Digital Curation in Education

Robin Good: If curation is all about finding and sharing great content, what's the difference with what so many bloggers have been doing until now?

The difference, according to Deanna Dahlsad at Kitsch-Slapped, is in the focus. While bloggers often cover just about anything that intercepts their online wanderings, curators are characterized by a strong focus on a specific topic.  

 

Here is a key passage from her article: "Many bloggers spend their time selecting what they consider the best of what other people have created on the web and post it at their own sites, just like a magazine or newspaper.

 

Or they provide a mix of this along with writing or otherwise creating their own content. Not to split hairs, but curation involves less creation and more searching and sifting; curation’s more a matter of focused filtering than it is writing.

Because content curation is expected to be based on such focused filtering, it begins far more based on topic selection.

 

This is much different from blogging, where bloggers are often advised to “just begin” and let their voice and interests accumulate over time to eventually reveal a primary theme.

 

...

 

Some collectors just collect what they like as they stumble into it. …Sometimes, collectors just keep piling up stuff, no matter what it is. Even if this isn’t hoarding, it’s not-so-much of a purposeful pursuit.

 

But professional curators, those who manage collections for museums or other organizations, and serious collectors, they maintain a specific focus.

 

And rather than stumbling into items, they continually seek for specific items.

 

The definition dictates the curation — and everything from funding to their continued employment is based on how well their collection meets the collection’s definition.

 

While blogging success may be thought of in many different ways, the success of content curation lies in how well you define, search/research, and stick to your subject."

 

Rightful. 8/10

 

Full article: http://www.kitsch-slapped.com/2012/06/facts-questions-on-blogging-curating-collecting/ ;

Via Robin Good