Content Curation

Effective course activities should be designed so that the course shifts from passive content to active engaged learning from the student (Gannon, 2020; Crosslin et al, 2019). Having learners create content and activities increases engagement and aids metacognition through reflective learning as learners report on what/how they learned and develop their integration skills (Crosslin et al., 2019).

YouTube is a great and accessible tool to upload and house videos. Learners can have a "channel" in which they display their original videos and can also easily share them via URLs. Most students posses the skill to search and use YouTube, therefore a content curation assignment will help them focus on the content more than the technology. Students select a specific topic or content area related to the course and go on a mission to curate the best videos out there. The end result is a curated YouTube video of the best videos on the topic that showcases their skills at summarizing and prioritizing relevant information. YouTube uses the Triple E and TPACK technology integration framework as it introduces students to editing technology.

:Padlet is a bulletin board tool that's highly visual and organized; it allows users to save images, links, etc., and easily share their collection. It can serve as an individual as well as class board for articles/posts that relate to the learning material. As mentioned in the Engagement page, students will participate in online video discussions where they present an article to their peers. In :Padlet they will curate three articles weekly that cover class topics and one of these will be the one they use for their FlipGrids. Monitoring their shared :Padlets will yield self directed learning assessments - in particular do students know the sources to go to keep updated in their field as well how they apply and relate the class learning with real life examples. With :Padlet we integrate the Augmentation stage of the SAMR technology framework.

Powtoon allows learners to create videos with cartoonish elements. They provide templates across disciplines and topics so the learners have a starting point. It can be used to curate a topic, create a short topic video, or micro-content lectures. I have never used this before but I am very excited to try it out. Students will be provided a topic from the course (ie a how-to or definition) and they will develop a 3 minute video for it from materials they curated from the internet (web expedition). They will also supply a reference list of their curated materials. Similar to :Padlet, this activity will assess their level of self directed learning by teaching them how to find updated information, integrate it, and critically summarize (3 minutes) encouraging the learner to use higher order thinking. PowToon uses the TPACK technology integration framework as it enhances their tech skills at the same time they develop content knowledge.