All Over Curation

Hang on to your tool belt. Here is my newly modeled curated topic. It is still a work in progress but it's a good foundation. 

Here's How I Hammered Out the Details

As an artist and writer who likes to create her own content, I was skeptical about curation. Rss feeds make me feel bombarded. There is the daily onslaught of my merged email inbox. The alarming rate of these notifications can not keep me from trying curation. Afterall, I love to explore magazines and museums so curation will be my online collection of content I put my own unique spin on. Creating content is not always necessary but adding your own insight is.

Here's a video on curation vs. creating content and when to do what.

Ok Content is King but should I create or curate? #iSocialTalks

Choosing My Toolbox

Well, curation is my new crack. (Please don't get the wrong idea. Crack was never my crack. Pinterest is. It is my Art Class Resource Go To. Long may it reign because I have over 25,000 pins to get to) Starting out, the list of curation tools is long and impressive but I know what I want and the list is narrowed down. I want one easy to use with a bookmarklet feature. I want to be able to move things around easily. I want to change my criteria or key words without setting up a new curated topic. I want separate pages for topics. I am not interested in an app only. I want visually appealing magazine pages. I want to choose my picture and words. I want a curation tool that works with my blog, Google+, and wait for it...Pinterest! I want it to look professional. I want I want I want...

They Nail It!

Scoop.it for now. Ah Pearltrees my lost mission was so visually appealing. I wanted to love it. It looks like Pinterest but navigating it feels like a maze. I have an account but I still feel lost.

Voila! Scoop.it Intro Video and It just works. Well It Just works for me anyway. "I just want it to work" is what I say about tools all the time. Yea!

Here's a great article on what Scoop.it is and isn't. It was easy to follow and so is Scoop.it.

The Scoop.It Guide that Helped Me Decide

At work with Scoop.it, I have to balance the page. That puts the "cra" in crazy because the page just keeps expanding. I have learned how to stop. I have balanced my resources with teachers, practitioners, and experts. What I need to add is my own content. I am looking forward to doing this because there are many awesome teachers, artists and designers unleashing their creativity on their young students. Unleashing your creativity:Try this at home and at work. Businesses (Microsoft), universities (University of San Francisco), and professionals (Michael Maloney, Global Account Director, Ogilvy) use Scoop.it. With 20 million web pages a day, it's quite a presence.

Holding it Together

When I ask about curation in my work area, I get blank stares and some mumbles about having "enough to do." Here are some other Scoopers I found interesting just choosing personal topics of interest to me and my star student, my four year old son. I like the techniques of eye-catching photos, great layouts and bios, unusual titles, and comments with the curator's personality showing through. I will challenge myself to follow leads on great curators and topics so I can make connections.

Here's a Brit that comes highly recommended. Her one curated topic: Bennedict Cumberbatch News. If you don't no who he is, shame on you and check her out. She has nuggets on Downton Abbey, too.

http://www.scoop.it/u/tina-poulson

This George Brown College professor has topics of Innovations in E-Learning and A Cultural History of Advertising I find fascinating.

http://www.scoop.it/u/k3hamilton

Ironically found this one when I was looking for Scooby Doo. They had high praise for the Great Dane and gang. The Digital Rocking Chair, Transmedia: Storytelling for the Digital Age has some interesting scoops about creative and technical aspects of the genre. I love the image of a digital rocking chair, the best of tradition and innovation together.

http://www.scoop.it/u/the-digital-rocking-chair 

Now to Work, Learn, Grow, and Create Some More

Well enough about my progress and plans, what are you using curation for? Recommendations for topics or people to follow? What is your tool of choice? Is it visually appealing? Have you gotten any hits? How's it working out? It's early days for me so don't poke my bubble.

Resources:

Fanzo, B. (August, 25, 2014). Ok Content is King but should I create or curate? #iSocialTalks. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I1HnMslXf3Q.

Scoop It. (October 2 , 2013). Scoop It. It Just Works! Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p3wMwNxgcTU#t=15.

Search Engine Journal. (January 20th, 2012). Scoop This: A Comprehensive Guide Scoop.it for Content Curation by Gabriella Sannino. Retrieved from http://www.searchenginejournal.com/scoop-this-a-comprehensive-guide-to-scoop-it-for-content-curation/38963/.

