Staying Current

Is it just me, or does anyone else think that technology is moving at the speed of light? I am asked constantly by teachers that I serve, how in the world do you know all this stuff? First of all, I will be the first to say that I do not know it all, but I surround myself with people who do and I harvest the wealth of info available because of our connected world.

Just like many of our students, when I am faced with questions or am curious about something, the first thing I do is Google it. What ever did we do before Google? (I know we searched the card catalog at the library and/or referred to tomes of encyclopedias.) If I want a visual tutorial, I turn to YouTube. Hey, from YouTube, I learned that I had been peeling a banana incorrectly all these years. Who knew?

But seriously, I curate content from the web all the time. So today, I want to share a couple of my favorite ways to learn new things and then keep them in a place to refer to later.

First, if you have a tablet you need to take a serious look at the Flipboard app. I love Flipboard and it literally changed by feelings about Twitter. But wait, I am getting ahead of myself here. First, Twitter is an amazing tool for keeping up with the latest in education including educational technology. I use Twitter professionally and follow the "movers and shakers" in education. I also follow hashtags. Hashtags (noted by the # symbol) are used to categorize tweets by keywords or topics. You can also search Twitter feeds by the hashtags. Cybrary Man has created a large list of educational hashtags to get you started. So how does this all tie into Flipboard?

Flipboard allows you to link your Twitter account as well as pull in news and information in a variety of ways, including by the use of hashtags. Below in the screen shot of my Flipboard, you can see some of the hashtags I follow as well as my Twitter section as well. I simply use my tablet to navigate Flipboard which looks and acts like a virtual magazine. When I see a tweet or article that I want to know more about, I click on it and read. Pretty cool. Now, Flipboard allows me to create my own "magazine" of saved items by clicking the + symbol allowing me to save and read later.

I cannot write an blog post on curating content and not include my other favorite...Pinterest. I am sure that you have at least heard of Pinterest, but in case you haven't, it is a virtual pin board allowing you to pin images as links to material you have found on the web. It is a social network in the aspect that you can follow others and they can follow you allowing you to view each other pins. You can even work collaboratively and pin to each other boards. Since I am very visual, I love Pinterest. Educators world wide have flocked to Pinterest and are providing lots of educational content and ideas. I categorized my boards by topic such as iPads, BYOD, Web 2.0 tools, digital storytelling, and more. I blend professional pins and personal pins that are related to my hobbies all in one place.

Of course there are social bookmarking sites such as Diigo and Pearltrees that I used as well, but I will save those for another post on another day.

In today's changing fast paced world, it is important for educators to stay current. So how do you stay current and keep up with the content? Post your thoughts.