principal Lecturer in Computing with a research interest in the use of social media in higher education.

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Capturing those golden nuggets of information: the art of digital curation

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Where do I save stuff? I always used to save items of interest that I happened upon online as favourites. However despite creating folders, in using this system I found retrieving something became harder and harder and I was not always able to find what I was looking for.

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New way to bring twitter stories together.

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For many social media curators the impending end of free and open Storify, used extensively to create stories in the form of collections of tweets and other social media clips, was a huge blow. These stories saved and shared as one URL have provided numerous educators and their students and opportunity to save information collected in one space. I've previously blogged about ' Making and telling a good story with Storify '.

However Storify is moving to a pay only option aimed at corporates with a BIG budget.... Exit educators and students who have no budget.

This post aims to both introduce the brilliant curation tool Wakelet and provide a basic guide to getting started. An added bonus is that Wakelet has created a function that allows you to import existing stories created in Storify.

Wakelet's ethos
The web is filled with disconnected pieces of information and it's growing all the time. Even the most specific terms bring up thousands or even millions of results that include articles, videos, blogs, tweets, Facebook posts, documents and websites. In real time social media streams, perfectly good content gets buried in no time at all. We encounter this daily, in both our personal and professional lives, and we wanted to do something about it - augmenting, not replacing search engines and social sites to add context.
In short this application enables users to curate a variety of content to form collections or stories, with the added bonus of adding text to provide further context.

Getting started

Give your collection a title and then add a description. Click save.

Choose the layout you wish to display:

Media View - links are shown natively e.g. videos can be played in page

Compact View - links are shown as tiles and description only

Grid View - items are shown next to each other in a grid

From here you can choose to add links to tweets. Choose to:

Add from Twitter (import tweets in bulk - see section below for more detail)

Add an image

Add from saved items

Write something

Click on the icon and simply add your chosen content.

To reorder tweets you simply toggle on and off the 'easy reorder mode' button and drag the content into the order you desire.

Remember to save your collection as you go along. You can return to the story and edit.

Finally make sure you make your post public and publish. (The post visibility is set to private as default).

Then share the URL with your network.

Importing tweets using a shared hashtag

Create a new Wakelet and give it a title. Then save.

Go to the green 'Edit collection/story' button (bottom right).

Click the Twitter Import button that appears to search for Tweets to add to your collection.

Add your chosen hashtag and then select all 50 tweets. Drag the cursor down. You can then choose to select all 100 tweets (and repeat until you capture all required).

You have the option of then checking the box 'add in reverse order' to display the oldest tweets first.

Save as you go along.

Add extra detail to expand your story using text, images and links.

Edit options include reordering, adding extra information and deleting unwanted elements.

Finally make sure you make your post public and publish. (The post visibility is set to private as default).

Then share the URL with your network.

Importing stories from Storify

Wakelet has developed a simple to use process to import published stories already created in Storify (which will end access on May 18 and delete all collections).

From the home page you need to click on the 'import from storify' box.

You will then be prompted to enter your Storify username.

Choose to select the stories you'd like to import and click 'Begin Import' or select 'Import All'. You will then see this message.

Look out for an email confirming the import is complete! Job done - AMAZING!

E xamples of wakes

Below are a couple of examples of Wakelet accounts - my own personal account and the LTHEchat (Learning and Teaching in Higher Education chat).

Further Wakelet support

Follow @WakeletSupport

Check out the help videos https://www.youtube.com/user/wakelet/videos

Click the Help button and send your question

Go to the Explore tab and get inspiration from other 'wakes'

About Sue Beckingham

A National Teaching Fellow, Educational Developer and Principal Lecturer in Computing with a research interest in the use of social media in higher education.

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The new way to curate social media posts and create stories using @wakelet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For many social media curators the impending end of free and open Storify, used extensively to create stories in the form of collections of tweets and other social media clips, was a huge blow. These stories saved and shared as one URL have provided numerous educators and their students and opportunity to save information collected...