Content Curation

Introduction into Content Curation

What is Content Curation?

Content curation is the ��process of sorting through the vast amounts of content on the web and presenting it in a meaningful and organized way around a specific theme.  The work  involves  sifting, sorting, arranging, and publishing information.  A content curator picks the best content that is important and relevant to share with their community (in the case our class community). It isn�t unlike what a museum curator does to produce an exhibition:   They identify the theme, they provide the context, they decide which paintings to hang on the wall, how they should be annotated, and how they should be displayed for the public.�

Content curation is not about collecting links or being an information pack rat, it is more about �� putting them into a context with organization, annotation, and presentation. Content curators provide a customized selection of the best and most relevant  resources on a very specific topic or theme� (in this case ours will be on Digital Citizenship, ICT, and Educational Technology). A content curator ��continually seeks,  makes sense of,  and shares the best and most relevant content on a particular topic online.�

Why is Content Curation Valuable?

People and organizations are now making and sharing media and content all over the social web.   For example, on Facebook the average user creates 90 pieces of content each month.  If you �� multiply that by the 800 million Facebook users,  it isn�t surprising that  data or content on the Internet is  measured in billions of gigabytes.� Essentially, we are living an era of content overload!!! A content curator offers high value to anyone looking for quality content because finding that information (and making sense of it) requires more and more time, attention, and focus.

For organizations, content curation can help establish the organization�s thought leadership and capture attention in today�s information cluttered world.    Content curation can help �� individuals & organization become the go-to authority on an issue or topic area.�   It can be done as simply as writing a blog post (this is excatly what we will be doing with our edublogs) with links or sharing annotated links on Twitter around your topic.