Under renovation: Any advice to quickly organizing my Pinterest page is most welcome. http://www.pinterest.com/york

Trends, Tools, and Tactfulness in 21st Century Education

A friend recently asked me, “How much time do you spend on plans to get these students (600 students) engaged in learning?” I thought my mind would snap right there from the pressure as we were filming. The real answer went through my head then I scrambled to think of an appropriate response. The real answer is every waking moment. I spend lots of time planning, creating and prepping fabulous art projects then I have to write the lesson plan with every standard and strategy known to the human race. I am creative and smart. I am not organized or polished. This plan is trapped on my desk under physical heaps of inspiration and ideas. If you saw my intro to me video, you are horror movie frightened of responding to my blog posts and feeling pretty good about yourself right now. U R Welcome!  So how does it feel to be creative, smart, organized, polished and good looking? Yes, you!

My name is Valerie York. The best miracle of my life is my son, Jack. One of my dreams was to be Jack’s art teacher and he is now one of my Prek art students. I teach Art Prek-2^nd grade at Appomattox Primary School in Appomattox, VA. I grew up in Chester, VA and went to Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU) graduating with a BFA in Fashion Design. I went to NYC and worked for Tommy Hilfiger in design. I have moved over 30 times in my life. The last time was from across the street 10 years ago when I bought our house. We have our hounds, Skylar, 15 and Ted, 7. My sister lives in San Diego with her family. My folks live 2 hours away and come to every one of Jack’s soccer games. I am a romantic and idealist so of course I am single. I watch Downton Abbey, read contemporary romance novels, and watch all things Gerard Butler. If I am lucky I take a breath, sleep, eat healthy, and exercise.

I find most of my ideas on Pinterest and resources through my EDIM graduate courses at Wilkes University. My classmates and instructors have awesome ideas and resources to share. I post student work on Artsonia, the largest online student art museum. It is our online portfolio. I have created resources through Wilkes like Weeblys, Google Docs, Glogs, and digital stories I use in class for primarily units on shapes and colors and the art class rules and using art materials. I have been encouraged, inspired, and grateful for the help and support I have been given by my Wilkes classmates and instructors when I have reached out to them. I can usually figure out how to gear a resource in an artistic way for young children. Wilkes people, the educationally elite, recognize and appreciate the skills and expertise it takes to learn with young children in creative media and environments. I am around children 24-7 so it is nice to have adults I can connect with professionally and creatively.

The Goods

http://www.artsonia.com/schools/school.asp?id=12426

http://www.pinterest.com/yorkv/

http://vvyork.weebly.com/  This one is on primary colors and has a link to my Glog. I used this with Prek.

Here’s a Shapes and Lines Mobile Lesson  https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1JJ6FVGXnSy2Y2hTyGuZQeweQ4PGhrbbzf3Dot0jZDrE/edit#slide=id.g1ce2ed53c_0153

My challenges to incorporate new ideas and resources are time, access to technology and collaboration and my struggle with organization. I see my students weekly for either 30 or 45 minutes. Many children get pulled from my classes every week for remediation. I am on lots of committees including Project Based Learning where I feel pressure to create spectacles to be seen with hours of time and money I don’t have. I am working on breaking things down to performance tasks but even that is difficult because young children have so much to learn and explore before assessments. I want learning to be fun and for the students to have the joy I have when I create art. Art is a stress reliever, therapy, play, and innovation.  Most of my time is used prepping for Art Classes and photographing and uploading student work for Artsonia.  I want to centralize and organize my resources in a phenomenal online presentation. I want to create my own online portfolio to show the value of my work, my creations, my ideas, and my accomplishments. I want to collaborative with creative, smart, organized, polished, good looking, and athletic people. See that, I just raised the bar, expectations and have left out the objective- Make Art Fun! No pressure, you’ve got this. I am giving you the wink, the smile, and the gotcha finger shake. I expect answers in the comment section from the Wilkes educationally elite. Question #2 How do you sanely organize your online resources and put on the polish? Question #3 Are you appreciated for your efforts and asked to do more?   Now you can answer Question #1 So how does it feel to be creative, smart, organized, polished and good looking? Yes, you! ( Athletic, too? My Goodness!) You are a rock star. Thank you for helping the less fortunate.

Valerie York This is Me