Choosing a Collection Assistant

 

My students (pre-service teachers) and I are using social media and our PLNs (personal learning networks) in our professional development. We are examining the create-communicate-curate cycle of working with content. An implied step in that cycle is collection.

Today I am looking at the collection step. I already use Twitter and blogs (and Feedly) to help me collect ideas, data, and information. I am checking out Scoop.it! as an assistant for collecting and for sharing.

Scoop.it! has several features that I find helpful:

• It collects content related to my topic that I can easily keep or not. 
• It allows me to add content I have found on the web. A Scoop.it! bookmarklet for my browser makes it easy to add that content. 
• Comments can be added to each article. Multiple paragraphs can be used in the comments, but the text cannot be formatted.
• I can star one of the articles in the newsletter. 
• I can adjust the location of articles in the newsletter. 
• Individual scoops can be shared with Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, App.net, Viadeo, Tumblr, Buffer, Yammer. 
• The whole collection can also be shared on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, WordPress, Tumblr, App.net, Buffer, Yammer, and Viadeo.
• I can provide the RSS feed so others can subscribe to the collection (http://www.scoop.it/t/mobile-learning-by-schiffbauer/rss.xml). 
• I can provide a link to the collection (http://www.scoop.it/t/mobile-learning-by-schiffbauer). And best yet... I can embed the collection in my blog.

I evaluated the free version of Scoop.it! Paid versions are also available, including one designed for education. I can scoop up to five topics. I could scoop more with a paid version.

I see good uses for Scoop.it! It helps me collect. It facilitates sharing newly-available content after my students have already begun working on a concept I have prepared. It helps me to share information with others.