Wednesday, September 19, 2012

(18) Friday flicks: Crowdsourcing healthcare and global change


We have been exploring the skill of socially curating your interests on the web, sharing your collection, and benefitting from the curation of others. This is a very different model to that of working and searching on our own.

The dramatic increase in collaboration potentiated by the Internet, mobile technologies and social media is also underway with innovations in crowdsourcing health, news and social and political change. This rapid, large scale participation, story-telling and data gathering is revealing trends that were hidden and forming connected communities of those who were dispersed.

Jamie Drummond: Let's crowdsource the world's goals

Jamie Drummond co-founded the advocacy organization ONE, whose aims are ending extreme poverty and fighting the AIDS pandemic. In this talk Jamie discusses crowdsourcing innovations such as Ushahidi, and proposes crowdsourcing the next generation of Millennium Development Goals.




Jamie Heywood: The big idea my brother inspired.

Jamie Heywood is an MIT-trained mechanical engineer. In this talk Jamie describes how his brother's illness inspired him to set up the crowdsourced healthcare site Patients Like Me where people share and track data on their illness.


Tuesday, September 18, 2012

(17) Week 7: Content Curation (advanced)

Curator+ - Advanced Content Curation!


Last week we covered part 1 of the digital skill of Content Curation - collecting and organising interesting material from the internet into topics or lists of interest. It is recommended you complete the Week 6 module before going on to do this Week 7 module. You need to become a Curator before you can become a Curator+ of course :)

Curation is one of the key skills of Digital Literacy - one of the new Deakin graduate learning outcomes.
We are learning this skill so we can use it for our own professional development, and to consider how it may be useful to students in their learning or research. The Post graduate Nutrition team is meeting on October 16 to develop and embed Digital Literacies into the curriculum.


These curated resources are just like your favourites or bookmarks, but they are 'in the cloud' so are with you on whatever computer or device you are using, are public, and can be shared and sometimes co-curated.  They can also be organised and arranged into hierarchies or topics. Some curation tools such as Pearltrees allow a visual representation of the structure of knowledge of  that topic which may be useful for many students (and staff too!).

Scoop.it part 2


Last week you set up your Scoop.it account and created a Topic. The next step is to integrate Scoop.it  into your everyday internet use.

Any time you come across a useful website or article, or someone sends you something, or you see an interesting resource in your Twitter stream, you can Scoop.it. (You will notice I have added some articles into the SENSES Scoop.it in the last few days.)

Step 1:  Add, move and delete Scoops.
Add: Browse other Scoop.it Topics such as this one, and Rescoop a few resources to your Topic. Make sure you thank the person who has done all that curation work for you with the thumbs up button at the bottom right!
Move: Mouse over a Scoop and click on the Move button to move it to another location on your page.
Delete: Mouse over a Scoop and click on the Delete button.

Step 2: Curate the web
Browse your usual websites and add two or three resources to your Topic using the Scoop.it bookmarklet on your browser. (See Week 6 for instructions on installing the bookmarklets.)

Step 3: Tweet or email a Scoop on your Topic
Mouse over a Scoop and click on the Share button then on the Twitter icon.
Tweet a resource you find with a comment about it, and mention me in the Tweet so I see it! A "mention" means that you include @susie_mac in the Tweet.

**For those not yet on Twitter, you can instead email me the URL (weblink) to one of your Scoops.

Step 4: Choose a top story to pin
As you Scoop more resources, the previously scooped stories move down the page. If you want one story to stay at the top of your Topic page, you can pin it there.
To pin a story: mouse over the Scoop you wish to pin and click the Star icon on that Scoop.

Advanced challenge: Recommend a resource for me to curate in the SENSES Topic.

Pearltrees: a social library

Pearltrees is a social and visual bookmarking tool - a curation tool in the cloud. Pearltrees allows you to collect and organise your collection of websites. This collection is public. You can also invite others to co-curate the collection with you. This video is a good explanation, particularly the first 7 minutes.





So using Pearltrees instead of your favourites bar on your browser is like having your favourites wherever you are, and sharing your list publicly.


Pearltrees differs from Scoop.it in three ways
(1)  Terms: A topic is a Pearltree, and a Scoop/ link /resource is a pearl.
(2)  You can co-curate your Pearltree with others
(3)  Pearltrees displays the links as a concept map so you can arrange the topics and subtopics hierarchically.

You can pearl weblinks and images, and you can add comments to each of your Pearls. Others can pick your Pearls too, which creates a link from their Pearltree to yours.

Step 1:  Explore some Pearltrees

(a) Explore the Pearltree that Luana Main has developed  - thanks Luana! 




See also that Luana has set up a topic for her Personal Learning Network (PLN) that maps the people she learns with. Fantastic idea.


(b) See two examples of co-curation:
- a subtopic on Digital Literacy in my Pearltree that several of us are co-curating (the blue jigsaw puzzle icon indicates a team is curating it)
- the TED talks Pearltree that is being co-curated by lots of us! 

(c) Search a term of interest to you in the top Search bar. 
Click around and have a look through people's collections. Notice how they have organised them, and whether they are curating as a team or not. If you move around the screen, you will see more and more Pearltrees topics appear. 
E.g this one on social media.



Step 2:  Setup Pearltrees
Register for Pearltrees 
Install the Pearltrees bookmarklet to your browsers as directed. If you need a hand, contact me.

Step 3:  Create a Pearltree
Think of a topic you would like to collect resources on (for example, grammar and not ending a sentence with a preposition!).
Or you may have existing resources in your browser bookmarks or favourites bar you would like to organise by going to them, then pearling them.
Or you may wish to share  or co-curate a set of resources with others in your team, research group, unit or course team.

(1) browse to a resource or webpage or favourite
(2) click the Pearltrees bookmarklet to add it to your new Pearltree topic

Step 4:  Get to know Pearltrees
As you did with Scoop.it, click on everything and systematically test every button! But what does "systematically" mean, I hear you ask? Well, here is a framework that may make it easier to learn new software and tools.

When I am learning to use a new program, I look for the following functions:
1. Register for an account
2. Use the program
- Create a new thing
- Edit the thing
- Save, Export and Share the thing
3. Edit profile and settings

p.s Don't forget to go to your account settings (the usual cog symbol in the top right) and change your email notifications to suit you. 

Step 5:  Team up!
Invite a colleague to form a team with you to co-curate a Pearltree on a topic of interest to you both. It could be to do with your work role, unit topic, research area, etc.
Mouse over a topic you want to team up on, and click the Team up blue jigsaw piece button.




Enter your colleague's email address. They will then receive a Notification in their Pearltrees acount. When they accept, they will be able to add pearls into the pearltree you set up, so you can co-curate together.

 
Step 6: Application to teaching or research
Consider how the skill of content curation may be useful to students in their learning or research. How might we assist students to develop this skill so that they can harness tools such as Scoop.it and Pearltrees to locate, manage, organise, share and curate useful resources to support their learning?

Post a comment below with some ideas, and discuss with your course team.


Advanced challenge:  Go mobile
Install the Pearltrees app on your iPhone or iPad so you can add resources wherever you are. (The Android version is coming soon).
You will need to install the Pearltrees bookmarklet which requires a couple of steps. Let me know if you need a hand.


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 Great effort, you are now a Curator+  :)